If you’ve been following our blog for a while (and I mean for years) you will remember we have been restoring a beautiful old bungalow door. Well, we can finally cross that off the list! It was installed this past Monday – just in time for the holidays. We absolutely LOVE this door.
So with all those seeds we decided we really needed a potting bench. You can find plenty of pre-made kits for potting benches, but we figured we could build it ourselves for less. It seemed like the perfect project for a mild March weekend. I did some research online (meaning I did lots of Googling) and found a nice plan online. I made a few modifications, calculated the lumber we would need, and we headed over to Lowe’s. We want this thing to last a while, so we bought pressure treated lumber and some heavy duty outdoor screws.
See where this is headed?
Next up, insert the boards that create the bottom shelf and the work surface. These boards are not nailed down so we can easily remove them if we need to clean off some soil.
Once all of the boards were in place it was really starting to take shape.
The final bench fit perfectly in place behind our shed! It really came in handy as our seedlings grew and needed larger pots. Having a dedicated work surface for the garden is a great addition.
As many of you might remember, over two years ago some friends of ours gave me a door for my birthday. Steffi and I spent many hours stripping the paint, sanding, and refinishing the door. Then we hit a roadblock… old doors have holes in them for old hardware. However, unlike modern hardware nothing was standard. The old mortise style hardware comes in a gazillion sizes, shapes, offsets, etc. Apparently you just bought the hardware and cut the hole to fit. That’s all good if your door doesn’t come with holes, but ours had holes!
At first we looked at the internet. You could buy a new handleset from one of the companies that makes reproductions, and spend $600+ for hardware. That wasn’t going to happen. Or you could try to buy mismatched handlesets from eBay that may or may not fit once you receive it. After a lot of searching we decided this was not a purchase to be made online.
Did someone mention Scott’s Antique Market? Sounds promising! Now if only we can find the time to get down there. A few months passed and we finally made it. We go straight for the outdoor warehouse that has all of the old hardware. There has to be something there. We’re armed with all of the measurements, and we’re confident that we’re going to find something. So we start digging through all of the milk crates of handles, faceplates, and locking mechanisms. My hands are covered with rust, but nothing seems to match up. We find a faceplate we like that matches a lock box, but we couldn’t find a matching faceplate (and any faceplate that would fit) for the other side. Grrrr… We just spent what seemed like an eternity digging, but no luck. We decide to give up. We are defeated and will never find hardware for our door.
So we move on to the next stall. What’s that over there on that table? Could it be!? It’s a complete handleset made of bronze (which means no rust). We’re thinking there is no way it will fit our measurements, but it does! It will take some minor adjusting. A 1/16 of an inch here and there, but it fits! And even better it isn’t going to cost us an arm and a leg!!
Just a little work on the door and we’ll be in business.
Steffi looking very closely to determine where it is getting stuck.
A snug fit in the mortise.
Using the router to make space for where the knob needs to go. I don’t advise you actually have the router on while looking at the camera. Leave that to the professionals.
And everything fits. We just have to clean it up a little.
Now it is anybody’s guess how long it will take us to get the door installed, but at least the hardest part is over.
It’s sooo hot in Atlanta right now there is nothing to do except stay inside in the air conditioning, so I figured it is a perfect time to catch up with the blog. We’re really far behind, so I’m just going to post a bunch of photos at once. This is pretty much spring until now (beginning of July).
When it was cold outside (aka during the winter) we did some work inside. Such as painting the trim around the kitchen windows.
We also put both doors on the bulter’s pantry! I still need to paint the right one, but maybe I’ll do that today.
In the early spring we planted some seeds. These plants have now been in the garden for months, and they are much bigger.
Our annual trip to Grower’s Outlet to aquire new additions for the garden.
All of the plants in the garden in the spring. Note our new fescue lawn that we seeded in the fall of 2010.
Lastly, this is how the yard looked after we installed brick borders around all of the flower beds.
Some of the veggies we grew in the garden. Carrots, potatoes, onions, garlic, etc.
Steffi trying a mini carrot.
And hopefully the next time we make a post we won’t be apologizing about falling behind!
*Echo-echo-echo*
Yes, hello. We’re still alive. I feel like I need to get out the duster to get rid of the cobwebs on this blog. Once again, not much to report in the home renovation section. Sadly for our home, Patrick and I have been too busy with neighborhood organization and neighborhood planning unit work to focus on renovations. Good for the neighborhood though, I suppose, as we see more and more people buying up the vacant homes!
The only boring stuff I have to report is that we planted some fall/winter plants. The new bed by the sidewalk has Pansies and Dianthus in it. (We got two 18-pack of Dianthus for $2.50! Score!) We had good luck with the previous Dianthus plantings, so we figured we may as well keep going with them. We also planted some Dwarf Mondo Grass along the path. Unfortunately two will have to be replaced in the spring, but I’m looking forward to them filling in next year.
Front yard dianthus
Then we also decided to divide the Hosta’s behind the shed. In the process we re-arranged the whole bed. (It was looking a bit of a mess following the tree falling on it.)
Dividing Hostas
We also worked on a little bit more paint stripping on the bathroom built-in linen closet doors. (Or should I say door – singular.)
Paint stripping
Merry Christmas from Steffi, Patrick, Buster, and Foster!
Buster and Foster