siding: the sequel

We spent part of the weekend finishing up the siding and cedar shakes on the sides of the studio building. It's been in progress for a long time coming, and I'm happy to say the end is in sight (knock on cedar).

The siding is cement fiber board lap siding, the same stuff we used on our house. It also matches the cedar plank siding on the tool shed. Both of those buildings are painted yellow with MetroPaint Sweet Corn (which, by the way, is nowhere near as bright as the screen displays it on their color chart, thank goodness). The studio's siding hasn't been painted yet; it came primed this yellow-ish color.

The cedar shakes at the top have a fun history on our property; they came with our cedar shed kit as roofing material, which wasn't going to work for us, longevity-wise. We used some to shake the roof peak on the west side of the studio. We used some more to side a playhouse, which was later disassembled for being a spider haven. Those were repurposed here when we finally got around to adding shakes to the east side roof peak yesterday afternoon.  Thank goodness for nice weather and a weekend coinciding in the PNW in September.

And here's the west side, behind a garden-gone-wild at summer's end. This side, too, only recently got the lap board siding (over this past summer, and finishing up Saturday night), but it's had the cedar detail for awhile.

Here it is when it was fresh!

How long ago, you might ask? Answer.

Oh man, we're so close. Just a couple of boards on the front and some caulk and paint, and all three structures will match. It's going to be freaking AMAZING.

Thanks for reading!

out in the yard

We've been planting up a bunch of succulents in a collection of random planters out back. I like their drought tolerance, although the no-rain season here in the Northwest always comes kinda late. When it hits, I always lose plants, especially when I plant in planters. Hopefully, planting these guys will cure that problem.

The grass is a little long here; I photographed this area before the first mow of the season (I don't like to mow when the grass is wet because it dulls the blade more quickly and clogs the underside of the mower). Also, a lot of the grass isn't grass anymore; we seeded a bunch of clover and, as happens every year, the dandelions just volunteer.

You can spy a little of our next planting project in this one; the little nursery pots in the background are seeded with grey stripe sunflower seeds and rouge vif d'etampes pumpkins (the Cinderella-looking ones found here).

And, because we've had a spate of decent weather lately, we actually got out and resumed our siding project on the studio walls. I doubt you'll remember this entry from 2008, when we did the cedar shingles at the peak. Yeah, so the studio's just been sitting there in all its tar-papered glory, looking more and more stupid as we've sided and painted the house, and put in the patio, and built the garden beds . . .  I'm super-excited to have gotten this side, plus the entire back and most of the other side done in one weekend. Since this time, we've also finished more than half of the front. Just a little more work to do, and it'll finally match the house and the shed! I'm pretty happy to be able to get this crossed off our list. It's been a long time coming.

Again, the lawn hadn't been mowed yet, and the raised beds hadn't been weeded, but I'm going to wait to show you those updates when I show you more of this in a couple of days . . . 

Because by some luck, I built the whole thing in a couple of afternoons in the backyard, just in time for the spring Pinterest Challenge over at Young House Love and Bower Power. And I'm looking forward to sharing it with you.

This spring is a strange one. Outside, so many things are just beginning, springing to new life. Yesterday, though, a friend and adviser passed away suddenly. It feels out of sync, and unreal in such a green season. He's already so missed from this world.

Thanks for reading. 

a trip to the pumpkin farm and another beautiful thing

Something beautiful we did with our four hands . . .

and a trip to the pumpkin farm . . .