Tuesday, April 16, 2013

All Decked Out

FINAL UPDATED PHOTO ADDED MAY 12

This is one of those rare blog posts that I will be updating for a while. Progress is being made on the rooftop deck!

About seventeen feet long and just shy of five feet wide, it is not the best size, but it is one of the best parts of the house. 


The above and below photos are the true "before."  


I was dying to cut the section of fence off that was up against the house. That gained me about two feet under the eaves. It drastically enlarges the space visually, if not so much physically. Also cut down was the pipe. It's now much shorter and will be creatively covered... (stay tuned)...

There are a lot of benefits to having a friend that used to own his own construction company. One of them is that he knows what to look for at the lumber store. He originally told me a certain (*cough* higher than I was hoping for) price for the cedar, but when he got there a new-ish product was out - same quality but about half the price (insert happy dance here).

This is the deck now, over half done. The supports are almost all done (just a small frame that needs to go under the eaves), so the rest won't take long. 

Update #1 - April 21:
Construction is done!

May 12 - It's been done for a couple weeks now, and other than needing a couple more cushions, it's done. If the weather would would just start cooperating! It had better soon - first party is planned for next weekend!.

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How'd I do on decor? 

Below are a few inspiration pictures for decor once I reach that stage. I'm thinking I'll go with a Moroccan theme. It doesn't necessarily fit the rest of the house (which is more beach-y, if I had to assign it a theme), but I'm in love with Moroccan decor.

I like the color and bed idea in this one, but especially the greenery. I'll most likely put all my potted plants up there, because it gets more sun than anywhere else around the house. 

This one - love the colorful outdoor rug. Don't know that I'll be able to find anything like it, though.

I have always loved lanterns like this. It takes much willpower for me to walk past them in the stores. Now I won't have to. Except I'll probably go with much smaller ones, since there are no high places for me to hang any from. 

This has always been my favorite Moroccan patio. It's Kim's design, of course. I love the blue draped fabric, and plan to do something like that under the eaves. I've also been in love with those string curtains (which she cut the arches out of) since the first time I saw this episode on HGTV, but again, nowhere to hang them from.  Don't know what else I'll adopt from this space, but I'm thinking possibly the punched metal with quatrefoils which she did in this space (you can't really see them (on the right) unless you really know what you're looking for).

Alright, check back in a week or so...hopefully the weather will cooperate enough between now and then that we can get it done so I can get some more pix up.

Sunday, April 7, 2013

My First Flatiron

No, I'm not talking about something for my hair. I like my curls, thankyouverymuch. 

A 30 to 40 minute hike gets you to the bottom of the first Flatiron in Boulder. Relatively short, but you gain about 900 feet from the trail head in that time. Then the climb is around 1,000 feet.

It  doesn't look like much. 
But it took us 5 hours, car to car. 
Seven pitches. 

 

It was a fairly easy climb. 
On the first two pitches (meaning a 60-meter rope length) we only places 2 pieces of gear, and on the second two, none. I think we only placed 1 on the final three pitches. I could be wrong about that, but point being it's an easy climb if you're climbing with only one or two (or no) pieces for protection.

Top of the first pitch. 

Top of the second.

Top of the third.

Top of the 4th. 

 Top of the 5th.

Top of the 6th.

Yep, that's me (in the circle) climbing.

Top of the seventh. Basically at summit. 

Rope management. Some people hate it. I love it. 
And it obviously means I made it down.

But that's where the story begins. While the climb up was fairly easy and uneventful, my rap off the summit was not quite so easy. It was extremely windy up there, and I was chilly, so I decided to rap off first. We tied knots in the rope - I prefer to knot them for safety reasons. It means if you accidentally misjudge distance and get all the way to the end of the rope, you're not going to plunge off the end of it. On this day, however, what was meant to keep me safe caused all sorts of issues. The wind whipped both ends of the rope as we tossed them over. They both landed in the same crevice down below and far to my right where, crazily enough, both knots lodged tightly. Of course, I didn't know this until I was halfway through my rappel, at which point there was nothing to be done but wait for my partner to rap down on someone else's rope, climb up to where mine was stuck, and work at it to get it free (which was not without perils of its own). Meanwhile, I got to just hang there. Not that I mind that in and of itself - dangling in midair is really quite fun - but hanging on the rope isn't necessarily a good thing.

Lesson Learned: Sometimes the thing you think you're doing to keep yourself safe may actually end up causing you more problems in the end. Every situation is different and you can't judge them all by the same standards.