Made a Table

What I've learnt from this blog post is that I am absolutely terrible at documenting things with "before" photos, and that my life would be so much easier if I got better at it. That said, let's dive in for the post for today!

My kids have had this little table that they use all the time. It actually was originally from my childhood and my parents passed it on to me when I was running the Family Day Care in the early years of life with Sophie and Rachel. The original chairs had died, but the table was still solid. A quick trip to Ikea sorted some new chairs and we got on with our little table life. 

This is the best, most recent photo I have of it, early 2021. Solid frame, but the table top bit was just chip board and had started to lift where the chip board was swelling. It did not get better, but we just kept using it. I was convinced however, that if we just replaced the table top, the table could continue to live a long and happy life. 

Enter the day that Rachel's dressing table drawers finally gave up. Rachel's dressing table was also a relic from my childhood, again, sturdy wood construction, but the drawer bases had popped out and the plastic runners they were sliding in on had started to split and fall off. When I took out the drawers to move the whole thing out of the room, what I saw was a whole lot of wooden potential for a table top. 

My original thought was to reuse the drawer fronts, but they were all nicely bevelled, and in the end I wasn't sure the three of them would fit nicely across the table. Also (I'll be honest), I couldn't get the handles off easily. But, there was an excellent surplus of wood in so many other places, that I figured I would just need to take it apart and make it work. 

So that's what I did. Holiday time came around and I started with the table, and then I unscrewed everything I could on the dressing table, and we borrowed a circular saw to do the final dismantling. The two side panels of the dressing table put together, fit perfectly across the table top. 

I sanded back the old table and cleaned it up. Then I put the new top together, with some extra support wood also salvaged from the dressing table. Rachel helped putty all the holes, even the ones no one would see. 

Steve did the final secure of the top to the frame with some brackets underneath, and I added one more extra support under the top just in case. Then I sanded the whole thing back some more and varnished it up. 

This table lives again. It's heavier, but it looks good, and I feel good knowing that two things that were previously destined for the tip have had their lives extended just that little bit more. 

Maybe one day I'll be better at before photos too. 

Living the Dream

There are times where I have claimed, confessed and even admitted to, living vicariously through my daughters. Mostly in the way of costume making, but there are other ways too. The most recent of these has also involved the use of power tools, which made me very excited indeed. Here is where it began. With planning. So much planning.

Lots of drafts and thinking and rethinking. This is where dreams really get their start. Before you put things on paper they are lofty ideas floating around somewhere, but when  you put them on paper, they take that first step out of idea land and begin the process of becoming reality.

I've included this photo in what will probably be quite a long post because just this simple step is so important and I wanted to recognize it, and not forget that I spent lots of time just on this very thing. Drawing and redrawing that one image. Each time getting closer and closer to what would be it's finality. Problem solving, discussing, bouncing ideas, getting feedback. Every moment of this, was worth it to make the end goal that much more tangible.

Needless to say, this planning also made me all the more excited for what it was going to be: A tree house. Something I've wanted for a long time, possibly my whole life. I don't think that it would have even been a possibility though, if it weren't for our neighbors across the road. We didn't have any obvious "tree house" type trees, and we weren't too keen on just building an enormous fort in the middle of nowhere. We love our garden too much for that. But the guys across the road just put a platform in their tree.

Not a huge thick enormous tree, an ordinary two-hands-round-the-branches kind of tree. It didn't have a roof (or handrails for that matter), but the kids were up and down it like crazy. Having the best of times. If that tree could do it, surely I could find a tree that could do it too, I rationalized. And I did.

In the back corner of our yard is a bottle brush tree. We've never give it much thought. In fact, when I went back to look for a before photo of the tree in the garden, I found we were sadly lacking. Even the Garden Makeover from 2016 didn't include a photo of it. There are photos of every other aspect of the back garden bed where the bottle brush tree lives, but not the bottle brush tree. The best photo I could find was this one, from when we finished renovations in 2019.

The photo is really of the deck, but that's the tree in the corner there. So ridiculous that that's the best photo. I should really get better at taking before shots. Oh well. With the bottle brush tree discovered and recognized as a potential tree house tree, we were on our way. The plan was to put in two posts over near the hedge for one side of the tree house platform, and then use the tree to support the other side.

I was not confident digging two post holes and cementing in the stirrups, even if I was keen to do the rest of it, so that was Steve's domain. After the Water Tank Project, Steve deservedly wanted to take a break from yard work until the seasons changed. We were thinking April or May at the earliest. But then it was unexpectedly cool in March, and managed to get them in fairly easily.

