ahhhh, shade!

this past weekend mark and i worked on the deck by screening in the westward facing side. a couple months back mark made the door with the darkening screen in it and we have been waiting for it to be a little cooler to do the large screen. so in the mean time we had bought one of those roll up bamboo type to keep the sun out and it worked pretty good. well wouldn't you know it one windy day {i know, it's hard to believe that the wind blows here} i forgot it was down and next thing you know mark is screaming like a girl seeing a mouse to come and help him with the shade. it had actually bent in half and blown inside the post, needless to say it is junk- so off to the dump it went and we were forced to do our little project. it all started out innocently enough, have the screen made, put it up, frame it in. but wait, what if we made and put in these nifty panels to keep the wind out of the bottom part too? well, one thing lead to another and it turned into a two day project. we made the panels, cut like a thousand pieces of pressure treated 2x4 into pieces and dado cut them to hold the panels, then decided that it looked so good we should replace the other 2x4's and the top caps too. this weekend we are slated to do the right side of the railing to match. as much as i complain about standing in the heat, it looks awesome and we lost a couple of pounds too!