Margarita Holding Area Progress: The MHAP Report

MHA progress is happening fast and furious over here and I am about 2 weeks behind Mr. Monkey. Last night we went up to the future Margarita Holding Area and held some beers - Ninkasi's Spring Reign to be exact. It was the perfect way to start a spring weekend. These pictures show Mr. Monkey and friend, Mid-west Monkey getting those posts up. They reported to me that they were very heavy. So afterwards we all scaled the ladder & those 2 monkeys had beers. I just admired the view and their hard work. We felled a tree from the backyard (it was a dying Doug Fir) to make the posts. By "we" I mean we hired someone to do it safely and without the use of beer but with the help of plenty other tools. Mr. Monkey slapped some spar varnish on the posts and voila! It's RuMo fo' sho' (RuMo = Rustic Modern)! I think before the weekend is up I'll have to get you some pictures of the incomplete staircase because it is just that cool.

In the meantime however it's frickin' gorgeous outside so I'm going to go for a run and head to the farmer's market. For those of you in the local area I saw one of the Bald Eagles yesterday on my run along the waterfront by Skinner's Butte! We've got a pair of urban dwelling Bald Eagles in Eugene - even these raptors are smart enough to know that creating higher density living spaces are the way to go! Be well, live modern!

Backyard Shed: MHA Part 3

Mr. Monkey is here to file a report on the latest news from the backyard shed project - also known as the future margarita holding area (MHA). I caught up with him for a brief interview. This is what I uncovered. "In this picture unlike previous ones [filed here at this link - modern backyard shed] the roof is all framed out, the windows are double pained wood framed. I built wood frames for them so I could install hinges. The siding is up - it's the same wood that was used to form the board-form concrete. It's rough cut cedar. Okay I'm going back outside." That Mr. Monkey is tough to pin down! He is very focused on getting this backyard shed up and running so that we can enjoy the MHA by summer time. The other post on our modern backyard shed can be found by clicking on the link in this sentence. Scroll all the way down to see the batten in progress. For those of you less savvy about these small construction and architectural items the batten is used to cover the seams in between the boards. So you often hear the two words used together - "I'm going to install board-and-batten siding on the MHA".

In the picture below Mr. Monkey was working on installing the batten. The batten is usually the narrow strips of wood to cover the seams in the wider pieces of wood that make up the siding. I think it's looking pretty snazzy. Next up the roof gets installed . . .

Backyard Shed: MHA Part 2

Hi Friends! Welcome to February. I've heard from some of you recently that I need to blog more often. I know things were getting pretty skimpy at the end of the year. So last month I managed 3 posts in the month and I'm hoping for the same if not more this month. If you want to be sure not miss any updates just click on the "subscribe to this blog" in the bar to the right. I know you will want to keep updated because we're (FINALLY) moving forward with some projects over here in the modern monkey section of Friendly St. 'hood - finally. Major going-ons include - new bed, staining and hanging of front door - yup we still haven't done that (this includes buying modern hardware), and the super big deal - the backyard shed aka Margarita Holding Area (MHA).

Mr. Monkey and Friends (I think I was in a band once called Mr. Monkey and his friends) (thanks Friends!) have made some serious progress. Check it out!

Up top Mr. Monkey was working on a beautiful December day believe it not! And had nailed up a good deal of the siding. One re-use and recycle tip is that Mr. Monkey used the same planks of wood to create the board forms for the concrete bits that he did for the siding. Below is a detail shot of an eye of a wood board that was left imprinted in the concrete wall. Faux bois concrete style?

This is a view from the back of the shed - this is kinda the alley view. You can see the rafters and the frame for the back windows.

Here is Mr. Monkey is being a monkey and climbing down the south side of the shed. This window is a little funny because it's a bit low. I like it because it rests in between the two texture elements of wood and concrete. It will also be the only eye-level window in the place. The other windows are up high and are meant to let the light in. Mr. Monkey was so thoughtful when planning this aspect of the shed. The shed will be a working shed and so there will be stuff piled high. We don't want to see that stuff from the backyard and we don't want people in the alley to be able to see our stuff in the shed - so he went for a clerestory window feel to let light in but to keep clutter out of sight.

This view below is from the front door perspective. The building is a long narrow shape. You can kinda get a sense of the clerestory style windows and the eye level window. The narrow eye-level window faces out to the pear tree and a future wet-land garden (that area of the back yard is always pretty wet). Overall we're pretty excited and actually since I've taken these photos more progress has been - all the siding is up and windows are in place so those pictures will be posted next week. Next up is the roof and then the staircase up to our Margarita Holding Area. For now it looks like we're on schedule to have a summer debut of the sunset viewing space. Can't wait! Thanks for reading about the MHA and all the other silly stuff on here.

Modern Fences 1

Another place that Mr. Monkey and I will be looking to update is our fence. It is in bad bad shape. Part of it blew over in  a wind storm over the winter. This is the first of many posts with pictures of fencing. While the old standby - cedar - is lovely and can be built in creative ways I would like to contribute to the interesting modern fences of Eugene. 

Here's a possibility we're considering. It's a picture of a cool fence with mixed materials we found on a walk in Tucson, AZ in the Sam Hughes neighborhood. Mr. Monkey is not so sure about corrugated metal but I'm liking it. I also really like board form concrete. But Mr. Monkey is right to think that it may too different for the neighbors that we share this fence with. Thanks to CMM for the board form picture.

Finally here's a slideshow of cool fences from Dwell Magazine's website. Actually they're not that cool - they're convenient because they're gathered together in one spot but in general they are pretty standard. It's still fun to go to the Dwell website though. So many slideshows so little time . . .