Replace Playground Canopy with a Wood Roof

When a family with six kids lives someplace long enough, stuff eventually wears out.

That would be true for the canopy on our Rainbow Play System.  The playground has seen a lot of action and the red, yellow and blue canopy was ripped and shredding.

Some of the corner flags had broken off due to the fact they were used for many a game of capture the flag.

Trying to find a replacement canopy for our model number was harder than I thought.  Do you think I could find one?  Of course not.  I did find the knock off's that say they will fit, but considering I never really liked the original colors all that much I didn't want to pay $75 dollars for one that looked like a tarp.

I inquired of the man with the saw if he thought it would be easy to update it with a wood roof.  Nothing fancy and I didn't want it to take till Fall to complete.  No problem he said.

Instead of a solid color I wanted to do the boards like the porch bench he recently made, each one different.

We started out with 3/4" boards of various widths - 3 widths to be exact.  Brawn cut them to size and made the bottoms sort of rounded like an awning.

Next we lined up all the paint cans from the garage and a bin of dollar store paint brushes and I picked whatever can was closest and started painting boards.

I ended up using a brown, a dark gray, green, cream and that awful purple/pink color that went on the dresser bar.  Once it's wiped with dark stain it looks a deep wine color and I can live with that.

Bright Purple/Pink color after it is washed with dark stain

After the boards were done they were all bright and newly painted looking.  And I didn't like that look.  See how that purple/pink color looks before the dark stain wash - YUCK!  I used my favorite dark Olympic Stain for the wash to age them and tone each color down.

Some rain came through and changed my plans to put several coats of marine varnish on before installation, so this week I'll be finishing that up. 

First the nail gun was used to tack the wood on, then the crossmembers were added on the underside and it was all screwed together.

I love how it turned out.  For half the price of a canopy top we have a roof that the wind won't be able to blow off.

The only thing left was some new flags.

Last summer I picked up a bunch of leather sample pieces at a garage sale for a dime each.  I painted some dowels I found hiding in the garage, cut the flags, stapled them on the dowel, and screwed one on each corner.  I love how those turned out too.

I wonder how many folks have leather playground flags made from furniture fabric samples?  They won't last forever and eventually I will have to make some bigger better ones, but for this summer I'm calling it complete.

After with new wood roof

The to-do list is slowly but surely being picked away at.  I think it only has 50 chores left on it.  I noticed we never put the third swing back up after the baby swing was taken off last summer.  So make that 51 chores.

Linking the Playground Roof Replacement up at:
Freaking Awesome Friday @MellywoodsMansion
It's Party Time @ThreeMangoSeeds
Homework Wednesday @TheEverydayHome
All Things Summer @TwoTwentyOne
Craft-o-Maniac Monday@CraftOManiac 
The Scoop @TheFarmhousePorch

Mudroom Tiny Bathroom Tour

At Bliss Ranch it's about the rocks.  I love boulders, and stones and the earthy element of the color variations.  When we built this house I also needed to be creative to keep costs down.

What we had a lot of - was rocks.  Most of them were in my head.

All those years ago there was no internet to get ideas from or show anyone what my vision was, so Brawn had to interpret what was in my head.

Hence the rocks diagnosis and a mudroom vanity top made of field stones.

The rocks are sealed in a non-glossy goo, and are surprisingly easy to keep clean.  For those times when real mud made it into the mudroom bathroom, it was by far more attractive on rocks than it would have been on granite.

Really this bathroom has no place to bathe in it, so technically it is probably a powder room.  But the kids did more bathing in there without a bath then they ever did powdering.

Wall to wall the bathroom size is 7' x 4' with a 10 foot ceiling.  The toilet is behind the door, upon which I had to sit to take some photos.  No I was not multi tasking.  This bathroom is at your service if you are in the garage, on the patio, or in the front yard. 

It is also the closest to my computer so the reading material is important, because who doesn't like to keep their friends close?

Kelly from The View Along The Way, just one of my many superstar blog friends who grace the pages of magazines these days and keep us company in our bathroom.

And then there is Cassie from Primitive and Proper who reenacted Kelly's photo shoot when she went to visit last weekend.  I told her to give Kelly a hug for me, then take baby Mila and run.  I also see after the magazine folks left, she moved her washer and dryer back where they were.

Kelly is right up there in the top 10 Bliss Ranch bathroom reading material. This book was a gift from my BFF when our youngest was born.  Little did she know it would become a family favorite and one we quote from often.

When our guests take a little longer using the mudroom facilities, we know why - it's because they are reading the book, and often times they emerge quoting from it as well.

