DIY Wood Blocks

I love doing projects.  I really enjoy being busy and building stuff out of wood!  So when my daughters teacher asked if anyone would make blocks for the classroom, I jumped at the chance.  She just wanted simple blocks so the builders in her class would have fun.  I had a bunch of scrap wood, so I invited my husband to spend sometime in our wood shop/garage with me.  We cut big and small blocks.  Then I had fun with the miter saw doing triangles.  We sanded the corners and sides with the belt sander and that was it.  Pretty simple to make and only took about two hours or so to make a whole box of them.

 This is how I relax after a long day in the NICU.

Some of my scrap wood I used.

Chris working away at sanding the blocks.

After making a box for my eldest, my little one wanted blocks for her class to play with.  So we made another box of blocks.  These would be fun to have the kids paint them too!

DIY Bunk Beds

My little girls have just started sharing a room after having their own all their life.  I knew the room wasn't that big, but it looked so crowded with the bed and a mattress on the floor.  SO I decided to just build one.  I spent hours looking at beds on pinterest for a design I liked.  Most were designer beds and I don't have the time or the desire to build that.  I found one bed I kind of liked, but it needed more.  So I designed it myself.

I made the top loft bed 6 inches wider than the standard bed size that we used on the bottom.  This way there was an area on the bunk for all the stuffed animals.  Why no one else has come up with this idea is beyond me.  It also was made this way so that I could easily fit the free standing lower bunk under neath.   Since I was a little girl I have enjoyed moving my furniture around and wanted the freedom to move the beds what ever way I fancied.   Then I made the beds both 6 inches longer than the mattress (ok, I made them 12 inches longer, but that was an accident and I like it now).  My husband build them each a bookshelf to act as a headboard and storage.  Once completely build I saw that each bed was 6 inches longer than the mattress once the bookshelf was added.  But then I saw that this was perfect for the kids stuffed animals on the bottom bunk.  On the top, it works as a step to climb down.  

  This is me with my game face on!  I really do love my power tools!!!

Pre bed-just boards here.

Loving the way my bench holds the wood I'm cutting on my miter saw.  This just makes me happy!

Chris and I spent 12 hours one day cutting all the pieces, sanding them 

and adding pocket holds to the frames. 

I am such a visual person so I laid both beds out as we cut and sanded them.

This is the kids room before we put the bunk beds in.  Not a lot of space to walk and not very much storage.  Plus they left the room a mess.

We started to assemble the top bunk first.  It's not easy getting it all lined up right and square.  We did have to redo a bit once we got the level out.  We got the wood cut and sanded the first day and built the top bunk bed.

The next day we put together the bottom bunk.  I made sure the bed was high enough for a bunch of cute boxes to go underneath.  There was not much storage in the room and this is their "toy box".  See all the animals lined up at the foot of the bed?

I wanted to create a very special place for my girls to hang out together and read or play.  I got two beanbag chairs on line plus a soft carpet from Target.  The lights I hung under the bed are one of my favorite features.  It brightens up the space and makes it really special.

I loved the book shelves that we built in.  Since the mattress is right next to the bottom shelf, the girls use that as a "secret" shelf.

The ladder to the bed is at the end of the bed.  You have to stand on the bottom bunk to get to the ladder.  We ended up creating another little tiny step to make it easier to get to the main ones.

I found these really cute Elephant lights on Amazon from Thailand.  They have become the girls nightlight.

Raised Bed Garden

My doggy runs around my back yard and has ruined all my grass.   And he jumps at the fence and hangs on it to see my neighbors.  They probably don't appreciate that too much.  So I decided to build a raised bed garden to protect my fence and cover up the dead grass.  I found a good plan on pinterest at  Blueberry Hill Blog.  I built it in about 3-4 hours with my husband helping a bit when I ran out of time.  It was a simple build and I love how it turned out.  It cost me $150 in materials and I used pressure treated wood.  And another $150 for the soil.

I planted strawberries, peas, romaine lettuce, tomatoes, radishes, a squash, watermelons, flowers and two pumpkins.  I think it was a bit too much in there, but I had no where else to plant them.  After just a few weeks my garden has grown a ton.  I've never had a garden before and it is fun to see it grow.

Lettuce

Peas

Marigolds-I always planted these as a child and the smell brings back memories of my childhood.

My first little, baby pumpkin!

Tomatoes

And I have two lemon trees that have baby lemons on them.  It is so fun to see my food grow!!

A Living Garden Fort

Years ago I bought a little grape vine from the fair.  Each year it grows and flourishes and gets bigger.  This year the vines were all over the place and starting to hang down in front. The girls kept trying to make a fort under them, but there was very little room.  My friend, Dan Laffan, gave me the idea of using hog wire to make a tunnel to support the vines.  So I decided to try it!!

Here is our crazy grape vine mess.  Hannah was trying to cut the wire to make a section to use for the fort.  It was hard work!  I cut off a long section of the hog wire and wrapped one end around an old 2x4 board.  After making sure that all the poky ends of the wire were twisted and safe from poking the kids, I was ready to start.

We used a staple gun to staple it to the fence.  I tried going under but the vines were too heavy and big.  My sweet husband thought about putting it over the vines and stapling it to the fence.  I curved the hog wire around the vines and tucked the board in next to the board separating the grass and garden bed. 

Then I carefully pushed up every grape vine I could find up through the wire.  I secured a few of them with twisty ties to keep them in place.

I ended up using three sets of hog wire to get all the vines up off the fence. 

Since the wire is pretty weak, it didn't support the heavy vines well.  I ended up using a fence board on each side to support the weight of the vines.

This turned out to be a very pretty and nice little living fort.  The new grapes are hanging down inside the fort and it is beautiful!  This is a shady spot and will soon be covered in vines and make a hiding spot for my kids.  There is lots of room inside and places to sit on some extra flagstone I had laying around.  

My puppy came over to check out our progress.   Isn't he the cutest!

Bekah and I had a fun time sitting in the fort and talking.  I was able to capture beautiful photos of my dear, sweet girl.

She caught one of me too!

Toby likes this spot too!

Hannah came in for a bit but wasn't in a good photo taking mood.  They aren't always you know.

This took about 3-4 hours to make and was pretty easy to do.  I'm really glad that I created this and my kids can have a living fort to play in.  I had fort in my back yard  that was similar to this.  The many hours playing in it brings me many good memories.