old growth gets new life

There is this awesome second-hand store in town that sells everything under the sun for your home - its kind of like a Home Depot for hipsters and fans of Portlandia.  Its called the Re-Store, and when, say, Seattle demolishes a 100 year old school, many of the school's items - like old bookshelves and genuine slate chalkboards - end up at the Re-Store.

My favorite place is the store's back lot, where there is scads of old lumber lying around.  Lots have nails in them, some have lead paint, many are misshapen and good only for firewood.  But in a timber-rich area like the Pacific Northwest, much of it is old growth fir and cedar just begging for another life.  I love using this stuff for projects - the grain is much tighter than the fast-growing trees of today, the smell of old timber when you cut into it is like none other, and its cheap cheap cheap!

You've seen many of these things before in previous blogposts, but I aggregated my reincarnated timber projects below for easy viewing.  Stay tuned - a new coffee table is next.  So fun!

the drill-bit I've been using to make holes for birdhouses fits a tea-light perfectly - so I found interesting old pieces of wood and made a bevy of candle holders

this is the first of another one or two deck seats I'll make, something easy to drag around and sit where you want to

ah, the birdhouses.  love them.  no one is living in them yet, tho...

our old/new cedar fence cost about $4 to build

these old boards required cutting, glueing, and screwing - and behold, a new stovetop backslash is born!

inspired by the backsplash and leftover wood pieces, I built this side table for our room

AJ needed a new yoga center, so the Re-Store obliged and supplied the materials

meet beepers

This is the stray cat that visits our yard sometimes to see Wiesty - he swung by this morning.  His name is Beepers and our neighbor feeds him lots of kibble.  He's a super nice cat - especially for a tough street-cat - and looked particularly fluffy today, so I snapped this pic.

put a bird on it!

The tiny town of Edison lies about 80 miles north of Seattle and has long been a favorite hangout for my uncle Mark.  Its a great little spot on the Skagit flats right on the edge of the Samish Bay, looking west out over the San Juan Islands.  This weekend, the town held their first ever Bird Festival to celebrate the abundance of feathered friends that visit the area this time of year.  AJ had lots to do around the house, so I ventured north with some friends and met up with Mark for a tour of the town and tides.

Andy waiting patiently outside The Luck Dumpster

Gallery on the main drag through Edison

The entrance to Tweets, a cool little coffee shop and cafe

Andy and Rebecca on Tweet's porch

Inside Tweets

A cozy sweater for the telephone pole, downtown Edison

"Put a bird on it!" says Mav.

Tide flats in Edison

White geese in the farmland nearby

Rebecca and Mark learning about birds

Young bald eagle

"Bacock!"

Samish Bay

wise tree

Another young eagle

Our chariot and an eagle

on a sunny day...

....there's no better place to be than the Pacific Northwest.  I was lucky enough to take a sunset cruise around Lake Union yesterday on a colleague's boat.  The mountains were snowy, the waters calm, the skies crystal clear, and a full moon was rising in the east.  Unreal.

Moon rising one my building on UW campus

superbowl sunday, seattle style

What do you do when the Superbowl happens to fall on a 60 degree sunny February day in Seattle?  You move the living room outside, of course!

arts and crafts day at the centenarian

While I continue to receive many reports from folks about how beautiful it's been in SoCal, Adrienne and I spent yet another weekend in-doors seeking refuge from the rain and trying not to turn on any lights inside until after 2pm.  Whoops - scratch that...I just realized as I type that the living room light has been on all day.

But...weekends such as this make the heart grow fonder for spring and then summer, when we can once again while away the long PacNorWest days in the garden and around a fire.  So we embraced that fuzzy feeling for the next season and knocked out a few projects that will enrich those soon-to-be lazy days of something other than winter.

I saw this portable deck-seat online at some fancy art store for $800.  Stole the idea and 

build it for two orders of magnitude less.

Adrienne spent the better part of the day organizing her seed inventory into 

some new seed sleighs I made for her.  

We extended our growing capabilities into the front yard - stay tuned, 

some Jerusalem artichokes will be planted in these.

Adrienne brushed these 40 paint stirrers with chalkboard paint - now she 

can write and erase plant labels for the garden.

These are old windows from Seattle's awesome Re-Store - each cost $6, and I was able to make little greenhouses outside so AJ can grow some stuff over the winter.

alpine skiing...in ravenna

As forecasted, a giant storm hit Seattle overnight and Adrienne and I woke up to more snow.  All the remaining snow from this weekend had melted, so this was 4" of all new powder.  And it is exactly what it was - powder!  In the PacNorWest, we're used to slushy, heavy, wet, bone-chilling, messy snow.  But today's was light, fluffy, and wonderful!

Nearly everything in town is shut - including UW and NOAA - so we had some of the day to play outside.  Below are some shots from our lunchtime outing.

View into the backyard when we woke up 

AJ suited up in front of the House, lookin all snow-bunny'ish.

Mav likes the snow too...

15th Ave bridge over Ravenna Park

Our neighborhood park - it was the exact same scene on all the hilly streets too

AJ skiing through Ravenna Park

AJ and JJ cut first tracks down this alley

AJ shows off her technique on the 61st Street double-black diamond