LESSON LEARNT

Lesson learnt...

Don't send your daughter a like like this to Pinterest.....

The picture that changed our holidays....

She was like a woman driven....
She was on a mission and this was our holiday project.....
No instructions, just this picture....

our plans

Sarah thought we could know this project over in a couple of days....
She thought it would be cheap to do.....
She thought we would get all the pallets for free... (Mostly we did)
It involved Steve and Sarah going to Bunnings and buying wheels and paint, so that they could borrow a trailer for free if they spent $50 or more at Bunnings....
They came home with this attached....

Bunnings Trailer needed for picking up the pallets

So they set off to pick up their free pallets so that they could start making Sarah's outdoor setting...
They were gone for over an hour when they arrived home with all of these.....

Unloading all the pallets

Onto their front lawn....

After returning the trailer, they came home and carted them all around the back where they started playing with them, to get the shape they wanted... They positioned them all, tried different height sizes etc

Playing around with the pallets

Playing around with the pallets to get the right seating...

 and when they found exactly what they wanted, the the measuring and work started....

Measuring the width of the seats

she will make a carpenter yet...

Tools to use

The tool bag.....

 Now the work starts in earnest

Lots of sanding

Each pallet had to be sanded before we could paint it...

This was a day's work in itself....

 Then Steve taught Sarah how to use the circular saw for making her coffee table...
She handled it really well...

Steve showing Sarah how to use it....

Sarah having a go....

Having a go on her own....

Feeling triumphant

 Coffee table is now done, and ready to have the top stained....

Table top stained...

Then the dreaded painting begins...
This was a HUGE job....
14 pallets needed to be painted.... They are as fiddly as anything to paint and we all spent time painting them...

Mixing up the paint....

What do you think Sarah???

OK time to try it on the timber and see if she gets the desired effect....

What do you think Dad????

Carefully painting the sides

Looking good....

The rest of us all got handed paintbrushes too.  

Working on the Base of the coffee table

Even I got handed a paint brush

3 down ..... 11 to go....

Looking good Sarah

Steve loved working with Sarah to build this....

A special time for father and daughter....

 Sarah thought this project would only take a couple of days...
The reality was it took a good 4-5 days...
Always much bigger than you think.
She was driven.... on a mission....
Once the top of the coffee table was finished she went and grabbed some of her Christmas presents to see how they would look on it....

Flowers and Candles to decorate the table....

We discovered that KMart have some awesome home decorations and very reasonably priced...

Lavender flowers that decorate her table....

KMart and Ikea Candle holders....

Close up of them all...

 Back to the painting agan...

Back to the painting again...

Someone is happy

It was almost time to ring around to price some foam...
Sarah became very disillusioned after her phone call to Clark Rubber...
They quoted her $450 for the foam... this was supposed to be a cheap venture for her to gain a nice outdoor setting.....
So far with paint, casters, and the couple of pallets she did have to pay for, she had already spent over $150.
Steve reassured her that they would be able to find something cheaper, so they took off for a drive to Clark Rubber together.....
They just happened to have had some foam matteresses on sale for $40, so they bought four of them, and Clark Rubber were very good and cut them all up to the sizes that Sarah wanted free of charge...
She came home pretty excited with all of this.....

Foam all cut to size....

It all needed to be sorted into the six pieces that we would need for the sofa...

 We had quite a bit left over which eventually ended up going to the dump...
Interestingly though, it was still cheaper to go this way with wastage than get the exact pieces cut to size...   This was almost a third of the price to do it this way....
By this stage,  I was running out of time to complete the project in Brissie, as I really wanted to be on the Sunshine Coast with my Dad for Mum's birthday which was the next day...
We still didn't have fabric to cover all this foam.

It was Thursday evening and I was leaving at 8.30am the next morning....
Sarah put Willow to bed, and then around 7.50pm, we decided to head out to Spotlight and see if we could find some fabric to cover it.  We only had an hour to do this...
What is the best thing we could do... pray about it of course,  pray that we could find something suitable at a price we could afford, so that is what we did..
We arrived at Spotlight and found the perfect fabric straight off, on Sale with 30% off.  WHAT A BARGAIN... We needed just over 12 metres and all up it cost us around $140..
We headed home at 9pm...

Steve stayed in Brissie for an extra day to get Sarah's garden completed as well as clean up the mess they had made,  plus finish off all the tiling in Sarah's bathroom...
On Friday night they both worked like trogens to get this far..

All tidied up ready to have the upholstery..

As finished as it was going to be before Steve and Sarah came up to the coast...

Sarah also moved out Willow's little table setting...

They worked on the garden until almost 1am in the morning....

Garden all planted even if it did take them till 1am

Steve and Sarah arrived on the coast on Saturday, and the sewing began....
 Even here she was on a mission...
My good friend Barb came down to spend the day and help us with the sewing...
Unfortunately we didn't get much sewing done on the Saturday as it took us pretty much all afternoon and most of the evening to get it all cut out....
Barb and I advised from the couch whilst Sarah got down on the floor and cut it all out...

Measuring the pieces and cutting them out...

Cutting out the fabric

Seemed never ending...

 Then the sewing began...
I ended up with this job....
And it took me a couple of days to get it all done...

Pinning it all together.

We made one completely first to make sure we were on the right track...

 We had a bit of a break and had dinner on the beach, and then came home and started this all over again...

Sewing the cushion covers...

Slowing getting there....

 Pretty happy to start seeing it all come together....

Half done...

 We had thought that we might have to make a trip to Brissie on the Monday, and I was going to take these back for Sarah to sew the velcro on the back, but it turned out we couldn't go until Tuesday, so I made a quick trip to Spotlight on the coast and bought a heap of Velcro, and came home and completely finished them for her...

Sewing on the velcro tabs...

 On Tuesday we headed to Brissie with the car loaded with all of Sarah's cushions.
We were keen to see the finished product.....
It was exciting to see it all finished and getting used...
Willow loves it...

Colin and Willow enjoying sitting on it for the first time...

One happy chappy.... a sense of achievement for particularly Steve and Sarah...

Colin enjoying time out on the couch with his girls....

Some closeup shots of their outdoor setting...

 It is very comfy...
I even managed to have a half hour nap out there...
Must of needed a catch up after all the late nights I had  sewing these cushions...

Naptime

So cool and relaxing out here...

Being serenaded by my son in law....

 Very happy with the final outcome of our week of hard work...

The finished outdoor setting...

The whole setting with the extra shelving.

 Once Steve and Sarah put the casters on the outdoor setting, they ended up with three spare pallets as they only needed two then and not three high.... Rather than just dump them, Steve decided to make some shelving for Sarah to put candles on, or pot plants....

 They also worked really hard putting in this too...
They bought heaps of this....

Soil and potting mix for the garden

And quite a few of these also...

Shrubs and herbs

and some flowering plants as well

Flowering plants for the garden

and then they worked late into the night to finish this...

The new Garden...

Sarah wants to have a little garden with Willow...
They plan on working in here together...

Looking at the garden and down into the entertainment area...

On one of Sarah's many trips to Bunnings, she found one of these that she bought, so that Willow can water the garden with her...
So cute to watch...

Willow's new watering can.

 So that is the story of our holidays and all the hardwork building a lovely area for Sarah, Colin and Willow to enjoy...