{backyard redo} Pouring the Patio

Now that the weather is starting to improve (sort of) we've been spending weekends finishing up our new backyard space. To get up to speed, you might want to check out our other backyard redo posts, where we talk about the plan, the first phase of work, why we chose a natural gas fire pit instead of wood burning, and how we plan to protect our outdoor furniture.

The backyard before we started the redo.

Our patio went in last November before the weather got too cold, but then we pretty much abandoned the backyard until it was warm enough to work out there. I considered a few different options before deciding on an exposed aggregate concrete patio. Here were the factors in the decision:

• We already have flagstone in the sideyard (with thyme growing between the stones), so if we went with a stone material, it would need to be the same. This eliminated pavers and other kinds of stone or masonry.
• Our backyard is shallow, with a retaining wall about 18 feet from the house, so we wanted it to be ground level, not raised like our deck was. Scott and I called our deck "the raft" because that's what it looked like, except it was surrounded by grass instead of water.
• It needed to be relatively smooth, so that patio furniture could slide across it without getting caught on seams.
• We wanted the material to be virtually maintenance free, but we wanted it to looks semi-natural and varied. 

That last requirement was what led us to exposed aggregate. Here is one photo of exposed aggregate concrete:

The exposed aggregate in this photo was small river rock. Looking back, I should have been more conscious of what kind of aggregate was in my concrete mixture. I expected it to be similar to this, only smaller (because our contractor told me it would be pea gravel). Our aggregate is not as round or smooth but it is just as colorful. And it's fine. I'll show you some photos of it after it is power washed and sealed at the end of May.

But for now, check out the pouring phase. Whew, this is one project I am SO glad we didn't try to DIY. I don't know how much it cost, because the cost was included in our overall bid from the contractor who did all of the backyard work (retaining wall, fountain, burying electrical, rerouting sprinklers, patio, and pergola), but the most recent estimate I got for a similar sized patio was around $6000. That was about 5 years ago -- the price tag definitely scared us off. Based on our whole backyard redo cost, I'm thinking this came in at a much smaller price, like closer to $3000 or $4000. And that, my friends, was worth it. Because this was a big patio and not good for a beginner concrete project.

The truck arrives.

That's my friend Emily's little guy checking out the concrete truck. Of course the patio was poured the same weekend as a big craft fair happened at my house, so all day while the cement truck was pouring there were women coming and going, setting up their wares. And the next day, during the fair, the concrete guy was out there removing the top layer of concrete to expose the rocks. Not the best timing, but nobody seemed to mind!

They pumped the concrete from the front, through the side yard,
and around to the back.

Our contractor dug out part of our retaining wall and hill to make room for
the firepit and fountain.

I asked for two wide steps so that kids would have a place to sit and eat. I love the
curves that our contractor added. It gives a bit of character to the very square
and flat backside of our house.

Now you can shake your finger at me for being a bad blogger, because I don't have an after photo of this stage of construction. Here's all I've got...a shot of part of the patio as our contractor started installing a flagstone edge to tie in the patio with the flagstone in our sideyard.

If you'd like to get a step ahead of the blog, check out the Backyard Redo album on my Facebook page. Lots more backyard redo photos there!

Reupholstered bench seat

The transition from soft neutral family room to grey + brights is one step closer to completion.

Long overdue, the avocado corduroy bench cover (which I learned today that Scott has always hated) is gone.

before

after

The avocado has now been replaced with the same charcoal linen as is in the curtains (Ikea RITVA in gray). In fact, it is leftover fabric from the curtain project. This update took me less than one episode of Mad Men, leading me to wonder why, oh why, didn't I do it a long time ago? Like, maybe in November when I'd originally planned to?
 

before

after

Oh, wait, I know why it took me so long to get to this. It's because I needed two weeks of cold and snow to keep me inside working on house projects instead of out in the garage building furniture. So far, I've cleaned out and re-organized my pantry, cleaned out and actually cleaned my fridge, taken five bags of trash out of Callie's room, built the gallery ledges, AND washed and put away all of the clothes from our trip (usually unpacking is a never-ending chore for me). So, yeah, the weather's been crappy.

