Bridge Over River Adsit

Did you have a nice Easter? Hope so.

Ours was a quiet one...just the three of us. Maredith stayed in Louisville, having dinner with a friend and her family. She made our favorite...strawberry cake...which was a hit!

Look what the Easter Bunny brought me! Can you tell what it is from the picture?

It's a new bridge that will grace the pond area off our back deck. Of course, for this to work, we had to:

1. Drain the pond and clean it.
2. Remove all the rocks that surrounded the pond.
3. Remove all the plants in that area, relocating some to a temporary bed for replanting later...and some in pots to go to Maredith's house in KY.
4. Find a plan for building the bridge that I liked...and that Thomas thought was buildable. Then change the plan.
5. Order the materials for delivery..."hello, Home Depot?" [A helpful hint: if you go to HD to place your order, don't do this on the weekend. The Contractor's Desk is staffed M-F only, so on the weekends, you have to get all the SKU numbers yourself...for all your order. Bummer.]
6. Cut and begin assembly in the garage...have you heard how cold it's been outside around here lately? Thomas worked hard on this step over the weekend. [A lovely byproduct of this step...our garage smells fabulous! I just love the smell of wood shavings and sawdust!]
7. Move the whole production to the site...before it got so heavy we couldn't pick it up. Thank goodness for that versatile wagon we got a couple of years ago at Sam's Club! It made a perfect "barge" to transport the bridge. [In case you haven't noticed, the decking on the bridge isn't attached in the picture...so, we could still lift the pieces & parts.]
8. Saturate the new lumber with a product that helps treated wood "receive" stain. Behr (Home Depot again) calls it "No. 63." Or, is it "No. 62?" I forget. One is for new wood...the other for "aged" wood.

That's where the project stands today. I finished spraying the wood last night, and it has to "cure" for 24 hours. Of course, it will have to be above the 40's for us to paint...and we are still looking at night-time temps in the 30's around here.

I'll update the photo to show the progress we are making on this project. I'm so excited!