Progress

Three coats and a light sand between:

And I've managed to change the eBay photo into a format that will work with Blogger. So here's the "Before":

It doesn't show quite how badly weathered it was - some of the joins had opened up, but after three coats of oil, the timber has expanded and closed up the gaps quite a bit. I'm going to leave it (under cover, of course) for six months to allow the oil to really penetrate, then oil it again. After that, a yearly treatment should keep it in good condition.

In case you're wondering what I used....

We're huge fans of the Intergrain range of products. They're water-based, low-odour and Australian made. I used Nature's Timber Oil on this, in a clear finish. It nourishes the timber and brings out the natural colour, but you can get tinted versions as well. It smells strongly of eucalyptus, rather than some of the stinkier products around that smell strongly of mineral oils.

Coming together

I'm slo-o-owly completing my decorating plans. It's quite difficult when you have something (or several somethings) specific in mind though - finding just the right items at a reasonable price can be a challenge.

I've been watching eBay for ages, searching for the perfect carved timber daybed for our alfresco room. I've seen several, but have missed out on them when they've sold for way more than I was prepared to pay. So I was excited last week to win one at a rock-bottom bargain price... even if it did mean a three-hour round trip to collect it.

It was quite badly weathered, having been left outdoors in the sun, rain and wind for a year or so. It's teak, and was originally coated with a clear sealer and intended as an indoor furniture piece. I forgot to take a before photo (d'oh!) and can't get the eBay pic to load either, so this one was taken after I'd sanded and applied one coat of clear oil:

Two more coats of oil should see the timber in pretty good condition, and then a yearly oil after that will keep in in good nick - especially since we'll have it under cover. Then all I need to do is to make a seat pad for it, add some scatter cushions, and we'll have the perfect spot to sit and enjoy a cold drink on summer days.

The test

The bar had its official first run last weekend, with two parties back-to-back and it stood up to the test very well.

Friday night was The Middle Child's 18th birthday party. We put on a BBQ and the bar was a huge hit with the young people. Saturday night was my 50th birthday party and we partied hard as fifty-odd people descended on the alfresco area for finger food, drinks and some live music. I crawled into bed around 3:00am (and I'm still recovering...)

In honour of the special occasion, I added some decorations, expanding on our Balinese theme with temple flags and decorative umbrellas:





The weather had been woeful all week, with heavy rain almost non-stop. So because more thunderstorms were predicted over the weekend, we rushed out and bought an emergency shelter thingy for the bar... which then wasn't needed, since the weather was perfect. Oh well, it was easy to assemble and no doubt it will come in handy for future outdoor parties.











Beats wrestling with poles and so on - this thing just unfolds and when you're finished with it, folds up and goes right back into a smallish bag for storage. Anaconda, people, if you need one....

Anyway, the outdoor area was perfect for both parties - all of the teenagers who were here on Friday night apparently want to move into our house, and the adults on Saturday were very complimentary too. :)

This area will be well used over the summer... I foresee plenty of BBQs and alfresco drinks over the next few weeks.

DIY Outdoor bar

I posted a few photos of our new outdoor bar on Facebook, and both Bike Boy and I have shown them around at work as well. The feedback from women has been very complimentary, but the mens' reactions have unanimously been along the lines of "Wow! Hmm, where could I fit one of those in my back yard?" So I thought I'd share a few details of the construction process, in case anyone cares to have a go at something similar.

I can't take credit for any of this project - it's all the work of my husband, Bike Boy (aka The Mad Brewer). I did contribute one teensy design detail, and do the timber finishing work on the counter top, but the rest was all his hard work.

We had the bulk of our landscaping professionally done in February-March this year. We didn't fancy laying 70-odd square metres of paving, or constructing planter boxes and so on, because we're just too time-poor (and frankly, waaay too old for this crap now. Funny how these things never seemed a big deal when we were in our twenties). Our budget was limited though, so some of the things we wanted to include had to be put into the "do it later" pile. An outdoor bar for our BBQ area was one of those things. But finally, the time had come to do something about that particular project...

The bar was built in two sections - once finished, it was incredibly heavy, so it was easier to build the two pieces of the "L" and then move them into place before joining them up and attaching the counter top, all done using galvanised brackets. I don't have many photos, unfortunately, since I was at work while most of the construction was going on.

The photo below shows the main section. The frame is treated pine, the cladding on the front blueboard (heavy!) and the end piece a sheet of ply. The counter top is made from two pieces of kiln-dried hardwood. Luckily my brother-in-law has mad woodworking skillz (and all the necessary tools) and was able to biscuit-join the pieces, then get busy with his router, to create a nice rounded edge.



The counter top was given two coats of Merbau stain, to match our timber feature screens. Then I got stuck into it with my sandpaper and clear outdoor sealer to give it a beautiful smooth finish that would withstand the weather.



The ply end-piece and some trim strips were also stained to match. You can see the shorter section of the "L" lying on the ground to the right there.



Before attaching the counter tops or any trim pieces, the blueboard was painted with Dulux Acratex, a textured finish that looks like render, but without all the mixing of cement and so on. This is messy stuff to work with! We had it tinted to match our Colorbond Ironstone spouting etc, which is the same colour we had the landscapers use on the rendered section of our feature screen. The render effect was my sole contribution to the design. :)

Nice match:




The inside has space for ice-filled eskies (that's coolers for most of the English-speaking world...), one to hold bottled drinks, and one for a keg of home-brewed beer. There's a spot for the essential gas bottle and a slops bucket, and some shelving will be added to hold glasses at some point in the future.