Speaking of which, here is one of the unlucky deer who was hanging out in my yard today getting attacked by a bird. The bird hopped from back to back as it made its way through the herd, pecking away at their ears, necks, backs, bottoms, and seemingly trying to eat them alive. Gross. The deer, just for the record, were not fans of the bird.

Back to the bench...the next step will be to throw together some bright, patterned pillows to liven up the wall of grey, black, and white. With more snow in the forecast (April 18th, December 18th, what's the difference), I've got high hopes for the pillows happening soon. It's exciting, I know, but please try to restrain yourselves.

For more on how I built and upholstered the bench, check out this post.

For the curtains, see this one.

Updated Gallery Wall

After painting our great room/kitchen/loft last fall, the dismantled gallery wall stayed dismantled until last weekend.

(The gallery wall back in 2010 when I first put it up.)

So, yeah. It only took me six and a half months to put it back together.

There may have been some humming and hawing. There may have been some indecision and some dragging of the feet.

But eventually I decided that I wanted to base the gallery wall on three ledges similar to these. I thought it probably wouldn't be enough space for all of the photos, but I gave myself enough room between the ledges (36" -- we used a yardstick to space the ledges) to hang a few frames in the leftover space.

I built my ledges using 1x3s for the back and 1x2s for the front and bottom, all joined using just glue and nails. Once they were joined, I cut off the ends of the ledges using my miter saw, to give me perfectly smooth ends. (Believe it or not, this is the first time I've noticed that 8' lumber isn't all exactly 8'.) All of the lumber is pre-primed finger-joint pine, painted in our white trim paint. To put them on the wall, I just drilled through the 1x3 on the back into the studs and attached the ledges to the wall using 2 1/2" deck screws. The lumber cost me about $30 -- not bad for three 8' ledges.

Next up? It's time to recover the gigantic bench under the gallery! The avocado green belongs to our old, muted color scheme. Now I'm deciding between using the same grey fabric that's in the striped curtains or going with something bright and fun. I'm leaning toward plain grey and adding fun, funky, colorful pillows. 

Traveling the world...with kids

I just returned home from an adventure. We decided our kids were ready to travel. And when you're ready to travel (again) and feel like you've been chomping at the bit for a decade while waiting for a chance to get back out into the world, why start small?

I mean, why go someplace easy?

We didn't.

For our first big adventure with our girls, we decided to take them to Asia. It was meant to be a test. We figured that if they could handle this trip, they could handle just about anything and maybe we'd have more trips in our future.

We started with a few days in and around San Francisco (clearly, San Francisco is not in Asia...but it was a great jumping off point), then flew to Hong Kong where we spent about five days, took a ferry to Macau for a day, and then flew to Vietnam where we spent another four days. All together, the trip was 18 days and our girls, ages 10 and 8, managed the trip like champs.

For just a second, I want to talk about why we decided to travel with our kids, and why we chose Asia for their first big trip. Scott and I both believe it is important for our children to grow up knowing that there is more to the world than the little community in which we live. We believe that in order to understand that most of the world is not like America, our kids should see the world for themselves. We want their view of the world to be not an us-and-them view, but a we-are-all-in-this-together view. I know that it's possible to achieve these goals without travel (neither Scott nor I traveled as kids and we came out okay) but travel seems like the best way to ensure that our kids will end up with the perspective we want them to have.

Also, we recently realized that we've only got 8 years left with our oldest kid before she might be out of the house. That's not much time and we wanted to be intentional about spending focused, concentrated time with both of our kids, creating memories and bonding as a family. To us, travel is the best way to do that.

Most of the people who heard about our trip asked the same thing, "Why Asia?" And some, the more bold of our friends and acquaintances, asked, "Why aren't you going to Europe?"