I think the unexpected free time thanks to COVID-19 probably helped too, and maybe it was a good way to take our minds off what was happening in the world; focusing on a task that was manageable. Once the posts were in, we were off and racing. The whole thing came together in about three weekends.

The girls were excited and Rachel, more than Sophie, was up and down the tree constantly while we were building. She didn't even use the ladder half the time.

So the posts went in the first weekend, and the second weekend we put the framing and did the decking. So thankful that our neighbors lent us a second drill to help that go loads faster. Is our street the best street in the world? Yes, yes it is. You'll see why when I get to the thank you section at the end.

Decking on, we trimmed the edges and filled the gaps around the tree. We also added some support blocks to sections of the decking that were a little bendy. Then we built a hand rail around it. The front section where the ladder is got a high rail. Mostly that area is blocked off by the tree anyway (you'll see it in a photo further down). The rest of the rail is at a more appropriate child-safe height, and has a middle rail and some uprights for extra safety and stability.

The girls helped me to paint the handrails. Most of the wood we used was hard wood, but the handrails were a lot of pine and off cut branches, so we figured a coat of paint wouldn't hurt. I considered giving the decking a once over with some oil, but haven't made a decision as yet.

This is what you see when you come up the ladder. Tree house! There is a small blackboard that I put up on the back right. On the front left of the picture is a little ledge with a container on a rope for sending things up and down. The ledge wasn't part of the original design, but the timber joists when out that far and I had some off cut flooring that fit between then perfectly, so rather than cut stuff off, we just extended the decking over it.

Ladder making time!

We just nailed bits of timber to this sleeper and propped it up. It's got an extra bit of timber on the underside at the top to hook it onto the tree house platform and keep it steady. Hooray! Functioning tree house!

The last thing we did was to give it a name. There was debate for a week or so over what to call it, and lots of variations on a theme. The first week the tree house was finished (actually before the ladder was made), the girls did a "feed the wildlife" activity (thanks homeschooling COVID-19) where you put peanut butter on toilet paper rolls and then roll them in birdseed. Hang them in the tree and the birds will come.

Well, the birds did come, and so did the possums. And the possums loved the peanut butter and also had a really good go at eating the chalk. The front runner in the name debate for a while was "Possum House", but we were never really all sold on it and then Rachel made a sudden desire to have "Rainbow" in the name known too.

In the end, the ladder is now named "Possum's Way" and the tree house is called "Rainbow Fortress". Yes, I did check the spelling before I painted it.

And the girls got to put their hand prints there too.

I am so excited about the final product. A tree house! HOORAY! We are contemplating roofing options, but for now, the tree is very shady and the weather is prefect.

The other really exciting news is that we managed to build the tree house for about $150. I was hoping to get it done for under $100, but we had to get screws for the decking and nails for the ladder, and those things are kind of necessary. We got the two posts and four joists from a place called the Renovators Barn just down the road. They had loads of great second hand timber for a really reasonable price. I just love that they are contributing to the world reusing stuff too, rather than seeing it go to landfill.

But that was the only timber that we bought for the project. The decking was partially leftovers and off cuts from our own renovation, but a large portion I scavenged from the curbside clean up in early March. Thanks to the people on Tuckett Rd who put out all of those timber benches. I used the top bits for the decking (it was tongue and groove! How perfect!) and the other wood for the ladder rungs. We used two bits that we had lying around too, left over from the Water Tank project. There are random bits of wood from my Dad's stash too (is stash the right word for collection of wood? Hoard maybe?). Stuff that I recognize as part of the old pergola, and a piece that used to be one of the legs to my childhood bed.

A friend of mine on Arid St also gave us some timber that we used, mostly in the handrails. Our friends, Bec and Brad (who we went camping with last year) also gave us the big sleeper that we used as the ladder. Tom from down the road gave us a half a box of screws for securing stuff to the tree. Billy from down the road lent us his drill for the decking. Ben, from over the road who let me look at the platform in the tree numerous times for ideas. Justin from down the road, who gave me the idea of using the stirrups after examining his daughter's tree house at her party. Do you see what I mean about living on the best street in the world?

I got some other handrail wood from the park off Broadwater Road when I took the kids there one time. The bush there is perfect for getting nice branches. Two of the longer branches are actually cut from the bottle brush tree it's self from some pruning I had done previously. The timber for the little jut-out bit were flooring off cuts that a place on McCarthy Rd were throwing out for free one time when I was driving by.

