Easy Outdoor Table Cover

It's impossible to find a pretty outdoor table cover with a hole in the middle for my umbrella -- so I made one for about $10.  Here's a photo of one I just finished: 

Measure your table -- mine is 42" across.  You want it to drape, so add at least 6" for draping on each side to the overall diameter (e.g., 42" + 6" + 6" = 54").  Then go find your perfect fabric! Also - many fabric stores will have plastic of various thicknesses -- Hancock Fabrics had plastic similar to a shower curtain for $3.99/yard.  Get some plastic to protect against rain if you want.  Luckily, both my fabric and the plastic was 56", so I only needed to cut one circle -- no sewing.  I drew my circles on both fabric and plastic simply by finding the mid-point of the fabric and drawing the circle with a Sharpie from the midpoint: 

I actually cut the fabric first, and then the plastic -- cutting both at the same time would be too bulky...

I then cut an "X" in the center for the pole to fit through......

And voila!   One custom table cover with a hole in the middle! :)

Bathroom Vanity/Tile Replacement

I was hoping that replacing our 1980's bathroom vanity would be a simple afternoon job. But when we tore it out, I saw the prior owners had just tiled UP TO the base of the old vanity.... :-/   

Old '80's Vanity... :-/

Vanity Removed

Dilemma One: Find new tile that matches the old tile....

Backer Board Installed

After searching local home stores (Home Depot, Lowes, etc.), I was able to find a ceramic tile that matches the old... but not EXACTLY.  My solution was to create a tile accent to frame the existing space and new vanity, and then to fill in the space with the new tile. The border would separate the new from the old tiles, so the inexact match would not be so noticeable.

Accent border with new tile

Close Up of Accent Boarder

Dilemma Two:  Find a matching grout.... but the whites were too white, the greys too grey, and the tans too tan... :-/

Unfortunately, you can't buy grout in sample sizes, and you can't return them once opened. I ended up having to concoct a mixture of grouts and stain to create a match... one part bisque white, one part Delorean grey, and an ample amount of liquid tan grout stain -- all mixed together to create the match...

New Grout Concoction.....

Cleaned Grout (tape is to mark vanity placement)

After cleaning, sealing, and trim install.... here's the finished product.... :-D

New Tile with Installed Vanity

Raised Garden Beds

Hello!  After working on a small "test" garden this year (a few tomato plants, peppers, and cucumbers) I decided to ramp it up for next year's garden.  (Tennessee is forgiving to my "black" thumb.) I want more space, more produce.  

2011 Garden Patch

My dilemmas in planning a larger garden were "what" and "where"?  I considered breaking ground and tearing up grass to establish a classic garden patch.  But the backbreaking labor involved in removing grass (for us -- mostly crabgrass), and the potentially poor soil quality beneath the grass, were big discouragements. 

After a bit of on-line research, I decided on raised beds.  The advantages to raised beds are appealing:  they are affordable to build and install; we could fill the beds with brand new soil rather than amend (potentially poor and rocky) existing soil (i.e. "rototill" -- ugh); and we could install raised beds without having to remove the underlying grass (not ideal, but doable - we hope). 

Sunset's on-line garden resource offers an attractive and easy bed design.  We decided on the following plan: http://www.sunset.com/garden/backyard-projects/ultimate-raised-bed-how-to-00400000011938/

We built two 4' x 8' beds to start, and placed them in an open part of our yard that gets a lot of sun and has space to expand.  Cost (per bed): $80 (materials) + $33 (soil) + $20 (sealer paint) = $133. 

Take a look!

Completed Raised Beds (unfilled)

The following photos show our build process. Sunset's website covers the "how-to's" of the bed design, materials, etc. - so I won't repeat those instructions here. I'll just show a few modifications we made to the Sunset plan.  In the following photo, the bed is turned upside down, and we added hardware cloth (wire) to the bottom of the bed to prevent gophers, moles and voles from burrowing into our future gardens:

Completed build (upside down) with hardware cloth tacked to bottom.

We measured our bed placement in the yard, placed the bed, marked the leg placement with yard paint, and dug four shallow holes for each bed to set the legs.

Leg holes marked, cut, and dug in yard.

I laid cardboard over the grass before positioning the beds. The cardboard should smother the underlying grass and eventually decay, allowing the plants to grow deeper into native soil. The roots of our veggies will grow through the hardware cloth:

We then installed the 1" PVC pipes inside the beds to hold the "hoops" for bird netting or row covers. We cut the pipe to 13" (rather than 12") so we can cap them off when not in use to keep soil and other debris from accumulating in and clogging the pipe.  We also decided on three hoop holders (rather than two) for added versatility and support, and left the 1/2" PVC hoops long (instead of cutting them to 6').

Close-up of Installed 13" Hoop-Holder 

Raised Bed Showing PVC Hoop-Holders (1") and Hoops (1/2")

Finally -- the new soil!!  Instead of buying expensive bagged soil, we found a bulk supplier here in town called "The Mulch Company." (http://www.mulchcompany.com/) Each 4'x8' bed holds one cubic yard of soil.  We purchased their "Ultra Soil" for $33/cubic yard.  A deal! 

Two Cubic Yards of UltraSoil

And here are the finished beds!  You'll see the white, capped PVC hoop-holders sticking up -- which I will paint a deep brown to match the soil so they're not so obtrusive. We'll also be adding a small 4'x4' bed for herbs, and a long skinny bed (2'x8') for cutting flowers (but these can come later....) :-D

Two Raised Beds (4' x 8').  Cost: $133/bed

Note: The Sunset plan recommends building the raised beds with cedar planks.  Our local homestore didn't have cedar (which is more expensive) and finding cedar would require some hunting. So we used untreated 2x6 pine planks. We decided to preserve the wood with a new product called "Restore" - which is recommended for restoring old decks. We decided on "Restore" at the recommendation of a Home Depot paint associate -- as it's supposed to offer good waterproofing and last longer than deck sealer. You can also choose from about 30 color tints. We decided on a sage green to blend the beds into the landscape.  The product is not very easy to apply, and it's not recommended for new wood. So we'll see how it works.  If you're interested in this product, I shot a quick video of the application.  (Sorry for the shaky camera work, but I was shooting with my iPhone in one hand, and roller in the other!)