There were a few reasons. First, a good friend from my childhood lives in Hong Kong. We've wanted to visit her there and haven't had a chance, so this seemed like a great opportunity. But also, Asia is very different from America. If you haven't spent much time there, Asia shocks you. It's crowded and noisy and looks different and smells different and tastes different. The language is impossible for us to understand. The food is completely foreign. The customs are unfamiliar.

And also, Europe? I've not been to more of Europe than London (which I realize doesn't even count in some people's eyes), but my impression is that Europe is relatively comfortable. From my experience traveling, I've found that the times I learned the most about myself and the world were the times I was uncomfortable. And the more uncomfortable I was (both physically and mentally), the more I learned.

While traveling in Asia we felt stupid several times and uncomfortable most of the time. We were laughed at more than once. Not in a judgmental, "You stupid Americans," way, but in a, "How silly that they don't know how to ask for more tea," way.

And that was good. Being laughed at in that way keeps a person humble. It reminds us that the world does not belong to us and that we represent, in fact, but one small bit of humanity.

Philosophy aside, traveling with kids is intimidating. No matter how rewarding it might be, it's a little scary.

Because my kids having tantrums in my house? Where I can send them to their rooms? I can handle that.

My kids having tantrums on a train in the middle of a totally foreign place? Not so easy to handle.

So, here are a few things we learned along the way. Hopefully these are ideas you can use, ideas you will use as you drag your children around the globe.

1. Keep them fed. Duh, right? But it's harder than it sounds. As an adult, you want to get from one place to another and you can fight through an empty stomach, knowing that your next meal is not that far away. We tried this with our kids -- not that we were intentionally trying to stretch them, we were just trying to pack in as many activities and sights and experiences as we could. Brynn (our older one) can handle being a little hungry. Callie, our younger one, cannot. Much like I've heard her father was at 8 years old, Callie falls apart before her stomach even growls. Grunting, groaning, shaking her body, pissed off at the world. And if we let her get to that place where she is falling apart, she won't eat because nothing "sounds good." So once we figured this out, even when it wasn't convenient, we made sure to keep her fed. This meant frequent stops for snacks and it also meant keeping water on hand. Sometimes water was all she needed, but she didn't recognize it. We had to remember to offer it to her regularly.

2. Build in downtime. During our first couple of days in Hong Kong, we had a lot of ground to cover and not a lot of time. We were staying in an apartment in a great location in the middle of Hong Kong, but it wasn't a place we wanted to hang out during the day. It was small and a bit cramped (as are most places in Hong Kong), it smelled a little mildewy, and it was a little warm. Between not having an ideal place to come back to for a rest and not wanting to sleep during the day for fear of never adjusting to the time difference, plus wanting to see as much as possible in a short amount of time, we may have worked too hard. Callie fell asleep at dinner the first three nights. Head on the table, carried out of restaurants. Meals she normally would have loved she totally missed out on.

Looking back, what could we have done differently during those first few days? We could have found a place for the kids to chill. Some kind of park or open space (not easy to find in Hong Kong, but I'm certain if we looked hard enough we could have found it) would have been a great place for the kids to let their brains rest while their bodies played. That brings me to #3.

3. Find other kids to play with. Our kids are 8 and 10. They're not toddlers. They don't need a LOT of playtime. But they need some. And, frankly, Scott and I are not ideal play companions. During this trip it occurred to me that playtime is to kids what sitting back and drinking a beer (or a glass of wine) is to adults. It helps us unwind, helps us chill out, helps us relax so that we are prepared for the next big thing.

We were lucky that in San Francisco we stayed with friends who have three kids. All three are younger than my kids, but I don't think it mattered. They had a ball playing together and their playtime each evening was enough to unwind the kids for another full day the next day. During the second part of our time in Hong Kong we stayed with friends who have two year old twins. Again, much younger than my kids and, again, it didn't matter. My kids engaged with them and through play were able to chill. In Vietnam we were hoping to have kids around for our kids to play with during the second half of our stay there. That didn't work out as planned, but the girls played really well with each other during the afternoon when we had nothing else to do. In a hot, sweaty, difficult situation, their opportunity to play together is what kept all of us sane.