We painted the tree house with a mix of paint that was left over from our renovation, and also from my sister's donation from her high school art class days. The chalk board actually came from an easel that Sophie got for Christmas one year from Poppa and Ma. The easel since fell apart, but I kept the chalkboard for a time such as this it turns out.

Makes me so happy to be able to thank all these people that contributed to making this dream a reality. And the tree house is finished! When all the social isolating is done, I've no doubt that we will have an opening ceremony to celebrate.

Stick Insect Home

When it came to what to get our little four year old Rachel for her birthday, we couldn't go past insects. Pretty much nothing else in the world delights her like animals, especially the small kind that she can interact with easily. So despite our aversion to pets, we decided to get her some stick insects. This of course also meant making space for an enclosure and getting said enclosure. 

Obviously, I love to make things, and any excuse to use power tools, so I made the enclosure for the birthday stick insects. 

I talked to another kindy dad for advice on enclosure making, as he had made one for his son's stick insects and was a wealth of information. I was going to try to make it out of wood that we had here, but that proved difficult to get enough wood that was the right size, so we ended up spending some money on pine at Bunnings. 

I didn't get too many work in progress shots, because, well I'm bad at it, and I was busy making, but here is one of me with the drill that dad took.

I started making at my parents because I wanted to use dad's fancy electric saw, rather than hand saw all of the cuts myself. Once we finished the cuts, Dad was pretty excited to help out, so we just kept going. Here is my Dad being handy too. Maybe this is where I get it from?

Here is a shot of the frame almost complete, clamped together while the glue dries before we put the final screws in. On the ground, you can see the door frame and the drawer which were both ready to go at that point.

I wish I had more photos of the enclosure as it was finished that day, because it was beautiful and everything worked superbly. Unfortunately, I decided to paint it to help it last longer, and this, it turns out was the wrong decision. The paint, which took ages to do, because it was winter and I did it over three rainy days (drying time was so so so long!), ended up being way too thick. The door didn't fit anymore, let alone open and close with ease, and the draw at the bottom was just not happening at all.

I ended up having to sand back most of the edges and we even had to take some wood off the drawer sides to get it in. At this point, the beautiful enclosure that we had made felt like it was starting to be a little less than perfect. I was not to know, that this would in fact, get worse.

I was using a set of old handles that my parents had given me. Maybe they came from their cupboards when they redid their bedroom? Anyway, there were four, which was perfect for the drawer, the door and then two handles on the top so I could easily pick up and move the enclosure. Excellent.

Except that the bolts for these handles were twice as long as needed.

Sigh. Do we cut them down? Do we get new ones? Do we pad it out? I ended up padding it out. Luckily I had enough extra wood lying around to do it, but it was painful. The wood is not sanded back, or cut straight, or the same colour as the rest of the enclosure. For the drawer, I unknowningly put the handle too high, and when it was padded out, the drawer ceased to close at all, so I had to take it off, putty the holes and put it on again lower down.

By the end of it all, I really did feel like this enclosure was totally hacked together. Notice I have not taken close ups of all the hacking we did? I'm not proud of it.

I am proud though, that at the end of the day, it works. The fly screen is left over from when we put fly screens on all the windows three and a half years ago. I knew it would come in handy. Oh, and the latch that's on the front is from one of the doors around the house. Probably one of the first things we removed when we bought the house seven and a half years ago now, so that we could paint. I don't know why we kept it, but I'm glad we did.

The enclosure holds the two spiny leaf stick insects that we got for Rachel perfectly. She has called them Twiggy and Rose, after about two and a half days of deliberation. So far we have kept them alive and they seem to enjoy living with us. We are lucky to live close to a park and the forest which provide an ample supply of gum leaves, so feeding these little ladies is fairly inexpensive.

Rachel loves them too, and wants all visitors to have their own stick insect experience.

Here is the enclosure where it lives in our house on top of the bookshelf. It works and most days you don't even notice the hacking. Whew.

For Our Little Bug Lover

Something is in the making!

Feed the Birds

I'm not sure why, but every now and then I scroll through Pintrest. Usually I pin a whole lot of things that I don't ever bother making and it's easy to get depressed about all the things I'm not doing, or angry, because of all the things I want, but don't have. Maybe there is another way to use Pintrest, because I don't think I'm doing it right. 

Anyway, sorry for that sad introduction, the last time I was on Pintrest, DIY bird feeders and houses popped up. I liked the idea of these things, so I thought about it for a while and looked at different types, and a few weeks later, actually made one. 