Brother-in-law came to the rescue again with some stainless steel he had left over from his kitchen renovation, which was used for a small splashback:



I must have done a good job of sealing that timber - it's been raining for days, and look how it's repelling water (be sure to admire the beautiful colour and grain while you're at it):



The built-in beer tap may seem a bit grand to some, but they obviously don't live with a brewing crazy craftsman... At our old place, we had a custom-built shed at the bottom of the yard. As well as providing storage, this was Bike Boy's brewery - he'd salvaged our old laundry sink, kitchen breakfast bar and fridge after we renovated, and had a nice little setup down there. He'd fitted a Guinness tap to the door of the fridge and kept his kegs in there. He actually drilled a hole through the side of the fridge to run a gas line to the keg, so all he had to do when he wanted a drink was grab a glass - No need to even open the door.

When we moved house, the beer fridge had a bit of a mishap and it gave up the ghost shortly after we settled into our rental. That was a sad day... So a crucial part of the bar design was a built-in tap. The local home brew shop owner sourced a font (the upright bit), and Bike Boy was able to resurrect the Guinness tap once more, and voila!



That's my almost 15-year-old, having a fun time playing barman. He's drinking Coke, in case you're wondering; the Bulmer's is mine.

There are a few finishing touches to add still - I've filled nail holes in the trim pieces, and need to give them one more coat of stain and then two coats of sealer. Unfortunately, I've been sick all week, and now that I'm feeling better, it's pouring rain. Hopefully there'll be a break in the weather so I can get it done before the big party...

Our old kitchen bar stools have been re-purposed and work beautifully out here - they need to be sanded, re-stained and then sealed with an outdoor product, but that can wait till after Christmas when I have holidays scheduled. Meanwhile, we'll just keep them under cover when they're not in use. The bonus is, I got to go shopping yesterday for new stools for our breakfast bar. Yay!



I'm linking this post to Remodelaholic's Friday link party:

Ready to party!

When I said we were adding a bar to our al fresco area, I meant a serious bar.

Bars, buying and bidding

Bike Boy has a biiiiiig project going on at the moment. Somebody has a significant birthday coming up very soon, and there's a party planned. And what does every outdoor entertaining area need for parties? Why, an outdoor bar, of course!

I'm telling you, this thing is the mother of all bars. I'm about to go sand and seal the countertop, which is my only contribution to the project - apparently this is a MAN job! Then there's a beer tap and a stainless steel splashback to be installed and some finishing touches to do, and voila! Hopefully tomorrow evening we'll be giving it a test run. I'll post photos when it's all done.

In other news, I think I may have found my couch for the family room. Hallelujah! I was browsing around Nick Scali yesterday and they've slashed all their leather lounge suite prices. I was going to go for fabric, but I figure that if I can get leather for $1,000 off the normal price, I'd be crazy not to.

If I can get that thing in place, I can finally add all my other bits and have the room looking half-decent. I'm also bidding on something on eBay that would be perfect as a side table, so cross your fingers and toes for me...

:)

Beating the heat

We had a real problem with our west-facing sliding door on the studio. In summer it was unbearable in the afternoons - even with blockout Roman blinds and the evaporative cooling running.

We were originally going to build a pergola outside to provide shade, but there's a major drama in the form of a sewer easement, which means that getting a permit is unlikely. So we thought maybe a shade sail - as a bonus, that can be taken down in winter to let the sun in for some natural light and heating.

After getting some quotes and doing some extra research this week, we've decided on a folding arm awning instead. This sort of thing:

Now you see it


Now you don't


No posts, no permits required, and it folds out of sight in winter when we want the sun to shine in. We'll be ordering it tomorrow so we can have it made to order and installed before Christmas.

Now that a decision's been made, I can finally finish off the strip of garden out the back.

Improvising

We spent a lot of time today getting our outdoor entertaining area ready for summer. Bike Boy cleaned the pavers - the horrible wet winter we had this year had caused a lot of nasty green moss/algae to grow on the sandstone. Then there was the accumulation of dirt that blows in and the odd food spill...

I oiled the outdoor furniture and tidied up the garden. After all that work, I decided we need to have a BBQ tonight and spend some time relaxing in our piece of paradise. But we still need some lounge furniture for the alfresco room. So far, I haven't seen anything I like for a price I'm prepared to pay. Well, there was that one eBay bargain, but while I dithered over whether the chairs would fit in my car, someone else bought it.

So I put my thinking cap on and came up with this temporary solution:

Dining setting plus market umbrella - these, we already had. With a coat of oil, the table came up a treat, as usual. The chairs need replacing though. My renovation a year ago made them look like new for a while, but they've faded badly again and the fabric on the backs is starting to tear. I'll have to start looking for replacements.



Lounge furniture required some ingenuity....

One old bench seat (haven't oiled that yet) plus a cheap seat pad from Bunnings plus some cushions collected from various rooms in the house equals a lovely outdoor couch:



For extra seating, two armchairs and a small table we've had forever (which also got a coat of oil) and more cushions:



My "coffee table" is actually three baskets turned upside down. The contents are spread all over the family room floor, but shhh:



Now I'm off to enjoy the space I've created.

New shiny stuff:

To keep your drinks cold (with style)....



And to keep your body warm....



I've been bargain-hunting! :)


And yes, we still have the redi-shades on the al fresco room windows. Shush!

Rainy day project

There's been no progress on the landscaping front, thanks to the appalling weather, so I had to think of something else to occupy myself. Since BBQ season is on its way (not that you'd know it today with the wind, rain, hail and freezing temperatures!), our outdoor furniture needed some attention before it was usable.

The table needed a sand and oil - no big deal really, just some time and effort. The chairs were another thing. I thought we might have to chuck them, they were looking so bad, but some thought, a tiny bit of skill and some hard work converted this:



to this:


The table looks as good as new. Now I just need the wind to stop blowing so I can sweep all the dust from the sander out of the al fresco room and tidy things up a bit.



They'll do us for a few more years now, I think. :o)