4. Have realistic expectations. Traveling with kids is not the same as traveling with adults. We didn't see and do everything with our kids that we might have seen and done had it been just the two of us. For instance, in Macau we planned to spend our first afternoon/evening seeing the Las Vegas-ish side of Macau. Exploring the hotels and arcades and wandering past the expensive restaurants. The next day, before catching an evening ferry to the airport, we planned to wander the old side of Macau which was colonized by the Portuguese. Unfortunately, it was raining. And it rained all day long. Scott had a whole walking tour planned for us, with cool facts about everything we were going to see. He had a list of food we wanted to try. If we'd been there alone, we probably would have sucked it up and done the walk in the rain. But with kids? Forget it. We tried sitting in a coffee shop, waiting for the rain to die down. We tried wandering through the Wynn, hoping that eventually the rain would stop. The rain never stopped, so we cut our losses and headed back to the ferry terminal to try to catch an earlier ferry to the airport. At least there we knew the kids could sit back and read or write in their journals and rest. Of course the sun came out as soon as we got on the ferry.

As it turned out, there was a problem at the ferry terminal with our Vietnamese visas, so the extra time came in handy. But even if things had gone smoothly, downtime in the airport would have been better than going with our original plans.

5. Guide them in their learning. Both of my kids were asked by their teachers to keep journals of their trip. You want to know what those journals looked like at first? "I just got on the plane. Now the plane is in the air. The flight attendant brought us drinks. We watched a movie." Yeah, pretty much a play-by-play of everything we did. I encouraged them to choose one thing that they noticed that day to write about. A smell? A sound? A sight? This worked for Brynn. At 10 years old, she's learned how to write essays and can write well from a prompt. Callie still needed extra guidance, though, and by the time we got to Vietnam, she was done writing. She wanted nothing to do with it. At that point, I actually had to write for her. We would talk about what she wanted to say and then she'd dictate to me. And I had to be flexible enough to be okay with that. We never did get through the second half of our time in Vietnam, but at least now she has experience journaling and I hope that next time will be easier.

Before Brynn went back to school on Monday, I asked her, "When your teacher asks you what you learned, what are you going to say?" Her answer? "Ummmm, I learned about rice." Seriously? We just spent how many thousands of dollars and how much time and you learned about rice? I know she learned more than that and I know Brynn's teacher. I know that he wants his students to think critically and expects a lot out of them. That answer wasn't going to cut it. So I stopped her and reminded her that her answer didn't have to be so literal. Her answer needed to be something she couldn't learn from watching a movie or reading a book. It needed to be something that required her being in a new place. That helped move her in the right direction. Then she was coming up with answers like, "I learned that Asia is really different from America," and, "there is a lot more of the world that I want to see." Those were answers we could work with and expand on.

When I think back to my first experiences being in new and different places, I'm not sure that I could have done much better than Brynn, and I was a young adult. I know that the answers are inside her, that she internalized all she saw, but it's hard to make sense out of it. It takes maturity and experience to put into words what you see and feel and learn when you travel.

6. Pack lighter than you think is reasonable. We tried to pack light, but we could have done better. We each had a backpack and nothing else which seemed pretty good when we left the house, but the girls' packs were too heavy for them (especially for Callie -- Brynn did well). Our trip included some significant changes in weather that made packing difficult. We went from the Bay Area (which Scott says is the coldest place he's ever been) to the Mekong Delta (which was in the high nineties and humid while we were there). I don't mind carrying a heavy pack, and neither does Scott, but next time we'll make sure the girls' packs are as light as possible to make transiting from one place to another even easier.

