Or, The Chronicles of a Lazy-ass Carpenter.

Can I call myself a carpenter?  I touched wood.  I didn't cut it, though.

I want to toss "easy-peasy" in here somewhere, but I feel like that's an artificial attempt to be nicer in language than I really am.

So here's the inspiration:  I am a million times over-excited that the barn has jumps, considering that the last barn had a jump.  This is progress.  But, unfortunately, it doesn't have shit on our first barn.  And seeing how the group of us have expectations to compete (OR is actually going to a show this weekend for English Equitation and Pleasure), we need to expose the horses to more than our sand-colored jumps and get some variety.

Old barn:

Color.

And more color and fancy wing standards.

And the wall.

And the skinny brush box.

And the coop. (which might be my next project!)

And the wishing well (standards were wells). I hated this jump.

Cheap & Easy Flower Boxes

• I measured the wood and found that each piece was close enough to 36 inches that I didn't need to do anything special.  Then I found the worst side and made that my bottom.
• In a surprisingly OCD fashion, I spent way too long thinking about the holes I was going to cut.  

• I originally thought about making a hole in the center, at 18", and then every six inches out from there.  It would result in a total of five holes per piece.  But then I started thinking about the two pieces being set next to each other, end-to-end, and the resulting empty almost-foot of flower-less space where the ends met. 
  
• Keeping with a six-inch gap, because it was the easiest mathematically, I divided the space between holes so when placed end-to-end, the wood would look continuous and have uninterrupted flower power.
• I measured three inches from the end and made a light, preliminary mark.  I measured six inches from that and made another, until I had six light marks per piece.  I then measured the width of the wood to find center.  Surprise.  The wood wasn't a perfect 4".  To make life easier on myself, I just made a darker mark where center and my old mark sorta converged.  I don't think this much measuring really matters, so long as you're near the center of the wood.

• I drilled the holes with a 1/4" bit, measuring depth with a flower stem to attempt to get some sort of consistency.  

D's g-ma bought us this thing and then almost immediately asked if we'd used it.  Uh, no.

• And then my drill died after about nine holes.

It's a piece of shit, but the first power tool should be, right?

$4.97 at Walmart.

• So I opted to go ahead and start painting while my drilled charged.  I bought the cheap-ass $1.47 Walmart spray paint in white and a navy-ish blue.  I'll never do that again.  The white exploded all over my hands.  It took about three light coats, but I was able to spray one set, start on the second set, and then the first set would be dry.  I didn't paint the bottoms, since the wood was already treated, just the five sides.
• I bought some $1 flowers from Dollar Tree and stuck those bitches in. I'll buy more to fill the boxes eventually.

Second coat or so.

I don't remember the white looking so splotchy.

Okay, so I'm off-centered.

Adds a little something.