In the meantime, I've been itching to start the improvements on our new house. First on my list was begin to make our little courtyard a little more attractive. Before my project, the space I worked on looked like this:
Beautiful, right? So I'm thinking flowers, garden, basically anything less ugly than two-by-fours drilled into a block wall! I already had some oleander trees that needed a home, so I headed over to Home Depot with my design ideas and started to look for lumber to make a pretty flower box. I had to throw in this picture of the Home Depot in Pearl City. Check out the gorgeous sunset out the back door! This is why Hawaii is awesome.
After several hours of hemming and hawing and searching the store for just the right hardware and lumber for the job, I came home with this:
George and I had recently bought a new cordless drill which would going to be the perfect tool to get those ugly two-by-fours out of the block wall, right?
Wrong. I managed to get more torque by hand using a ratchet handle on a socket wrench. Good old fashioned muscle.
The next step was begin assembling the wood. I laid down my first row of carefully measured and cut pieces and began nailing them together using roof brackets.
I did the whole first layer by hand:
After about 45 minutes of hammering and probably driving my neighbors insane, it occurred to me...we have a nail gun! So, I lugged out our brand new air compressor, primed it for use, loaded up the nail gun, attached the hoses, etc., etc. After an hour or so of preparation, I was all ready to go.
Then, as I prepared to fire the first nail, I realized that the nail gun wasn't going to shoot the right size nails. The nail heads were WAY too small to hold the brackets in place. Argh! Since I had the nail gun out, I did some nail shooting into the first layer of my project - in an invisible spot - just for fun. That thing is loud!
After my playtime it was back to the old fashioned method again:
After about two more hours of hammering, I had the entire thing put together and ready for the trees. Little did I know that getting the trees out of the pots was going to be the biggest and dirtiest challenge of the day.
Ignorant of what was to come, I moved forward and laid down a layer of gravel to help aerate and drain the soil beneath the trees. Is that right, George? That gravel is for drainage, yes?
After tossing in a bit of soil, I was ready to take the trees out of their pots. Whoa, those things did NOT want to budge! I literally had to cut the dirt from the inside surface of the pots with a large kitchen knife. (That reminds me, I think I left that knife in the courtyard. I should go get that.) Anyway, after I cut...still nothing. Ugh! I pounded the sides of the pots with a shovel and shook the darn things upsidedown until I finally started to get them to come loose. After a looooooong and muddy struggle, I pulled the little trees out of their pots and placed them in their new home.
Then, another half-hour or so of filling the box with uber-stinky mulch and potting soil between thin layers of gravel, I had successfully provided a home for two of our new oleander trees. If you look closely, you can see just how dirty I got!
Here, you can see the finished project...complete with a totally flooded courtyard. Luckily, it dries up quickly back there and then I should be able to do the final cleanup with a shop-vac! Just kidding. I think a broom will work just fine.
Anyway, I'm very happy and proud of my summer project, and it will be so much nicer to wake up in the morning and look out the window to see these trees than a couple of half-rotted two-by-fours. Drop by sometime, and I'll show you in person. :-)
