I’ve caught the “buildies”

I haven’t done any sewing for a while, between our mini vacation (and it’s aftermath) and a couple of nice days, I’ve been working on some other stuff instead. Namely I’ve been learning more about using Sketchup, and have designed a desk for our office, a rough idea for a new shed in the backyard, and also a new layout for the backyard. We’re also putting in new windows, and I’m hopeful that we get them ordered today! 🙂

So anyway, back to the “buildies”. I thought I’d post my sketchups (is that a word?) of my desk, because I’m pretty proud of how quickly I’m learning how to use the program. If you’d like to play with it, they have some really good videos on their website and on youtube.

My husband said the desk needed to have an L-shape, so it does. x2, because it’s wide enough for both of us to use simultaneously.

This part holds the drawers at the top, has slats for those packets of labels and such, and the bottom right will be open to hold 3-ring binders

One of the drawers, not sure why I included them.

The other size of drawers.

If it works out like I hope, this desk will be pretty freaking awesome, and we’ll actually be able to navigate our office–right now, we have to shove chairs around to get to the printer/mechanical room (which holds the deep freezer)/pretty much anything in there. We have a big corner desk and a card table that we use for “desks”, plus two sets of kitchen cabinets that sit along the wall blocking half of our outlets. We also have wall cabinets above those kitchen cabinets, but we’re keeping those. I’m planning to leave one pair of the cabinet boxes with a gap in between and a formica top (which it already has) as a secondary makeshift “desk” + storage. Hopefully, that gives us the balance we need between enough storage and efficient movement from computer to printer, which is crucial when you’re scanning a few hundred pages into many different files at a shot.

I’m also trying to figure out a fun and inexpensive way to do our small backyard. Budgets suck. 😦 Plus it will just be one more thing to work on and we’ll have to do a lot of stuff by hand since it’s impossible to get any sort of decent sized equipment in the back yard. 😦 (This is why curved streets suck–developers should never have started that B.S.)

This is the aerial view of our backyard, based on my measurements and putting them into sketchup. It leaves off the grassy “paths” that run along both sides of the house, but I wasn’t planning any work in there anyway.

Here’s the map “key”:

• Blue-ish rectangle is the house
• The white rectangle is the patio
• I drew in the A/C unit as a grey square
• The green circles are supposed to represent bushes/trees. (I’d like a few fruit bushes–hubby demands at least one be a blackberry)
• The box that says “garden” on it is currently the swingset of despair, so I’m either going to have to figure out a new location for a nicer swingset (or at least a couple of swings), or a new garden location, or give up on the garden altogether.
• The shed is the same size as our current shed, but we’re thinking about making it a couple of feet bigger in both directions when we replace it, it’ll depend on how my idea for under-the-deck storage works out.
• The slat wood looking box is supposed to represent the deck, it’s a half-story tall, because we have a split level house and it meets up to the upper level, I think it would be a great place to store things like our bikes, and maybe a few gardening supplies if I put a tin “roof” under the floor joists that slants down toward the yard. I’m sure I’ll put some guttering in too after we’ve seen how much water actually hits it with all of the deck flooring.
• There’s a firepit.
• And I’m going to have to figure out where to put a sandbox, which may be in place of a garden, or right up next to it. Right now, the boys play in the dirt under the deck with their little toy skidloaders and bulldozers, and I’d like for them to have a fun place to play too.

I don’t know. I’m not completely happy with the layout I’ve designed, but I hate the current layout (which is basically the same minus any trees and a fire pit). And I also hate that the yard is a trip hazard with all the potholes in the grass and the “river” that runs behind the shed (and along where I’d like to put the shrubs/trees) when it rains because the drainage sucks. I’d actually like to figure out how to catch that water as it runs off and use it to water plants, but I’m not sure how without mega $$$ and big equipment tearing up the neighbor’s yard.

So yes, that’s what I’ve been working on. Those things + new windows and siding should go a long way in making our house a better place to live. Or at least give the outward appearance of it. 😉