The weekend is almost here...6 hours away for me...so we're gearing up to finish the porch. Nothing like dragging along on a project that should've taken a day, 2 tops!....

Little Sugar Creek. May 2012
image by Nadine Ford,/td>

That's what I started blogging this past Friday and that's pretty much how everything is right now. Busy, fragmented and the minutes are just too short. To celebrate the madness, here are a few things keeping me busy:

The contest is still going on for a chance to win your very own copy of Little Paper Planes! Might I suggest you get 2 copies--one to play with and one to keep whole?

Little Sugar Creek. Early June 2012
image by Nadine Ford

Volunteering a little at the Tuesday Twilight Matthews Farmers Market.

Little Sugar Creek. Mid-June 2012
image by Nadine Ford

Growing food and constantly weeding at Little Sugar Creek Community Garden. (Enough with the weeding already!)

Mentally designing one of these.

Phoenix Rising: A Bit of Background

 

Remember a while back when we were working on a drawing for Little Paper Plane's new book? Okay, so now I can't find any posts, but I'm sure I talked about it in at least a few posts. Anyway, it was recently released through Chronicle, and is now available for purchase! Though since I've decided not to shop through Amazon anymore, I think purchasing it through Little Paper Planes is far better...why not purchase it directly from the curator? Working with the Little Paper Plane's crew is always a treat, the gals are upbeat, funny and beyond dedicated to furthering the arts for the benefit of the artists. This experience was no different and to be a part of it is such an honor; 20 amazing artists and 20 fun projects. The art that matters most to Wolfie and the Sneak is art that engages the mind and the community, and this book has that and more!

The drawing pre-Photoshop coloring

A little background on our contribution and evolution: To stick with what we do best, we went with a nature-themed OCD style drawing: a bird. This time, though, the bird reflected a common source of awe for Charlie and me--the Firebird. As is the case with most of our prints, I do the drawing and Charlie works with me critiquing, editing it in Photoshop, and generally getting the design and colors tweaked just so.We also tried a few old school paper plane designs, but went with Charlie's favorite.

The drawing post-Photoshop coloring

To accompany the book, Little Paper Planes had a book inspired show. We took the opportunity to create a 200+ page flip book showing the rise of the phoenix (if we were better organized or had more time, a second volume may have shown some birdy combustion).

Flip book nearing completion, and look, a little bird shadow!

I took this picture of the show from LPP's facebook page.

and this picture of the publisher's offices from LPP's facebook page.

Instructions on how to make Charlie's favorite paper plane.

A most beautiful design by Christine Buckton Tillman.

So there you have it, a little glimpse into our part of this amazing book. And guess what!? If you've made through all the gushing and ramblings, you've made it to the part where we offer one copy of Little Paper Planes to give away! You have to do a little digging...name 3 of the artists in the book. At least one of the artists must be someone not listed in the Amazon description. This post on the Chronicle blog will help you on your mission. Comment below with the names and you'll be entered in the giveaway! Enter as many times as you'd like, but your answer has to be different every time! Make sure you leave an email or a link so I can find you if you win. Good luck and happy flying!

The end.

The pitter patter of progress

Look! Just for you I created a fun survey where you can tell me which type of column you'd like to see on our house.(Woo hoo! Lucky you!!)

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Though I'm not sure this picture says a lot, compare and contrast with this one and see all the work we've done.

Mabel went to Nana's and Paw Paw's so I thought we'd spend the weekend solely working on the columns, getting the project finished. There are, with us at least, certain methods to our DIY madness and sometimes we have to be honest with ourselves about these projects. Money is limited, and it is the facet we most often have to remember.

Despite my hope for a big unveil this morning, we had a budget set aside of less than $80. Most of that ended up going into reciprocating saw blades. We bought a $20 one meant for cutting iron which turned out to be overkill; a $3 blade for thick metal was actually the blade we needed. When you're talking about an $80 project, $23 takes a big cut (no pun intended). It didn't leave us enough to get the wood for the facade of the columns, and we decided to wait to get that wood anyway. For a nominally larger cost, we can get a higher grade board from a local lumber yard rather than from the big box store. A higher grade board will mean less knots and mars, making the finished column smoother and much prettier.