7. Don't avoid the hard stuff. For me, the hardest part of the trip was the two days we spent in the Mekong Delta. It was hot. Like 99 degrees plus super humid. It was a long (3 1/2 hour) bus ride getting out there. Brynn left a backpack in the bathroom of a bus station and we had to go through a pretty drawn out process with the police to get it back while our bus was about to pull out of the parking lot. The place where we were staying was supposed to be a "homestay" but turned out to be more of a guest house. There was no air conditioning and no shower. We were dirty, sweaty, and stinky. It was hard and sometimes it was frustrating. I almost suggested that we cut it short and run back to the comfort of our air conditioned hotel in Saigon.

But I didn't.

And you know what? The kids didn't think it was hard. Or at least they didn't say so. They had fun. They played. They learned. They met a sweet woman from Japan and a great couple from the Netherlands who were staying at the guest house with us. The girls engaged with these strangers from other parts of the world and caught glimpses of cultures that they'd never seen before. They smiled and laughed and answered questions and were really great representatives of America. They made us proud.

Old Vietnamese women grabbed Callie's arms and smacked her behind and pointed at her and smiled toothless grins. (We can't figure out why, but old women and animals all love Callie.) Kids waved at us and yelled, "Hello!" through huge smiles. The girls chased minnows in the muddy water outside our cabin. They adjusted well to the heat and humidity.

As adults, the hard stuff is what makes us physically uncomfortable and makes us nervous because we don't know what to expect. But not for the kids. They took it all in stride and pushed us to be cheerful (or at least pretend to be cheerful) despite our discomfort. For kids, the hard stuff is walking through museums, reading guidebooks, being forced to sit at a table for long stretches of time. For them that isn't fun. Playing in the mud is fun. Meeting new people is fun.

That last part of the trip, the hardest part, reminded me of why I believe in traveling to challenging places. Sometimes it doesn't feel great. It isn't relaxing or luxurious or simple. You don't return home feeling recharged or revived or ready to take on the world. As I get older I see myself wanting to go someplace simple, someplace where I don't feel so challenged. I want to go lie on a beach or sit in a nice restaurant and drink wine. And we will. We need balance. But the stuff that's hard for Scott and me is great for the kids and so I have to remind myself not to avoid it but rather to seek it out and be intentional about including it in our travel plans.

I'll probably write a few more posts about our trip, but I'll do it over on our family blog. If you're interested in following along, feel free to check up on The Friendly Home on Facebook or follow me on Twitter. I'll publicize any other travel posts there. Also, we finally joined the Instagram family while we traveled. You can see all of our pics on Scott's Instagram page, here.

Have you traveled with kids? What would you add? I'm sure there's more to know!

Behind the scenes

I went on a bit of a photo-uploading blitz tonight and created a new album over at The Friendly Home's Facebook page. If you're not a fan there already, you really should (really, seriously) like the page. Since I seem to be pretty decent at taking progress photos but not so good at posting and writing about them here, I've started an in-progress photo album over there.

Because, really, despite the inactivity and lack of finished project posts here? I am actually working. Have been working all winter long.

So, head on over and get a glimpse of what might be coming down the pipe in the next few weeks.

To get you over there, here's a little peak at what you should expect. This piece is a taller, narrower, and overall daintier version of the X End Table. Now go! Go see what else is in store for you over on Facebook!

Cookies without butter and eggs?

Monster Cookies with no butter or eggs!

Maybe you're like me and you don't look forward to helping your kids with science fair projects. You know it's a valuable experience, but it's just not your thing. Maybe it sounds like a lot of work and mess and maybe you're not a scientist so you're not sure how you can guide your kid through a project that won't be judged harshly.

Or could I be the only person with those insecurities? Social science I'm pretty good at, but science science? Not so much.

So when my ten year old girl, Brynn, came up with a great idea for a science fair project that would actually answer some questions that our family had, and when it was clear that it was something she could do mostly on her own...I was pretty excited to find out what her results would be.

So, here's what she did. Brynn made two batches of Monster Cookies -- one using eggs and butter and one replacing the eggs and butter with ground flaxseed and water.

