One Last Birthday Craft with The Best Sister Ever

Painting our garden poles was a ton of fun, but I had one other craft I was determined to complete on Sister Craft Day. The week before, when I put out the new round bale of hay for the horses, I found some barbed wire sticking out of it and pulled it out. I threw the barbed wire away and put it out of mind.

However, a couple of days later, Jay and I were at an antique mall and I happened to see a coil of rusty barbed wire that instantly made me think of a wreath. Then ... my brain made the connection between the coil of barbed wire in the antique mall and the length of barbed wire I'd just thrown in the dumpster a couple of days earlier and I knew I had to make a barbed wire wreath for the outhouse.

I went dumpster diving when we got home, pulled the barbed wire out, and cut away all of the hay net that had gotten tangled in the barbs. Jay was kind enough to coil it while I looked up pictures for inspiration on Pinterest. One of the pictures showed a horseshoe in the middle of the wreath, and I remembered I had an old rusty horseshoe that we'd found in the yard this spring. Since we don't shoe our horses, I knew that it was old and had to have come from a horse other than ours. I held onto it to put on Maggie's door, but knew it had to go into the wreath instead.

Barbed wire from our hay bale,
horseshoe from our yard.

When we were finished with our garden poles, Nebalee helped me wire some silk flowers to the wreath, which was surprisingly more difficult than I expected it to be. 

It's rather minimalist, but I love it.

Putting it up on the outhouse was one of the many "little" chores I had lined up for the next day, and I wanted to see it on the outhouse so badly that it jumped to the top of my to-do list and I knocked it out first thing Sunday morning.

Just ignore my finger.

I love it, but I might add some more greenery to it at some point. Or maybe not, it depends on how badly I want to risk tetanus. Either way, I love it on the outhouse door. Once it cools down, Mom and I are going to use stencils to paint flowers around the base of the outhouse to liven it up a little bit.

Birthday Crafts with The Best Sister Ever

Birthday #54 was last week, and I was traveling for work, so it was pretty low-key. Nebalee and I had planned a craft day for the Saturday after my birthday, and I was so excited about it. She and I don't spend nearly enough time together any more. A couple of years ago, we were doing monthly 5 and 10k, but life keeps getting in the way. The fact that we both love and enjoy spending time with our significant others is a hindrance, too. 

We had planned to make butterfly baths out of terracotta pots, but that became cost prohibitive very quickly, so Nebalee came up with an alternative craft - making garden totem poles. I looked at Pinterest for a few ideas and was pretty overwhelmed. I love me some crafts, but I'm not super creative or artsy. I do best when I can look at a few ideas and steal them to make my own, so that's what I did.

Our "practice" beam on the left.

I tried, and failed, to paint flowers
so I made Nebalee paint them for me.

Nebalee's flowers.

I wish I'd thought to do my flowers like this!

I'm always hashtagging my pictures
#WeLiveInAPostcard so it had to
go on the post.

After I saw Nebalee's dragonflies,
I made her add one to the flowers I'd 
previously made her paint.

Side-by-side. Mine is taller because I had to
sink it securely in the ground. I don't need the
wind treating this like the outhouse.

#BestSisterEver and I with our completed posts.

We planted hers in her butterfly garden.

This was such a fun craft! While I was initially overwhelmed with possibilities, once I settled down and decided to simplify the post, things went much better. Right at the very beginning, I had a thought of painting vines to wrap around each side, but I didn't like the way they turned out. You know what the beauty of painting is? If you hate it, you can just paint over it. So I did, and ended up with lady bugs, bumblebees, flowers, and our hashtag. Every bit of my garden pole makes me smile. 

I was determined to get my garden post planted right away, so the next morning I pulled out the auger and got to work. It's scary how fast I'm getting with the auger - it no longer intimidates me, so it's no big deal to just pull it out and dig a hole. Jay did come out to help me with the last couple of inches - I'm not quite tall enough to get the leverage over the top to dig down as far as I need sometimes. This was one of those cases, and when I saw all of the shale dust come out of the hole I understood why I came to a standstill with my hole digging.

