Welcome to the garden of mediocre carpentry

Sometimes, especially when I've had sort of a lousy week, I get kind of numb, take a good hard look around myself and think "Whoa...how did I let that happen?" I'm more likely to kick out a lot of work when I'm sort of down and out. I'm not quite sure why. Probably because my mind is numb too, and the body just says "pick this up; paint that; fix this"...sort of on autopilot.

I have people coming over to see kittens, and I've been cleaning out the upstairs of the house as well, so the porch has become a catch-all. I was walking up my path on Friday and suddenly saw it all with a critical eye. My ex and I had set up our garbage cans in a wooden crate by the door. Who wants their garbage right next to the door? Especially that nasty orange recycling bin. Little bits of this and that were stuffed down inside the slats of the crate.

When my ex moved the front steps to the side of the porch, we never got around to building a rail. He tied the old one onto the side of the steps so our parents would have something to hold onto. And there it stayed. He put artificial turf on the new steps so Sadie, our lame senior dog, wouldn't slip. The carpet looked quite nice at the time. However, Sadie has long since passed on, and the carpet has grown threadbare and holds pine needles, mulch, etc. Molly is quite nimble even on bare steps.

I stopped and stared at this old mess and said to myself "My God, does this not just SCREAM 'cat lady'?" Single old woman in a run-down house. Today I went after all the outside projects I've been putting off. The shutter on the front of the house is too stiff to knock back together, but at least I pulled off the slats that were sagging until I can bring it down and put it all back together again. I got rid of the garbage cans and the old crate, bought four bags of mulch, ripped off the old railing (what were we thinking when we did that?) and put up just a simple rail out of two by fours. I pulled the carpet off, swept the dirt off the boards, and stained the whole thing.

Then of course the heavens opened up and now I need to stain it all again. But at least it doesn't look like hell.

Then I tackled the cat enclosure that has been lying half finished in the grass.

I've been putting it off because I discovered I needed to build a base to make it high enough to clear the window I want it to butt up against. I'm not much of a carpenter, and having to measure and use the circular saw just doesn't thrill me. In my numb mood, the base became "no big deal." I ran out of daylight however, and the screwgun ran out of juice, so I'll have to finish it later. All it needs is some well placed screws, a roof, and shelves, and my indoor kitties can enjoy the sun...er...snow.

I'll post photos of it once I have some daylight.