Author Archive
Carport Percolating, Or Should I Say Pergolating?
What carport? This carport. You know, the one that almost kept us from considering this house because we were so anti-carport? My how we’ve changed our tune after spending a few years with it…
Sherry actually mentioned the new tune we’re signing back in this Listy McListerson post: “we originally wanted to convert this into a garage, but now we’re leaning towards adding a trellis arch so it’s all lush and pretty like a carport with a pergola instead of being closed in and dark like a garage (we’d lose some light from two windows into the laundry room and office if we closed it in).”
The lost windows were a big game changer, since we learned that fire codes would require us to close them off. See this guy over our built-in desk? It would be gone-zo along with the window in the laundry room.
We also got over our need for garage storage because our basement and attic have proven more than sufficient. So Operation Garage Conversion has officially become Operation Carport Fancification. Our main tactic? Adding the architectural interest that Sherry described above. In short, taking it from something like this…
…to something like this. Just more real, less Photoshop-tacular. And maybe with some nice greenery running up it.
If that Photoshop job isn’t doing it for you (it’s barely doing it for me) the first image in this article might. It wasn’t until we started hunting for inspiration that I realized attached pergolas are a thing. Some fancy folks even dub them “garage arbors.” So the idea of a carport arbor (a “carbor”?) didn’t seem that far-fetched. But figuring out how to actually build one had me all like…
Then Google led us to Workbench Magazine. Well, specifically this 2008 article on – you guessed it – building an attached garage pergola.
And it wasn’t just any article. It was an article with building plans and diagrams. Glorious, glorious diagrams.
And, as if the pergola heavens were shining down upon us, their plan was just about the exact size of what we needed to do, so we could follow their material and cut list almost to a T. Hallelujah. So I printed out the plans and made myself a date with the Lowe’s rental truck.
After finding the plans, and buying and hauling back all of our materials, we were finally able to get a start building this weekend, and the first step was installing an extra column on the house-side of the carport (since we needed a place for the pergola brace on that side to attach).
We’re currently in the process of rerouting the drainpipe, priming and painting a lot of wood, making our own curved wooden braces, and cutting all of the slats for the top part. So if all goes well, we should have that knocked out by early next week so we’ll be back with a post full o’ details for you guys then. The plans involve some fairly intricate cutting and bracing (at least by my standards) so we’ll have to see how all that goes. Wish us luck!
People ask us how we get the courage to take on larger building projects like this a lot, and our answer is always “break them down into smaller parts so your brain doesn’t explode.” So to demonstrate that, here’s our own broken-out pergola to-do list:
find or create our own plansfigure out exactly what pieces of wood/screws/bolts we need and somehow get them home<–we rented a Lowe’s truck for $20 to get the 16′ boards homeprime and paint the wood beforehand (should bemuch easier to do this before things are assembled) <– this is about half done, hence the half cross outbuild a column on the left side of the carport so the bracket on that side can rest on it- build the curved wooden braces and bolt them in securely
- lay the boards and slats across the top, making sure they’re all level and secure
- find some vine to creep up the thing for extra credit
Anyone else out there ever built a pergola? Who thinks HGTV should add Pimp My Carport to their programming? Just me?
Psst- I wrote this for Boston.
Fab Freebie: Getting ‘Toned
***This giveaway is now closed – see who won below!***
And the lucky winner of some Pantone-tastic paint is… Gretchen (who’s really into “robin’s egg blue with a few pops of tangerine”). Congrats!
Y’all have heard of a little thing called Pantone, right? Well the folks who declared Emerald the color of the year have a slew of color experts who have also inspired a line of paint. And our bloggy friend/decorative painter Kristen clued us into MyColor inspired by Pantone – which is a series of project-sized paints for furniture, accessories, walls and beyond. In addition to the cool clear packaging, these quarts of eggshell paint (which are sold online and at Lowe’s) are ultra low VOC, stain blocking, and self priming. And one of you is gonna get EIGHT quarts in any of their 49 paint colors!
- PRIZE: Eight quarts of MyColor inspired by Pantone paints in any color (an $100 value)
- TO ENTER: Comment on this post with the words “PANTONE ME” and tell us…
- BONUS QUESTION: … if you had to declare a color of YOUR year, what would it be? Are you craving all things red lately (Sherry is)? Do all of your clothing purchases seem to be in the aqua family? Or are you right with the Pantone folks on emerald this year?
- NUMBER OF WINNERS: One
- PRIZE SHIPS: We always beg every vendor to ship internationally but some companies are not legally able to vend things beyond specific areas (more on that here). This giveaway is open to the United States.
- GIVEAWAY CLOSES: Wednesday, April 24th or at 10,000 entries (whichever comes first)
- USUAL STUFF: One entry per e-mail address is permitted. The winners will be selected using random.org and announced on Thursday as an update to this post. That’s right, come right back here on Thursday for the announcement of our winners. Good luck…
- ***COMMENT ISSUES? If you’re trying to enter but keep getting a “duplicate comment” warning, click here to see how to solve it!
Note: We aren’t paid or perked for hosting these giveaways, we just do ‘em to thank you awesome folks for stopping in. See our Giveaway FAQ page for more info. Pics courtesy of MyColor inspired by Pantone.