I decided to plant my garden pole at the end of my newest arch. The arch was supposed to support the watermelon I planted. Unfortunately, my watermelon plants didn't make it. I may have been a little over-confident in my growing abilities this year.

After Jay helped me dig the hole deep enough, he broke up the flagstone for under my little arch, and helped me move my antique school bench from Whimsy to the archway. This was another one of those "it'll just take a minute" projects that sits and sits. With his help, it did take just a minute, and I'm thrilled with how it turned out. This fall, I'll sprinkle some creeping thyme seeds in between the flagstone to germinate over the winter.

Just picture this next year with some sort of climbing edible plant.

The Bionic Cowgirl and I took a moment to enjoy
the new seating area.

The Outhouse Conclusion (I hope!)

I mentioned in my last outhouse post that it had to be ready to go for an event we were hosting on Saturday. So, of course, that meant that I'd put off doing any actual real work on it until Friday and Saturday. Such is the life of a procrastinator. 

I only had to work a half day on Friday, and I had grand plans of checking the anchors, resetting them if need be, and getting everything set up and ready to go. What I did instead was take the prints I'd picked up from ARC last fall, and went into town to find some "cheap" frames and mats. I paid $1.99/each for the prints, and spent over $50 on supplies to frame them myself. Typical.

Then I came home and took a nap. Peak procrastination right there! After nap time, I did get the prints matted, framed, and put up in the outhouse. I think they're perfect for it, and breaks up the brown OSB walls a bit.

I love the lantern with the print.

The print on the other side.

I felt pretty good about my "progress" on the outhouse and spent time hanging out in the Whimsical Treehouse with Diana and Pina before calling it a day. Whimsy did have a surprise for me - there are two toads living in there. I know one is living in Diana's straw mulch, and I think the other one came up from under the weed barrier, but I'm not 100% sure. I'll post a Diana the Pomegranate update soon - she's doing great!

By Saturday morning, I knew I had to do what I was dreading. I had to go pull on the anchors to see if the concrete had set correctly, and if not, I'd have to pull the anchors and do it all over again. In my gut, I just knew that I'd have to re-set the anchors, and I was right. It took next to no pressure to pull two of the four right out of the ground. Grrr. I was lucky that we hadn't had any significant wind since Mom and I sank the anchors on Monday.

Jay helped me auger out the holes, which we made a bit deeper so the anchors would sit flush, and I filled each hole with concrete instead of just mixing it with dirt. He also suggested crossing the rachet straps - running one from the front of the outhouse to the back anchor, and vice versa - to give it more stability. In order to do so, I had to change out my straps, but I feel like it's much more stable with them crossed as he suggested. 

You can see how I've crossed the ratchet straps from front to back.

Should I have just sunk actual posts at each corner of the outhouse and secured it that way? Yes. Why didn't I? I wanted to be able to move it, if necessary. I never factored in the wind knocking it over b.s. that's been going on.

It gets dark out where we live, though not as dark as it used to thanks to all of the urban sprawl. However, out at the edge of the property, it's dark and I didn't want anyone tripping over the anchors, so I had the brilliant idea of wrapping the front ratchet straps with solar powered fairy lights.

Here's the thing about fairy lights. I love 'em, once they're strung up. But, good gods do I despise stringing them. It's like detangling fishing line with permanent knots where the little LED lights are. It took me two hours to string the lights. Two hours! When I was done, I told Jay that I felt like the outhouse was going to look like Beetlejuice's place with the big flashing sign over it.

I'm not going to lie, if I leave the fairy lights on "flashing" mode, it does kind of look like Beetlejuice's sign, but overall, I'm pleased with the way it turned out. 

Back in Part 1, I mentioned that I'd found a chamber pot-style set up for the outhouse. It was really low to the ground, so low, it was almost a squat pot. I built a platform for it to bring it up to normal toilet height. It's not a pretty platform, but it'll do. At some point, I will probably stain them both to match and look less discrete. The original outhouse had a chemical toilet, but after researching how to clean it, and realizing I'd have to take it into the house and flush it down the toilet, I opted out. Instead, I found some camping toilet liners and an additive to turn the contents into a compostable gel. I'm not composting human waste in my yard, but I don't feel bad about putting the compostable liner and gunk into the dumpster to compost at the landfill. 