It was hard to take photos in this room without a lighting set up.  And while I love you all I did not feel like setting up lighting.  Lazy is my middle name.  There is a big window directly above the guests sign that keeps the room private and bright enough for necessary things.

 I picked up this shoe size thingy at an antique shop called Mustard Moon... many moons ago.

The ceiling of this room is trimmed with these details.  Brawn made all the components in here - the trim, the vanity, the counter.  The wood is not oak, although it looks like it in these photos, it is hickory, as is the vanity.

This seems like a good time to tell you, that when I say Brawn made it, I don't mean he went to the lumber yard bought some trim, cut it and installed it.  No.  I mean he maaadddde the trim.  He cut all those grooves and round parts in the garage with his saw and special cutters from regular hickory boards that he picked up at a lumber mill, not a lumber yard.

I learned the hard way after initially installing all white ceramic flooring tiles, that the place for white was not in a mudroom that was home to six kids and a Great Dane who slobbered in that area, unless I wanted to do nothing but clean it, so we changed that.

What I needed was a mud colored mud room.

This bathroom is also home to the famous toilet tong toilet paper holder.

I bought this heavy metal piece of junk at Second Hand Rose in Buffalo Minnesota, where you can get your junk fix in a whole town of the best occasional sales. 

I was tired of this bathroom never being stocked with "supplies".  That isn't a problem any longer thanks to this holder which also hides the scratch marks in the wallpaper where a bored 4 year old child once started peeling the paper off.

This week I added the little sign above the antler towel holder.  Due to that, some dining room chairs being redone are going to be missing four large head tacks.  And I did not kill this deer, I rescued the rack from a garage sale 20 years ago while on the hunt to save money and have a unique towel holder.

It is time to paint the frame on this Schnapps advertising mirror.  I gave it a coat of bronze spray paint about 12 years ago.  Maybe I'll just sand it down a bit.

The emergency first aid kit I put together last summer in an old tool box, found a home in this bathroom as well.  It is the perfect location off the garage for first aid stuff since fingers tend to get cut often in close proximity.

The little ladder is from the same vintage 50's bunk bed as the front porch bench Brawn recently made.  Recall my son painted the whole set black when he used it for his kids.

When he built them new beds, the bunk stuff came back to me, so I distressed it a bit and gave the ladder a home in the mudroom bathroom - because Kelly needed a place to hang out.

And when you have a seat to rest in here, directly in front of you is the vanity mirror where you can adjust your hairstyle while you wait.  That IS multi tasking.

Linking Kelly in the bathroom up at:

Upcycled Bathroom Ideas @FunkyJunkInteriors

Summer Linky Party @ThistlewoodFarms
Share Your Creativity @ItsOverflowing

Christmas in July Link Party

 

 Christmas in July  

Link Party Announcement...

It's coming and so is the snow. HA!

Is Christmas the furthest thing from your mind right now?  

Has Bliss lost her every-loving-Winter's-finally-gone mind?  

I mean seriously, we still had snow in May for gosh sakes!

 

But you know me, when I'm invited to a party I go, and I've been invited to spend Christmas in July with Angie @ Knick of Time and Betsy @ My Salvaged Treasures.  So I'm growing out my snowy white beard and fix'n to get my ho, ho, ho going, just to put you in the Christmas mood.

 

The week of July 15th - 20th you can link up on one blog, be visible on all three.  *IMPORTANT*....... 

If you link up you will seem as crazy as me for thinking of Christmas in July and I won't feel alone, we'll be santas in a box together.

Old and new posts are welcome, but come on, get a jump on December and create ahead of time.  Your project could go viral and be the next big thing by the time the rest of blog land is thinking about Christmas.   Like melted snowman heads........

 

 

As I'm loving up your links I'll be pinning them on my Pinterest board and posting them on Facebook as well as bringing the awesome stuff back again in December.  I just won't let a good project, gift idea or food post be forgotten from Christmas in July.

 

And the best part?  All 3 hosts will share their favorite 3-5 links on July 22 , which just so happens to be my birthday.  Ummm hmmmm.  I'll be Plenty-Nine.  Again.  Or I'm having my 20th anniversary of my 35th birthday.  Then again I'm not so good at math that might be wrong.

 

Us hostesses would love it if you'd add the button to your sidebar and help spread the word.  You can even refer to me as Crazy Bliss if you want, but be kind to Angie and Betsy.

 

Here is the button again in case you wanted to take another gander at it.  

When it's hot outside come in to Christmas in July and get your holiday spirit moving.

Projects, gifts or yummies now.... link in a couple weeks.

