Back Door Pergola

Here is a picture of my next project. Once my front side yard fence is complete, this will be my next project. It'll take a little of the bright sun rays out, and add a whole lot of style to our otherwise boring back of house. Stay tuned!

7.9.11  I finally finished this project. Just kept getting interrupted! But the interruptions involved my beautiful wife and 3 adorable children, so I guess that's OK. ...So, total project cost was $200 and some change. Difficulty rating...I would give this one a 6. Pretty simple stuff. I used some excellent plans and they were actually very accurate (most wood working plans don't always work out 100%). If you want the plans, email me and I'll send you the link. The project went very well. I used Redwood and a good oil-based Olympic Stain. Definitely suggest you stain this before you hang it. One flaw of the plans is that is calls for 3.5" by 3/8" lags for bolting to wall. These stripped out for me and I ended up using 3.5" stainless steel screws to fasten brackets to the wall.
We love this. Our deck was boring and the back of our house looked so bland. This trellis adds a nice architectural element to the back of our home...and I guess it provides a little shade as well.

Privacy Fence

I think most of us would agree that the quality of the relationship we have with our neighbors is in direct correlation with the quality of our fence. No "o-fence" intended neighbors, but I know you agree, because my house is the only home in the neighborhood without a complete fence around my backyard. Well, I intend to fix that this spring. Watch as I post before, during, and after pictures along with the details of this experience. I'm going to try out an auger for digging my post holes. I'm also going to try to make 155' of fence with my impossible budget of just $1,500! We'll see if I can do it.

4.4.2011. Privacy Fence Update:
Ok, so i explored a myriad of 6'privacy fence options. My cheapest option was cedar. The best pricing I could come up with for 155 feet, was approximately $1,800.00. I also found vinyl fencing for $2,000.00. For the extra $200, the vinyl option is what I am going with. The pros of Vinyl over Cedar are: faster install, matches my side yard fencing, no maintenance, if the sprinklers hit it, it's not going to bother me as much. The cons, I like cedar because I can change the color simply by staining it, and I think a good solid cedar fence just looks so much better than vinyl. I just felt that for my first fence job, the vinyl would turn out better. So much for my $1,500.00 budget. With tax I'm already at $2,200.00. Add another $80 for post hole digger rental, and $120.00 for cement post mix. I figure I'm still saving about $600.00 on install costs. Well worth it for me--especially because I love a project like this! Stay tuned as I share my post hole digging experiences and the setting of my posts. Later I'll share the details of who I purchased this product from.
4.16.2011. The fence is finished. Pretty easy project overall. I rented a post hole digger from HomeDepot. Money well spent. Of course there will still be plenty of digging involved as you clean up your holes and probably make some adjustments to hole sizes--if your measurements are off a bit. Mine were off. Its very nice to have a private back yard. We love it. This is definitely a do-it-yourself project. Not hard at all for guys like us. On a difficulty scale of 1 to 10, I give this project a 5. It just takes some time and effort to make sure you get it straight and level and tight.

Handyman Magazine

Love this magazine. So many useful tips and ideas. I learn several new things each month. This is truly a must have for us handy men. This month's edition has tips on tuning up your utility trailer. If you're like me, you haven't been re-packing those bearings as often as you should, and at least one of the brake lights is not working. Great article in here on how to fix all that stuff.

One man's castle...

I am your typical "dad." Married, 3 kids, a dog, and a house. On Weekdays,  I live for the end of the day---so I can get home, spend time with my family and hopefully fit in a small project around the house. On Thursdays, I begin to look forward to Saturday and begin planning my weekend  project. I guess I'm just like my dad was, and how his dad was, and so on. Its what us "men" do. Women just don't understand, but we have this need to fix or make something. We create! We build! We improve! Don't ask why! Its just what we do! Our home is literally, our Castle, complete with a mote of green grass, a dungeon for entertaining, and stalls for our chariots.

Now, I understand there are some "men" out there that aren't DIY-ers. They are either smarter than the rest of us, or they're just not real men...I haven't decided yet. If you're one of those guys, this blog is NOT for you!

So, I invite you to visit often as I share my own and other's DIY experiences as together we learn new things and "fine tune" our Castles. Check it out while I share things I build, tools I learn about, short-cuts I find. Feel free to share your ideas, too. If they're "worthy" you'll see me add it to the blog!

--Sir Scott, Castle Caretaker