The Kitchen Island

The Kitchen Island finally came together. Though much like anything else so far, there were some road bumps along the way. For starters, one of the smaller of the two cabinets was not made to the same specs as the larger one. The face frames matched up just fine, but the carcasses were not even close.

Level island on an uneven floor.  

The second issue was the floor. Even after all the work we did, the floor is still not perfectly level.  With some carpentry magic, we managed to make the bottom of the island presentable while keeping the top level.

The cabinet carcasses were mounted together with a 1/4" piece of sanded birch plywood sandwiched in between and attached with screws and wood glue.

After the main bit of carpentry was completed we oiled the butcher block with mineral oil, installed the garbage and recycling pull-outs and stained the cabinets.

All done before the family came over. 

Adventures of the Pea Trellis

Weeds!

Part of Brigitte's ambitious gardening project involved tearing out this den of iniquity bed of noxious weeds. The last owners had tried growing veggies here--there were still tomato and pepper tags on the ground--and before that, there were evergreen shrubs, according to Google street view (and the massive roots I dug up!). 

Evergreen bushes in our yard, circa 2007

We eventually want to re-plant some evergreen shrubs here, but for now, it will do nicely as an early-season veggie bed. We want to plant peas here, which need something to climb, so we built an awesome trellis from scratch.

Weeds and a sapling tree stump: gone!

V is for "Victory Garden"

Justin and Junie build the pea trellis

We built the trellis out of cedar 2x2s and 2x4s, with eyehooks strung with twine for the peas to climb. The twine can be replaced every season or as needed. 

Stringing up twine for the peas to climb

Ta da! Finished pea trellis! Now to install it...

Justin secures the posts.

Isn't it lovely? It will be even lovelier once peas are growing on it. 

Brigitte poses in her gardening duds...

...and pretends to climb the trellis like a pea vine.