It's loosely based on one I saw online, but of course, I just used wood we had lying around, and just cut it to fit what I had. When I came to screw it together, I found we didn't have clamps big enough to hold things, and nor did we have any liquid nail. What we did have was some silicone, which, for all intents and purposes, would do just the trick. 

So I siliconed it together, waited a few days, screwed it together and then siliconed the roof on top. That roof stuff was $2.50 from Reverse Garbage. Win.

Not sure if the roof needs reinforcing, but we didn't have any roofing screws handing, so we are just winging it and seeing how it goes. If it falls off, we will fix it.

The finished product is hanging up in the tree, full of seed, waiting for birds to discover it soon. I hope after the birds find it, I can relocated it to a lower position, because at the moment, it is very hard to refill.

Shopping Time

Here is where I finally show you what the shop I was making actually looks like. It's been finished for a while now, a few weeks actually. But it took me forever to get it painted and then set up to take photos.

I was also dreaming that I'd be able to put some kind of awning on, but my attempts and thoughts on that haven't progressed very far at all. My Dad did offer some solutions, but it's not really coming to reality yet. Maybe in another six months or so. 

Anyway, I did end up with leftover paint from Dad, so it's a cream colour. He also had some brown, which I did the bottom of the legs with. The black chalkboard paint was the part that took the longest, and the shop was actually in full use before I even had the first coat on. Just goes to show that the kids were keen to use it right?

Sorry for the unco-ness of these pictures, the girls were champing at the bit to wipe the chalk off and dismantle all the food stuffs. Steve was a champion and took the girls to Ikea to get that cash register last week. It's really cool because it's actually a calculator, so it works and makes no annoying noises. Totally worth it. 

Even though most of these photos are inside, the shop actually lives outside now and will probably continue to do so. The tricky thing with it living outside is having to make sure the shopping things inside each night, or they will quickly get ruined. Oh well. Challenge accepted. :)

Fighting Tears

So Sophie is three years old now, so we've started introducing her to Disney movies. It's a little hard, because they all have their scary moments, and some of them have some really tough things to explain (Lion King - Simba's Dad dying - perfect example). I'll want to show her those, but not just yet. Anyway, last week we bought the original 101 Dalmatians, the animated version. It's lovely.

The first time that Sophie sees a movie, you've really got to talk her through it, or her attention span ins't going to last, or she's going to miss something and give up. I don't mind because I like Disney movies too. I'm there explaining things and prompting her with questions. It's going great.

And then, I'm in tears.

That's right, even though I know the ending, there are tears streaming down my face and my voice is wobbly as I talk her through it. I know those puppies will be all right, but I'm suddenly feeling terrible emotion every time I see them, or Perdie and Pongo. Heck, just the entire movie. Tears.

Thankfully we made it through and the puppies were safe and the bad guys were dealt with. Sophie didn't even ask me what was wrong, whew, because even I don't know the answer to that one. I thought it was over and done, and I'd be perfectly normal from here on. Unfortunately not so. Last Sunday we were having a lazy afternoon and Steve suggested to Sophie that they watch a movie together. She choose 101 Dalmatians.

"This will be fine," I think. "I've seen it before and I don't have to talk her through it this time. Steve is here in case she has any questions. Nothing to worry about."

Not five minutes in, the tears had started. So I got up and did the washing up. There, tears are gone and I'm feeling much better. Sit down again and it's like a tap turns on. I look at Steve and he bursts out laughing. I almost don't blame him. It is ridiculous after all.

I couldn't sit through one more moment of this emotional roller coaster of a movie, so I went under the house and got out some wood and power tools and set my mind on something else instead.

I'm building a small shop front for the kids to play with in the yard. Entirely out of scrap wood that we already have. It's mostly done, but for one leg and a brace. I've used the power drill (so much power in that corded drill compared to the little battery operated one), the sander, the measuring tape, the saw, the saw horses, even the clamps.

So far, everything is going smoothly. I might even see if my Dad has some old paint lying around, so it doesn't end up being the same colour as the play wall and the sandpit. Just for variety, you know?

And while I did it, not one tear was shed. Whew.

Domesticated

For those playing along at home, here is what I was working on last week. The not-sewing stuff. :) 

Though it doesn't turn, it does do the job of a clothes line, in that it dries the clothes. Sophie knew what to do with it, though she struggled a little with the pegs, and where to put some of the clothes (she liked to hang things off the wood, rather than the line... not sure why).

Job well done. Thanks for the wood from the garden shed Dad. I'm sure I'll find some uses for the rest of your scrap wood in the duration of my girl's childhoods.