Mother Nature is a Cruel Mistress

The first week of June a little storm blew in, as happens in these parts on June afternoons.

I rounded up the kids from outside and told them to throw their toys in the garage, anticipating that they'd be out playing again in a few. After all, one of Denver's mottos is "if you don't like the weather, wait ten minutes."

Peter arrived home unexpectedly early, just as the first big fat raindrops started splatting on the ground, so he parked in the driveway and helped me grab the trashcans that were out for trash day so they wouldn't wash away. Then we ducked inside amidst peals of thunder to get a little work done in the basement office. As nature would have it, though, we weren't about to get any work done. It started with a few little clinks, and I saw some bits of hail landing in the basement window well--nothing new, since we usually get one or two good ringers each summer. But soon the clinks became big, loud, heavy clunks. We ultimately joined the kids at the window to watch the full beat down, which looked like this:

It lasted for a good 30-40 minutes, and we cringed as the gumball-sized hail pummeled Peter's car. I'll admit that I was just as distraught thinking about the little baby peachlings that I've invested so much care and concern in this year, despite the fact that we've done nothing to actually make the tree bear fruit besides turn on the sprinkler system and pay the water bill. It looks like we'll still get a few peaches, but the majority were damaged or pelted to the ground where they met their sorry end.

Poor little peachlings.

When all was said and done and the storm had passed, it looked like a day of reckoning outside. Our deck cover for our patio set was shredded along with our window screens, and the trees and plants were trashed.

Later, we discovered strike marks from the hail all over our exterior paint, and inside we also had a nice corner of drywall which now looks like this from floor to ceiling:

It was damp to the touch, with the water damage clearly having warped and discolored the floor, too. So we decided to put in an insurance claim and were shocked that they came back with over $20k in house damage needing to be repaired, some of which we didn't even realize was there. Come to find out, our old neighborhood barely three miles away was at the epicenter of this storm and sustained even worse damage -- one friend told me they had over $38k in damage, and every single house for miles was affected.

Homes in our old neighborhood - some were totally defaced, like these with completely decimated shutters.

Basically, our little town is going to be on big construction site for the summer. Hopefully we saw the worst of the summer storms, or if there's another it will hit before the renovations start! Here are the repairs we'll be spending our summer orchestrating:

• complete roof replacement
• new paint for the exterior of the house
• power washing/re-staining the entire fence due to surface damage
• same for the deck
• a new main floor picture window due to damage to the outer seal (which would turn into another drywall/leak problem as pictured above if not fixed)
• opening up the living room wall, checking/treating for mold, replacing drywall, and re-painting the room - which in our open-concept home will be half of the entire first floor
• repairing a small portion of hardwood floor from the same water damage, and because it's impossible to match hardwood stain, all of the adjacent wood flooring needs to be refinished and re-stained. Well, that "adjacent flooring" flows without a single break throughout our entire first floor, so moving literally all of the first floor in order to refinish it is going to get really interesting... 
• Oh, right and Peter's car with all its hail dents and need for a new windshield is its own claim.

Checking out the roof.

While it sounds nice in some ways to be getting all these fixes out of one lousy storm, it's accompanied by a nice deductible and, I'm sure, will end up being a source of frustration since we didn't exactly plan to set aside our whole summer (and potentially fall) for a bunch of renovations. So we're buckling in for the ride.

- - -

Another sad fallout of this storm was its affect on our next-door "neighbors," a red-tailed hawk family who had been nesting in our friends' big grand cottonwood tree next door for some months. Our neighbor said it looked like the bottom of the nest might have been compromised after the hail, and a few days later we also saw some tiny birds continually diving at the hawks in the air and near their nest in the tree (presumably because they felt threatened by the hawks).

Little birds chasing the poor, majestic hawks.

Our neighbors found the nest on the ground the next day, with two little injured fledglings that couldn't fly yet on the ground. They were able to get wildlife rescue on the scene pretty quickly, who took the injured fledglings to hopefully recover since they wouldn't have made it on their own.

It's destroyed my mama heart to see the hawks circling and screeching in the following days, looking for their lost babies. It's been a real tragedy of sorts in the neighborhood -- especially for our next door neighbors who shared their territory so closely with the hawk family, and our neighbor across the street who has recently become a pretty serious birdwatcher and passed her love and knowledge on to all the kids. There is some hope, though. Though the one baby hawk didn't make it, we learned yesterday that the other, which our neighbor friends named Nari, seems to be doing well and has been placed with a foster mom, another red-tailed hawk, who is taking good care of her. Hopefully in a few months she will be able to be released back into the wild and live on to a happy outcome of adulthood, even though mama and papa bird are at a sad, sad loss.

Sweet little Nari - picture courtesy of our neighbor.

In the end, despite the headaches and major renovations, we are still lucky for numerous reasons...we're lucky that around here, Mother Nature usually graces us with more beauty than destruction, that the storm didn't turn into something worse like a tornado, and that we didn't have any flooding. And I'm certain both mama and papa hawk would agree that we are beyond lucky to have our whole family safe, sound, and under one [leaky but fixable] roof!

