Happy List: #304
Hello! Welcome to this week’s Happy List. I’m absolutely thrilled that you are here. Also, happy early Father’s Day to all the dads, dads-to-be, and father figures out there. I have a fantastic dad and the picture above is me and him when I was a toddler. This week on the blog I shared 10 tips for building an outdoor ping pong table. Ours is getting used every day and I couldn’t be happier about it! We also celebrated our 4 year anniversary of buying this Colonial Farmhouse! Time flies when there’s always something to do around here. Thank you for following along on our journey. In addition, thank you…
Colonial Farmhouse 4 Year Anniversary
Put on your party hats! It’s our 4 year anniversary of buying this Colonial Farmhouse. It was love at first sight when we first toured this old fixer-upper with its leaky roof, overgrown bushes, and smelly carpet. I kid you not about the heart eyes. I’m a sucker for a project. The real estate agent and I toured the house one spring morning. The owner was waiting for us on the front porch, which I did not know because normally owners do not stick around for showings and the bushes were so thick they blocked my view of the porch. Four years later and I’m still hoping I didn’t say…
10 Tips For Building An Outdoor Ping Pong Table Using Cement Board
If you’re thinking about building an outdoor ping pong table using cement board for the top to keep it weather resistant then I have some tips for you! We recently built an outdoor ping pong table and learned a thing or ten along the way that, so far, the collective genius of the internet has not addressed. We hope that our experience building an outdoor ping pong table using cement board will help your build go a little bit easier so that you can get to the fun part – playing ping pong – a little bit faster! By the way, if you’re wondering if the ball bounces well on…
Happy List: #303
Hi! Welcome to today’s Happy List. I’m glad you’re here. This week on the blog I shared the improvement we made to our pool deck. I love when the reality of something we build is better than the idea of the thing. That’s been the case for this section of pool deck. I also shared a very niche solution for a DIY holder for leaf skimmers and other pool maintenance tools. Interestingly enough, my niche solutions often drive the most traffic to my site from Google searches. Thank you for all of your comments, support, likes, shares, etc. here and on social media. If you want to connect with us,…
DIY Pool Maintenance Tool Holder For Leaf Skimmers and Poles
Today, I’m sharing the DIY pool maintenance tool holder we made to store our leaf skimmers and telescoping poles during pool season. Pools are awesome but they also come with a lot of stuff to maintain them. All of those pool maintenance tools need a place to go that’s out of the way but also easily accessible. There are storage options you can buy to hold your leaf skimmer and other telescoping poles, but when you have a problem to solve and loads of scrap wood in your garage, a DIY solution is definitely happening. We made a rack out of wood that attaches to the pool fence that can…
Adding To Our Concrete Pool Deck Ourselves
Patience is not one of my virtues but I did wait almost 4 years for us to add a 5-ft x7-ft section to our concrete pool deck. Yes, we poured that concrete ourselves. I should rename this blog “Gluttons For Punishment.” Another suitable blog name would be “We Like To Save A Buck But Dang That Concrete Is Heavy.” Thankfully, Handy Husband has experience pouring concrete and I’m a decent assistant as long as I’m not required to lift more than a handful of 80-lb. bags of concrete. After that, it is possible that whining occurs. It’s ironic that Handy Husband ran a concrete line pump when we first got…
Memorial Day 2023
Happy Memorial Day to my friends marking this holiday in the U.S. I hope you’ve had a great weekend. There won’t be any new blog posts on the blog this week but don’t worry. I’m sure I’ll be on Instagram or Facebook this week sharing what we’re up to. I’ve also got some things for you to read to tide you over. You can read about how to repurpose a burlap sack into the most patriotic vase cover. There is another patriotic holiday coming up in the U.S., so if this idea inspires you to create something of your own, let me know. I love to live vicariously through your…
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Happy List: #302
Hello! Welcome to this week’s Happy List on the kick-off to the Memorial Day Weekend in the United States. I’m so glad you can spend a few minutes of your day with me. This week on the blog, I shared all the ways I’m lighting things up around here with solar landscaping lights. I also wrote about how the outdoor sofa on our deck came to be and the color scheme I chose. Thank you for all of your comments, support, likes, shares, etc. here and on social media. If you want to connect with us, you can always comment on this blog post or send an email here. You…
Our Deck Is Ready For Summer
It’s almost Memorial Day, the unofficial kick-off to summer in the U.S., and our deck is ready for summer fun! And by fun, I mean eating. I have my priorities. Most of our dinners in the summer are eaten on the deck. Then there are the Double Ds. Drinks and dessert. Those are best enjoyed on the deck in the summer too. We’ll often turn on the party lights and sit on the deck with a drink in hand as the sun goes down and the temperature becomes tolerable pleasant. New Jersey summers are not to be trifled with. They can be hot, humid, and let’s not forget about the…
Solar Landscaping Lights: A Literal Glow Up For Our House
I have a bright idea. Let’s talk lighting today because our Colonial Farmhouse has received a literal glow up with the addition of some solar landscaping lights. One of the perks of living in a rural area without much light pollution is that we can see the stars on a clear night. One of the downsides of living in a rural area without much light pollution is that it’s dark at night. I mean really dark. Dumb ways to die dark. In a ‘better light than never’ decision, I added solar landscaping lights to our, well, landscaping last summer. Every night for almost a year now, I’ve looked out the…