If you look closely on the right side of the picture, you'll see Bill's toilet paper holder. He was super proud of himself for using an old curb bit and curb strap as the toilet paper holder. He went the practical route and used a nylon curb strap, but I might change it to a leather one in the future, just to keep with the old west vibe.

Being knocked over the last time had screwed up the door latch again, so I changed it out to a hook and eye lock on the inside. I figure if - God forbid - the wind blows it over again, the hook and eye lock is more forgiving if the door shifts again.

Finally, after hours spent doing everything I'd procrastinated, the outhouse was ready for its debut. The next step is getting everyone trained to use it instead of traipsing through the house. I heard no complaints from the people who did use it, and clean up the next morning was a breeze.

There's still a bit of a "Beetlejuice" vibe, but I'm happy with
the way it turned out.

The Outhouse, Part 3

Let's see, where'd we leave off? Oh, yes, Mom and I ripped the old roof off an replaced it with a lighter weight piece of tin. My intention was to get some wood glue and glue up the crack before we stood the outhouse back up, but I blinked and it's two weeks later. The outhouse has to be up and functional by this coming Saturday. We're hosting Dinner and an Outdoor Movie, and unless I want to scrub my house from top to bottom, this outhouse has to be functional. Let's be honest, in the time it has taken me to futz around with the outhouse, I could have had my house deep-cleaned, but being outside is way more fun.

Yesterday, during Mom Monday, the Bionic Cowgirl and I got to work. I had failed to get wood glue, so patching the wall didn't happen. What did happen is that we stood the outhouse back up, and rotated it 90 degrees, so that the door opens to the south now. It was cute with the door opening to the west, as it overlooked the property, but with it opening to the south, the angle of the roof should cut down on some of the wind damage.

The crack in the wall is barely
noticeable.

No, the tin roof isn't square, but that's because the outhouse isn't square. It matches Maggie, with her roof on at a jaunty angle. Once we got it situated and mostly level, we brought out the auger and dug holes for the anchors. I had purchased some cool screw-in anchors previously, but our ground is too rocky for them to screw in. Last night's plan was to use the auger to dig the holes for each anchor, back fill it with dirt and concrete, then attach ratchet straps from the anchors to points on the outhouse.

The ground is so rocky that even the auger had trouble getting through, so we have a couple of anchor points that are not flush with the ground. We finally got the anchors in, added water to the mix of dirt and concrete, then went in the house for dinner while it cured.

When we came back out to attach the ratchet straps, Mom realized that I hadn't taken into consideration the length of the ratchet straps, and two of them were too short to reach from the ground anchor to the anchors I'd screwed into the outhouse, near the roof line. Oops. I moved the outhouse anchors down about a foot and a half on the backside, which made the distance just enough for the ratchet straps to reach.

Oy, the anchor straps are ugly.

I really hate the anchor system, and will likely end up just sinking actual posts in the future, but this will do for now. I've ordered some solar fairy lights to wrap around the front two anchor straps so no one trips and kills themselves this weekend. I've been told that hollyhocks are the official flowers of outhouses and I should plant some near. That would be cool, except that there's not a good water source nearby (unless the ditch is running, and it isn't yet). I'd love to do something to "pretty" it up, but I think that's a next summer problem. You know, if these anchors hold and the damn thing doesn't fall over again!

The one thing I did for the outhouse that I love, is that I turned an old lantern into a light. Originally, I just had a bare light bulb hanging in there. Mom and I were talking about how to dress it up, and she said an old lantern would be cool. The next time she came down, she brought one with her. 

I took out the kerosene tank and wick, and replaced it with the solar light bulb. I had to do some crazy crafting with E6000 glue to pull it all together, but I'm pleased with the way it turned out.

I have a couple of pictures to frame for the inside of the outhouse, and I'm sure there's a bit more decorating I could do to make it cute, but for right now it's upright and functional and that's all I can ask for.