The last few days of February were so lovely, and, as you know, I'm definitely feeling the spring bug. There were a couple of things that I wanted to get done while I had time and the weather was nice. With plans to start our seeds tomorrow, I had to get the pass-thru drilled for the extension cord. Additionally, I wanted to finish building and installing my flower boxes.
I've never drilled a big hole in a wall before, so it took me some time and research to figure out what I needed and gather it all. I bought the hole borer/cup-thingy, but didn't realize I needed the guide drill as well. Then, I realized that the wall that I needed to cut through was thicker than my drilly-hole-makey thing, so I decided to get a long drill bit to drill a pilot hole all the way through so I could make sure that the holes I drilled from each side would line up.
In theory, it was a good idea. In practice, well, it would have been a great idea if I'd drilled my pilot hole exactly parallel to the ground, but I failed to do so. I drilled the first hole from the outside of the building to the inside, as far as I could, then I handed off the drill to Jay to drill from the inside to the outside.
I'd managed to drill my pilot hole straight through at enough of an angle that the holes were off by ... a bit. Jay took after it again, and was able to connect the two holes. The result was that the outside hole was bigger than the inside one. Oops. Never fear! GunDiva is a do-er, as we well know, so I found the little crescent moon shaped piece of wall and wood glued it back into place, making the holes mostly match in size.
Then, I took a bit of PVC pipe and threaded it through the hole, creating the pass-thru. Jay caulked around the pipe on both sizes to keep it in place.
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| Inside Maggie. |
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| Outside. You can see where I glued the piece in place. I'll hit it with some more paint, and it'll be less noticeable. |
Now, when we need power to the Magical Potting Shed, we can remove the caps and run an extension hose through to provide power.
With that done, I set about building the flower boxes out of scrap wood we had laying around. Using scrap wood means that the flower boxes won't be identical, but they'll be close enough. Really, once the flowers are in and growing, it won't matter if the boxes match or not. They're approximately 40"x40" each, and I'm already panicking that they won't be big enough to grow all the flowers I bought. lol.
I also 'planted' my birdcage trellises, and secured them to Maggie's outer wall, in an effort to keep the winds from relocating them to the corn field south of us.
I laid a couple layers of cardboard down as weed barrier, and will fill the boxes with fertilizer and garden soil in the next couple of weeks. The school desk will get refinished and painted shimmery black to match the plant stands on the left, but I'll paint the metal legs silver, so it won't be quite such a black hole. L.E. likes to sit on that chair, so I'll put a flagstone stepping stone in there as a step/foot rest between the flowers.
I had intended to build smaller flower boxes out of old pallets around the base of the archway for the sweet peas, but saw a better (read: easier/lazier) idea online to use cinderblocks turned so that the holes are facing upward. Just fill the holes with soil and plant. We just happen to have a few old cinderblocks laying around the property that I can use for the project.
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Last weekend, I feel like I got a lot accomplished, but I still wasn't quite ready to start seeds tomorrow. Last night, after circus, I headed out to Maggie to get the radiant heater and timer set up. The pass-thru worked perfectly! Tonight, after work, I'll go mount the surge protector outlet on the wall, so that we'll have a secure place to plug in our supplemental grow lights. There's also a bit of rearranging that needs to be done, but that will take 30 seconds to do.
The solar light chandelier that I made last summer lit up the space beautifully, and the radiant heater made it so cozy in there. I had to get some soil packed up for my sister, and as I was doing so, I was reflecting on how lovely, and, yes, magical, Maggie is.
Tomorrow afternoon, L.E. and I are going to get some seeds started and I can't wait to work in this cozy little spot.
