Good fences...

This project took about about 100 hours to complete but was a lot of fun. This is my parents' house in the 1st Ward in downtown Houston. It's probably a little under 300' of fence total in length and the privacy fence part of it was pretty standard but the front part with the metal grid turned out really pretty and I think it frames the great vegetation in the yard and even the house itself pretty well. Copper Canyon Daisies are awesome. My biggest concern about the project was the incredible slope of the landscape and building three gates; one to drive through and the other two are walk-through gates. They all seemed to go up well and hopefully they won't sag too much. It was tough to be away from my family over those 8 days but my folks blessed us in many ways through it and I ate like a king! (PS: without the new dewalt set I'd still be there working!)

The Stage

I got a chance to help build some staging for Christ Church Brenham. It was a good chance to hang out with guys like John Dirba and Justin and the thing turned out pretty good. The three pieces are basically skate boxes in disguise. 4'x 8' and 14" tall. We puttied the screw holes and painted the whole thing flat black.

The Jalopy

It's been about four months since I purchased the Jalopy and I'd like to say she's running great but after a water pump replacement last week there is currently a belt alignment issue that needs to be looked at by somebody who knows what they're doing! Of course, at least we're remaining consistent by needing everything to be done at least twice before it's done right. But over all she's looking pretty good these days. Recently replaced: water pump (grr), Edelbrock carb, shocks all around, rear differential cover, just about every hose imaginable, and 3" chrome rings for the wheels. For fun I have replaced the stock front spindles with lowered ones and replaced the stock rear shackles with lowered ones as well. The rear is now just about 2 inches higher than I'd prefer so I'll try to remove a leaf spring and see what that does. We also sound-deadened the interior, cleaned up the guage cluster, and re-upholstered the bench seat. Just about completely done with the interior! Smells much better now and is a bit quieter.

Dewalt.

Recently I've been blessed with the addition of some much needed tools to my arsenal. I woke up one morning and realized that the vicious cycle of tool replacement due to purchasing cheap Black and Decker stuff needed to end. I contacted a family member to ask about the possibility of bumming some potentially unused and older pieces of equipment but found out that they were still getting plenty of use. She then contributed to my cause and that allowed me to buy the Cadillac of all cordless combos: the 6 piece Dewalt XRP! Needless to say life is pretty good these days. These suckers are expensive but definitely worth every penny. I was also able to get a pretty stout belt sander and a router.
Besides that equipment I was able to build some staging for a friend's church and in return got a Dewalt 10" compound miter saw. I was also able to take advantage of a sale at Sutherland's recently and pick up an $85 table saw.
So the shed is getting stocked and I've been able to do a couple of projects recently. The next couple of things on the agenda are a deck for a friend's house, front porch repair and some decking at 107 Jeffries.