God's Country

We've had a bit of a heat wave going lately, and with temperatures forecasted to reach 100 degrees on Father's Day, we decided to escape to the mountains after church. We wanted to try someplace new but still close (ha) so we headed to the Lost Creek Wilderness area in Pike National Forest, which is the northernmost part of the national forest that houses Pike's Peak. It ended up being the perfect way to celebrate our favorite Colorado husband/dad.

It took an hour longer than expected to get there; we knew we'd be taking back roads, but it turns out that over half of the state "highways" were actually dirt roads. Fun. But even before we reached the trailhead, it was clearly well worth the tedious drive. We entered the wilderness through the Hayman Burn Area; at first we thought this was the same wildfire area that we had been able to see burning from our house four years ago. But upon further research, we found it was the remnants of the Hayman Fire in 2002--the largest wildfire to date in CO. Ironically, despite living in Pennsylvania then, I was also in the area for that fire. I happened be a wee high schooler attending diving camp at the Air Force Academy that year, and I still remember writing about the fire (and sadly the arsonist who started it) in my journal.

Long story short though, the entire area was absolutely striking. No words or pictures can really do it justice. There were so many types of diverse beauty in one landscape. The burnt skeletons of trees set against the deep blue sky, covering hill after hill in stark but never-ending views, while on the ground a lush green carpet stretched as far as the eye could see, made up of baby pines and shrubs and wildflowers that made their happy debut post-wildfire, bringing life back to the region. There were multitudes of fascinating rock formations and rugged peaks, bubbling brooks lined by tall, shady pine forests in the lowlands between passes where the fire hadn't reached, and exposed red earth along the trails and creek banks.

The trail itself wasn't all that crowded, although we arrived late in the day, but we did see a few backpackers that were making multi-day trips. It looked like the perfect area for backpacking and made both Peter and I want to jump on that bandwagon stat!

On the way to and from, we also drove along the "mighty" Platte River where we saw many a happy camper tubing down the lazy river. Definitely something we'd like to try soon as a family. Best of all, we had no cell service for nearly the entire trip. Maybe not so great for multiple days on end, but it was such a treat to escape from the world so completely, if only for an afternoon. 

It was all hauntingly, peacefully, soul-satisfyingly beautiful--truly God's country, and we will absolutely be back.  

  

Sheep Rock - looks like a fun climb.

\

At the trailhead.

Panoramic views.

Beautiful wildflowers all along the trail

Snack break at the creek.

Fording the creek.

Log bridge

The cool, piney forest along the creek.

Exploring

(Bouncy) Beam challenge

You can take the girl out of gymnastics...

Endings and beginnings

Leaving the trail

More cool rocks on the drive.

The mighty Platte.

If you can't beat 'em...join 'em!
Though personally I would've preferred "I'll be back!"
Indeed, we will be.

The {Incredibly Long, Drawn Out, But Totally Worth It} Building of a Bench

If I told you three months ago that I'd be sitting here now, on this very bench, writing this, I probably would have said "well, what the heck took ya so long?"

Life, man.

Also wood.
And caulking.
And layers of paint and poly.
And mostly being total amateurs.

But no matter, our truly beautiful window seat is finally finished--and I'm finally writing about it!

----- BEFORE -----

I had to seriously dig for a "before" picture of the breakfast nook. I guess I was subconsciously avoiding documentation of the space because I couldn't handle staring at it--well, more like the worn, sorry, destroyed table--any more than I already had to on a daily basis. The table is also in the works now...also a very long and drawn out process.

Sneak peek!
...don't hold your breath...

But that's another post for another month. Or ten. I digress.

BUILDING

We taped out our bench plan on the floor with a whole lot of eyeballing and very little expertise...

 

Peter built the frame by measuring and cutting and hammering and stuff...

And voila! It looked amazing! Just kidding. It was days upon days of trial and error. I can't pretend to give even a halfway decent recap of his process and I'm not going to try because there are already lots of tutorials out there for this part, but let's just say there was a lot of measuring, cutting, and hammering followed by some tearing apart, re-measuring, re-cutting and hammering, interspersed with buckets of frustration and threatening to just tear it all down because we didn't have the right tools and clearly it just wasn't going to work. Thank goodness he persevered--my hero!

A few things about the building process I can speak relatively intelligently about:

• We had a vent on the floor, so to solve that issue we put an air return on the side of the bench, and in the framing process Peter placed an angled wood panel to direct the air accordingly.
• We studied lots and lots and lots of window seat pictures and pins, and ultimately decided to go with a board and batten style instead of beadboard because it seemed like it would be easier to finish the way we wanted. The style will also carry through best with our board and batten style cabinets that I plan to paint gray (someday) and all the designs we have for our eventual island makeover. 
• We opted against a hinged opening for the bench because that would be way too difficult without the right type of table saw and we didn't need another place to store more junk--we need to get rid of junk. 
• We don't have a nail gun either so each nail was expertly placed by hand. Talk about tedious. But as I'd assumed (and much to his surprise) it all looked great once the last nail was in. 
• Our low windows were a challenge when figuring out molding; there wasn't much space between the top of the bench and the bottom of the window sills, but we still needed something to add the finishing touch and hide the edges and the space between the bench and certain parts of the uneven wall. (Seriously--why are walls so uneven!). Ultimately we found molding that was simple and small enough to fit and cover all the spaces. Peter can tell you all about how fun that was to install. 

