There use to be a half walled arched opening that partially enclosed my office.
The office is in the very center of the house. On the way to the kitchen for an afternoon snack you pass by the office. Enter the living room and you walk by the office. Walk to the bedroom at the end of the night and you walk past the office. You get the point. Because of the large gaping hole in the wall every time I passed by the office I stopped to check my work. Well that makes for an unhappy husband and a stressed out wife working way too many hours. So we decided we needed to build a wall.
We move quickly on projects. Once we had a plan of building the wall we were out searching for cool ways to enclose the office. On one trip to the Habitat for Humanity Restore we found a beautiful, solid wood, arched door. A real coo at the Restore. The next step was to build the frame of the wall. Steven had just watched an episode on DIY Network where they build an arched door frame. He worked very hard sanding and cutting until he had his first ever door arch completed. The wall was built with see through cubbies where we could put more books. Once we had it filled with books the frame and wall would be solid.
That was our first attempt at the wall. Later that evening we tore down the wall and that masterpiece of an arch that Steven designed.
"I have not failed 1,000 times. I have successfully discovered 1,000 ways not to make a light bulb." - Edison
Thinking cap time!!!
Our paint of choice, well that is spray paint. It is smooth and shiny. Also, we do not have to buy brushes, meaning no brush marks. Only issue is fewer color choices. That is not to say we do not use other types of paint. Every trip to the home improvement store we seek out the 'messed up' paint shelf. This shelf has gallons and quarts of paints that were incorrectly mixed, not necessarily ugly paint, the color just does not work for the original requester.
Okay, back to the spray paint aisle. Usually near the end of a project we find out that we are just a few inches short of paint, so we race to the spray paint aisle. On a regular basis the color we need is sold out. Could be that we purchased all the paint in the hue the last time we visited the store.
Now we enter the paint aisle predicament. Drive to all the stores that sell that brand of paint. Be patient and go back in a few days (this one is totally not going to happen). OR find a way to incorporate an additional color. Fast forward to the last option. Steven and I usually agree on a second or third paint color but that is not before 'the look.' He looks at me like I am insane. Like why not just pick white or black? Why pick a totally random color? How does purple, bubble gum pink, and lime green go together? You just gave me that same look! Didn't you?! I promise it works. He agrees to purchase the paint. We go home and spray away. Then we notice at the end of the project, just before the sun goes down that the view we have is of a stately green Saguaro framed by the most beautiful Arizona sunset. Some how our project matches our scenic view.
Now that the outlet was up and running it was time to think of the perfect welding project! I had a burning fire within to get that electricity and gas flowing. We had a need for a mailbox but we did not want just an ordinary mailbox. It had to be kookie. On one fateful drive up to Flagstaff we found the holy grail of bicycle cemeteries.
In Rye, Arizona there is a rickety wooden sign that just says 'All Bikes.' Sounds right up our alley. The owner of the salvage yard looked like a greasy Santa Claus and smelled like the city dump. Well the dump actually smells better. Then and there Santa pulled out an old rusted steel bike frame and fork. This was quite the find as steel bikes are not prevalent anymore. I felt like I was at the north pole, searching for the elves, but it was 100 degrees out. I knew I had my mailbox stand.
A few degrees cooler and a few months later we pulled out the Lincoln and went at it. Steven, who has never welded kept turning around afraid something catastrophic was about to occur. The end product, THE MOST AMAZINGIST MAILBOX ON THE BLOCK! Yea, I know the neighbors are jealous!
After a series of welding classes I was gung ho about MIG welding. For Christmas I got a Lincoln with all the protective gear. I was ready to weld in the comfort of my driveway. My hopes and dreams were crushed when I was schooled by Steven on the 220 outlet.
Well Christmas came again in July when Steven installed the outlet. Our goal during installation: Survive potential electrocution and heat stroke. Installing a 220 outlet in July was not one of our brightest moves. Turning off the electricity and thus the air conditioning in Arizona during the month of July was a sacrifice I was willing to make. Too bad I was not willing to sacrifice welding in the scorching heat. Guess I just had to hold of for the time being.
ymoon and instead buy our dream house. It was the right timing as the house was a family members who had recently passed. I said it was our dream house but it was far from perfect. It was a great base and we knew with a lot of work we could make it special and most importantly a reflection of who we are. I agreed to buy the fixer upper and made my wife promise she would not push renovations, and we would take our time fixing up our fixer upper. Well it has been eighteen months and over 20,000 dollars and we are not going slow but I am starting to love the house. We still have a long way to go but we want to show off our space. We will continually update this with posts of what we have done and what we are doing.