More Progress on the Deck
More Progress on the Deck
We had a crazy busy weekend (last weekend...how is it already Thursday?). Be warned, I'm about to show you a bunch of pictures!
First thing, I realized I hadn't showed you all our chickens in a really long time. More specifically, the newest additions to the flock. So here's some glamour shots.
Red is my favorite. She has a gorgeous smattering of red feathers on top of her back with an iridescent blue tail. Her sister Blue (on the left) has more subtle blue feathers on her back and tail.
The bantams are also really pretty, though they are really tiny! One of the original hens decided to adopt them as her own children. She wanders around with them all day, sleeps with them at night, and will even protect them from the cats wanting to chase them...I mean play with them.
Friday night I decided to surprise Sam with homemade ravioli for dinner. I'm finally up for making dinners again, yay! Here's how the dough looks all rolled out.
Then you plop a small spoonful of filling on one side. I made a spinach, cheese, mushroom mixture.
Then fold the dough over, cut out the raviolis with a cute dough cutter (thanks, Grace!), and ta da! Beautiful, homemade ravioli.
You only have to boil them for 3-4 minutes to cook them. I made a really simple sauce to go over them. Basically an alfredo, but I was too lazy to make it with cream cheese, so it's a roux base. Sam loved it! I took one bite and almost threw up. (Thank you, pregnancy.) It was really tasty, though!
Saturday and Sunday Sam and I worked hard on the deck. First, Sam used a special cleaner to clean the deck boards off. The cleaner is supposed to help get some of the gray off and get rid of the mold that had accumulated. That stuff was strong!
The deck looked great when he finished!
Then, I tested out the stain on some boards. We experimented with wiping the stain off at different times--10 minutes, 15 minutes, and never. There was no visible difference between 15 and never, so we opted for the never since it would allow us to stain the entire deck at once rather than having to do it by sections.
We started with the handrails first. It was going to be easier to stain them before we installed the balusters rather than after. While Sam was washing the deck, we set these babies out to dry. We made the mistake of not covering the wood, so it's been sitting in our back yard for a couple months (Sam says I exaggerate. It was about a week and a half) getting rained on. The middle boards were still a little damp.
They were dry by the time Sam got done washing the deck and we finished testing the stain. So Sam applied the stain, and I helped him to move the newly stained boards to a new location to dry. I am seriously in love with the color. It's so beautiful.
As you can see, Lily was a big help.
Staining and cleaning took ALL day, so we started assembling the handrails on Sunday. We optimistically started Sunday morning after church, even though the shade hadn't reached the deck yet. We tried to make do with an umbrella. This is Sam after I told him to look like he was doing something.
We ended up having to give up and go inside to wait a few hours for the shade to arrive. Sam installed some fan switches, and I worked on organizing the craft closet in the baby's room. It's eventually getting moved to the spare bedroom. Maybe this weekend.
When the shade finally arrived, we got to work on the handrails. We cut the boards to the right length, used a Kregg-jig to drill some holes for the screws we would use to attach the rails to the posts, and then started assembling these baluster holders (I don't know the proper words for them).
At one point, we turned around and all the animals were on the deck! All four cats and two dogs. They liked being in the shade, too. P.S. Lily will only give you this cute face when you say "frisbee?"
Not too shabby for a weekend's worth of work.
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