This coming weekend we'll both have paychecks to dole out for the finishing wood and trim, so until then our yard will remain (as one friend deftly put it) one trampoline shy of redneck gold. All of that is to give a glimpse inside how our renovations work: with time, ingenuity, and a little bit of spending money. Oh, and a generous Nana to keep the little one distracted and happy all weekend--essential to success.

It took an entire day to get the iron work down and the 4 x 4 (actually 2 2x4s laminated and screwed together) cores for the new columns up. That "entire workday" happened on Saturday, after I spent 6 hours volunteering at the community garden. My body still hurts.

On Sunday Charlie mended the fence while I built a small retaining wall from some 4 x 4s we had on hand. Having the dogs in the fenced area most of the time, they've created paths where they run laps around the perimeter of the space. That path, even on a gently sloping hill, has created an erosion problem which, in turn, created soil build up around the fence at the bottom of the hill. The soil build up pushed the fence every which way, making it lean and wobble. Once again the fence is perpendicular to the ground and we're already seeing and hearing the pitter patter of progress.

Green-Slime-a-Go-Go

When Chiot's Run posted about boiled linseed oil and vinyl siding I flagged it with a mental post it note. In the past we'd used I don't know if you can tell in the image below, but the side of our garage was pretty much slimy and green. {Please don't look at the roof of the garage...it needs some attention, but that's a fall project.}

In case you're not feeling up to scrolling down to the last post to see what the house looked like on Tuesday, let me remind you: 

As we did small prep tasks to tackle the new porch columns the green slime became more noticeable. Let me rephrase that in a more honest fashion: As we cleared up long-standing messes in the area, other details that needed attention became more apparent. Green slime became very very very apparent.

I'd ordered the smaller bottles of both organic linseed oil soap Extra and of organic boiled linseed oil and they arrived just in time to make a quick project of cleaning the garage...and by quick project I mean we were out there for less than an hour. I diluted the soap in water, gathered some stiff bristled brushes, and Charlie and I tackled the task while Mabel sprayed everyone and everything with the hose. The process? Brush on the soap, leave for a few minutes, spray off with the hose.

No one even broke a sweat. Maybe Monday I'll have pictures of the house with new columns! Wish me luck, I've already told Charlie I'm Superintendent on this project.

Our House

We have a functional but no longer charming front porch. I remember being enchanted with it when I was a kid, the scrolling ironwork was straight out of a story book (and I could walk on it like it was my own personal balance beam) but now it's wobbly and rusting out from the bottom; plus it seems to lack scale or something. I'm sure the beat up gutter doesn't help its tired look. It needs a facelift and I've been thinking about simple {affordable!}ways to dress it up.

First off, the 3 bushes directly in front of the porch are coming out. A few more foundation shrubs will be planted in front of a walkway that connects the porch to the garage. The railings are coming off and staying off, making the porch sort of spill into the yard {plans for that later}.

Southern Living White Plains house plan

I'm a sucker for metal roofs, so that might be part of my draw to this Southern Living house. I'm not crazy about the lattice work between the columns, but like the idea of having something for vines to climb. The size of the porch seems pretty close to our own, so it's easy to imagine these in place of our current supports.

RBVa front porch restoration

RBVa's front porch restoration is probably closest to what our house would've looked like with wooden columns rather than metal work. Without the railing, though, I'm not sure a design like this would look like an upgrade from our current porch layout.

Sears kit home

I love the sizable columns on this Sears kit home, but also wonder if they would be too clunky for our porch. I also love the simple, Craftsman details and the clapboard wrapped pedestals on each column.

Image from the HGTV website

Perhaps the best solution? Simple columns with arched details, like these found on the HGTV website, at the top would add shape and architectural interest to the porch without adding too much visual weight.

Since porches are on my mind, The Porches Inn popped up as a link in my flickrstream, and reinforced the porch update obsession.Above all else, though, I blame Aesthetic Outburst for making me think of ways to charm up our porch.

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