March Superlatives: Crown, Color & Can Lights
Lights. Camera. March recap time! Last month was a busy one – lots of nail gunning (crown & fireplace), playing with paint (including a new color in the kitchen) and even a couple of geeky tech upgrades. So we’re taking a moment to appreciate all the things that we checked off of our list in March as a motivator to make April just as productive! Oh and you can catch superlative recaps of the last 2+ years here (in 26 handy posts instead of 870!). Plus, we’ve got a little clue about what’s happening next week in the mix…
Most Colorful: Monday’s giveaway. Here’s a hint.
Scariest: Beginning the process of installing crown molding to four rooms, especially considering how poorly it went for us the first time (back in our kitchen renovation, pre-nail-gun). But thanks to two new tools it was a lot easier, which gave me the confidence to actually write a full tutorial this time!
Most Colorful: Sharing our 2013 Benjamin Moore paint picks, which included some ways that we dream about using some of the colors. We’d still love to try this pairing someday…
Most Overdue: After living with three non-functional ceiling fixture boxes in our living room for far too long (they were there, just capped) we finally hired an electrician to help us turn two of them into can lights and moved the third so we could hang a pendant light over the table. Finally!
Most Mixed Up: All the decor in Clara’s big girl room, which helped inspire this answer to a reader question about mixing prints & patterns.
Most Hilarious: This picture that someone tweeted us after this post about replacing the doorbell (as well as other eyesores) in our hallway. Our photo of Burger barking his head off clued them into the fact that this might be up our alley. We laughed about it for days.
Least Gray Paint With The Name Gray In It: The new paint color in our kitchen. We finally ditched the difficult-to-photography grellow for Benjamin Moore’s Colorado Gray which is actually quite blue.
Most Likely To Include Superlatives, But Doesn’t: Our family yearbook, which we printed to commemorate everything we did last year (including a list of highlights on the first page and a gallery of instagram photos in the back). We’re glad to finally welcome 2012 to the stack.
Most Arrow-Happy: Me, at least based on this graphic that we came up with to help explain the plan for our fireplace refacing project. If this makes your brain spin a little bit, that makes two of us.
Coolest: This local ice cream store that we crashed to show off some of its inspiring decor – including milk bottle lights, great mixed materials, and even some penny tile!
Purtiest: The marble subway tile that we laid in a herringbone pattern along the hearth of our fireplace. One of my favorite things ever. And that’s real talk.
Most Familiar: This house crash that we shared of my sister Emily’s home here in Richmond. Usually a house crash happens on the same day that we see the place in person for the first time, so it was fun / weird to be taking photos of a place that’s hosted so many family gatherings.
Laziest: Me, although I’d argue it’s a sign of ingenuity that I got a remote control to help me click off both of our bedside lamps at night. And c’mon, aren’t you allowed to be lazy when it comes to laying in your own bed?
Biggest Nerds: Whoever calculated all of the random stats that we compiled for this infographic-tastic look back at our book tour. Number of hours on a plane? Number of cupcakes received? Who would be weird enough to keep track of such things? Hint: they’re pictured below.
Best Photobomb: Well, “best” might be a stretch. But after barely sneaking my face into this framing out our fireplace photo, I think I was just about the only candidate for the title this month. Come on Burger. Step it up.
Most Magical: This little sensor that we added to our TV (technically called an IR-extender) that allows us to use our remote despite having hidden the cable box out of sight in a ventilated drawer. Also magical? The Restore-a-Finish that we used to breathe some life back into that media cabinet after decades of grime built up.
Least Pregnant: I guess everyone in our house could claim this category, but we’re gonna give it to Sherry. Her declaration that she’s not pregnant and gentle explanation about why asking her (or any woman) if they’re expecting can be dicey seemed to really strike a chord with you guys. Almost 1,500 comments later, it currently ranks as our 4th most popular blog post ever. And in case you’re wondering, it comes in behind sharing our book tour dates, telling Clara’s birth story and announcing Clara’s arrival. And it just barely beat out Sherry revealing her Eminem-lovin’ past.
Most Neglected: Our guest room, which has gotten little attention since we first threw it together back in 2010. But we made a quick mirror swap, which brightened up the area above the headboard a bit (and allowed us to answer a common “when do you splurge?” reader question).
Most Transformed: Our fireplace, once we put the finishing touches on our little refacing project. We’re still amazed by the ripple effect of this project (it somehow made the whole kitchen feel a lot fresher).
Most Inspirational: These words of wisdom from Silver Tree Art, which were part of Sherry’s first experiment in putting temporary tattoos on wood for some easy art. It was one of three little updates in this smorgasbord post, which also included adding a timer to Clara’s play kitchen, framing some meaningful metal art, and sharing where one of our book projects finally found a home.
How was your March? If you had to summarize it in one word what would it be? Relaxing? Whirlwind? Productive? Easter-y? I think ours would be: nail-gun-riddled.
Psst- Our latest roundup of Clara Conversations are over on Young House Life, and (predictably) they’re our favorites yet. That girl just has a way with words.