The last nail!!!

Then it was my turn to become an 'expert' in filling, caulking, painting, and poly (including learning that there is more than one kind of poly; polyurethane and polycrylic). 

The one thing I could not for the life of me find was a good tutorial on caulking built-in furniture. And there was certainly nothing in my Google search returns about using wood fill for spaces too wide for caulk. So I'll go into a few deets on these...

WOOD FILL

I read in one blog that caulk, like grace, has the magical ability to "cover a multitude of sins." Thankfully, my architect brother-in-law confirmed that it's best if those sins are less than 1/8 inch in width. Otherwise, use wood fill first! 

Even though I knew what I needed, Peter wasn't quite sure what I meant when I sent him to the store for wood fill/composite (hey, at least I remembered something from middle school wood shop even if I can't do the building part like he does!). So the hardware store people sent him home with some patch-n-paint, which was messy and gummy and time consuming, but worked a-ok. If you have a similar project, just make sure it says wood fill/composite, wood putty, etc. Or just do what we do and ask a smart Homeboy Depot guy or gal. 

Lessons learned:

• Have lots of wet paper towels on hand to clean up messes and mistakes quickly.
• It shrinks as it dries, so it's better to overfill and shave off excess if needed with an exacto knife than underfill and have to add more and wait again for it to dry. 
• Be patient.
• But really, it takes awhile. Find a good playlist.
• Be more patient. (It will be worth it!)

Purty, huh?

CAULKING

I read and watched a LOT of tutorials on caulking, but they were specific to tile and baseboards and windowsills, not unfinished wood benches that needed to transition seamlessly to their adjacent walls, so I was a little uncertain of how things would go. Thankfully, turns out this project didn't differ too much from those I studied up on. Most of the same principles applied. When it was time to buy the stuff at the hardware store, I had a caulking gun in hand (like all the tutorials had called for) but the guy pointed me to a squeeze tube of the very caulk I needed and said "this is much easier, just cut the tip and go," thus saving me some money and--to my best knowledge--some time and stress. Though I did get a little carpal tunnel out of the deal. The process itself was simple, albeit time consuming. The best tips I learned from tutorials and along the way:

• A pointer finger with a trimmed nail works way better than that little DAP tool thingie I thought I had to have.
• Water is your friend. Have plenty on hand, and more wet paper towels for mistakes and to wipe off excess caulk.
• Get caulk that is PAINTABLE if you are planning to caulk before painting, not after.
• Caulk shrinks just like wood fill. You might have to do a seam or two (or all of them, ahem) twice. Two tubes of caulk covered the project for me.
• Start with a small cut on the tip of the tube of caulk to control the size of the bead. You can always go bigger but you can't go smaller...

My process was simple. I had a little bowl with dipping water (that one of the kids mistook for a holy water font, ha); I squeezed out a bead of caulk along a seam at a time--or half a seam at a time if it was a really long edge, like the back of the bench--then dipped my finger generously in the water before running it along the line of caulk to smooth it into the corner. Whenever caulk started to build up on my finger, I quickly cleaned it off with a wet paper towel, dipped in the water again, and continued where I left off for a smooth line.


Lessons learned:

• I'm so glad I used the wood fill first based on how much the caulk shrunk after drying. I could've used more in some places; after a few weeks of use the bench does have one split in the paint along a seam where I didn't fill/caulk enough, which I'll have to re-do. 
• Caulking over the nails before painting was key. I caulked both over nails that stuck out to smooth the edges and ones that were driven in to fill the nail hole/little divet that was left.

PAINTING AND SEALING

After caulking, it was time to paint. From the moment we considered this bench I knew I would have to do this part right. Being in an eating area and at the mercy of three kids, I knew it would have to withstand a load of abuse, and be as well-sealed and wipeable as possible. 

In the end, I primed one coat, painted two coats, and used four coats of poly. 

Primed & ready for paint

Lessons learned:

• Poly does not roll on well; use a brush (learned after the first coat). Though poly dries clear, you can still see the brush strokes (learned after the second coat), so brush in the natural direction of the grain, not the easiest direction.  
• After researching, I chose polycrylic over the paint versus polyurethane, because I read that while polyurethane is great over wood stain, it has an oil base which can yellow over time. Not really a problem with wood, but over paint, especially white paint, it can be very visible. Polycrylic, on the other hand, is water-based and doesn't yellow, and is therefore a better choice when sealing paint. *THE MORE YOU KNOW*.

And that, my friends, is the very long and drawn out (but totally worth it) explanation of how we got to this, the after--or maybe you just scrolled right to it like I would:

----- AFTER -----

  

It's already our favorite place, and I have no doubt that it will continue to be for many, many years to come. 

Ninjas taking a break between chores for some...
meditation...? Or something. And giving
me a break post painting and pre-polying!

The great thing about finishing something meant to
sit on...you can finally sit. Slash collapse. Forever.