Supervising Rock and Mulch Moving

Lest you think I have been lying around for over a week doing nothing......

I'll have you know if need be I can supervise just about any project very well thank you, from one of the windows in the house.

I've. Done. Nothing.

But supervise that is.

I did plant some plants in the buckets I've been collecting.
Those are now hung from chain along a garage wall in the back yard.

And just like I said I supervised the hanging job from the window.

I think they'll look pretty when they get growing and fill in.   I always forget to water what hangs there, so maybe the extra deep buckets of soil will help these from drying out so fast.

This week the iris are blooming, along with everything else.

  

Spring came s l o w l y here in Minnesota.

The lilac bush below our bedroom window makes the room smell wonderful and this is my first year with blooming peonies bushes.

And this pile of rock in the driveway,
To replace mulch that the chickens scratch in and make a mess........

Turned this area.........

Into this...........

All while I supervised.

Everything but the old metal wheel was already planted there, just in mulch instead of rock.  HA... take THAT chickens, lets see you scratch and make a mess of these rocks!

So the rock pile while not gone yet, is much smaller now.

But then yesterday this arrived on the driveway.........

To re-mulch some areas that didn't get rock.

I will probably supervise the mulch moving too.

And the duckens are getting big.

You have probably heard that Google reader is going away July 1st, so if you have been following Bliss Ranch that way, now is the time to switch.  I would love to have you subscribe via email, or you can click the Bloglovin' box on my sidebar.  Bloglovin' is also a reader, it's the one I use to read blogs too.  I don't want to lose any of you, my followers are the best!

Linked up to:
Summer Inspiration Decor @TownandCountryLiving 
Share Your Creativity @It'sOverflowing

A Raised Panel Door Gets Some Cottage Style

This month's edition of Building With Brawn, exposes what happens when the man gets a wild hair and just up and gives the door a new look.

 

There is no good before & after of this project, and honestly there is just no good photo at all.   I couldn't get it right no matter how hard I tried and I finally just said "whatever"!. 

(Ok, another honestly.... I didn't try too hard).

But I did try hard to at least find a before photo.  I did what any good blogger would do; I looked through nine-million-nine-hundred-ninety-nine-thousand photos to find one that had a glimpse of a before.

Before the dawn of time

Here is your before photo.  Yes those are ghost heads, you got a problem with that?  Look beyond their felt eye sockets and you will see the yellow-ish (mostly ish) door and the wood trim.

I don't know what happened, the door used to be stained a walnut color, and along the way it was painted.  It had been that way for quite a few years, well minus the ghosts, waiting for time, inspiration, or money.

Apparently inspiration arrived after Brawn made the grooves in the plain flat lazy Suzan project and wondered if he could do that to the door.

Groovy Grooves

The door and trim had already been painted white when inspiration hit him to start groove'n up the door panels.  

Brawn reasoned if his plan didn't work, then we'd have to get a new door.

When I finally grabbed the camera the transformation was well under way and I spent the time I should of been taking step by step pictures, interrogating Brawn on what he was doing.

This man formally had a thick full head of curly blond hair

Basically he made himself a straight line track to follow and took the router to the door, cutting grooves in each panel as well as the panels in the sidelites.  When done, he went back and sanded inside each groove till it was smooth. 

It was finished with another coat of white paint, and we ended up with a front door that has a bit of cottage charm for which we spent a big fat ZERO cash on.

The grooves are hard to see in the full door photos, but in person they are noticeable.  It's known as bad photography.

Sorry, weirdly colored over exposed spots on these.  Maybe it was the ghosts?

I like how the groovy door looks with the rocks. 

The last thing to complete the project will be to forge a nice black knob back-plate and buy some cottage style hardware which will include some sort of hinge straps.   I added that to the never ending list and then I will maybe put some effort into a decent full view photo.  

Maybe.

Linking the Door Redo At:
Catch as Catch Can @MyRepurposedLife 
Link Party with Karen @Redoux

Savvy Southern Style Wow Us Wednesday
Time to Sparkle @TheGunnySack 
Knick of Time Tuesdays 
Project Inspired @Cupcakes & Crinoline 
Trash to Treasure Tuesday @KammysKorner 
Make It Pretty Monday @TheDedicatedHouse 
Make the Scene Monday @AlderberryHill 
It's Party Time @ThreeMangoSeeds 
Creative Inspirations @EmbracingChange 
Tutorials Tips and Tidbits @StoneGable 
Made You Look @MadeInADay

The Door Redo Featured at:
Made you Look Link Party with Kim @ MadeInADay