 

She wanted to find out whether the flaxseed cookies would come out looking appetizing and tasting okay. She wasn't so interested in getting the exact same flavor and texture, but would the flax cookies be good enough to want to eat?

That was her question. Would they be good enough to want to eat? That's my kind of scientific question. And I love how she sets the bar low. She makes success easily attainable.

The answer to her question? Heck yes. They were tasty and she actually found that the texture of the flax cookies was better than the texture of the conventional ones. They were moister and less crumbly than the conventional cookies and they tasted just as good.

Flax cookies on the left, conventional on the right.

Here's the recipe for you, because I know you're going to want to try out these cookies for yourself!

1 1/2 C ground flaxseed + 8 Tbsp water (to replace butter)
3/4 C brown sugar
1/2 C sugar
2 Tbsp ground flaxseed + 6 Tbsp water (to replace eggs)
2 t vanilla
3/4 C peanut butter (the real stuff, not with added oil or sugar)
3 1/2 C old fashioned oats
1/2 t salt
1 t baking powder
1 C chocolate chips
1/3 C chopped walnuts

Mix wet ingredients before adding dry ingredients. Bake at 350 for about 12 minutes, rotating the cookie sheet halfway through bake time.

Provence Table

If you follow me on Pinterest, you may have noticed me pinning the Restoration Hardware Provence table and accompanying Ana White plans. I am not sure how this plan flew under my radar, but I'm totally in love with the look.

As soon as I saw it, I really wanted to dive right in and build one for myself. We've been eating at a 2'x3' table since before Christmas -- I sold our old table and haven't had a chance to build a new one. I'd like this design to be our next table but I really wanted a chance at a trial run before building my own.

This is why I'm SO happy to be working with Sweet Pea Interiors in Fountain. I knew that this table would sell easily in the shop, so I went ahead and built it as a test version.

And I LOVE it. Love, love, love it.

But, alas, it is too big for my dining room, so off to Sweet Pea it goes.

I made a few changes from Ana's plan in order to get closer to the Restoration Hardware look, and because I had several reclaimed 4x4 posts in my yard that I wanted to use.

Ana's plan calls for 2x4s and pocket hole construction. I did use 2x4s for the top part of the frame (under the table top) and also for the V supports, but for the legs, stretcher, and end supports I went with 4x4s. If I'd had enough of them, I would have used 4x4s for the V, too.

Since you can't use pocket holes to join 4x4s together, I used my (new!) table saw to cut lap joints. I'm in love with the joints where the end supports meet the legs -- I love the hefty, farmhouse look of them.

For the table top, I used 1x6s cut down to 4.75" on my table saw. I really like ripping off the curved edges of framing lumber to use in table tops. It is a pain in the rear to work with framing lumber, but its got a great, rustic vibe. And, it's cheap. Bonus. Having said that, I think when it comes time to build my own table, I'll build it out of higher quality lumber -- lumber that is straight, precisely milled, and nicely planed. I don't mind spending that kind of money on a table for myself. I've offered the same option to clients, but the price always scares them off. I can't blame them -- it usually doubles what I have to charge for a dining room table.

For the finish, I primed the table base with dark brown primer and then painted it with flat paint that I custom mixed from leftovers in my garage. The top is oxidized with strong black tea, vinegar, and steel wool. I think this is the first time that I've oxidized in sub-freezing temperatures. It adds a whole new element of unpredictability to the process, one I'll avoid in the future if I'm working on a client piece. The two photos above are probably the most accurate in terms of color. The top came out much darker and blotchier than I've experienced before. I don't know what to attribute it to besides the cold. The wood stayed wet much longer than usual, which I guess gave the tannins more time to react with the oxidizing solution.

It's funny...I don't mind if something doesn't come out exactly as planned as long as I'm building it for myself. But when I'm building for someone else and it doesn't go as planned? It worries me and I end up pouring unending hours into the piece. Whew. Working for myself is much less stressful.