Cat-Face Spider

Last night, after a long night of eating too much food at Pig Out at The Park, we got home to find a creepy looking spider outside our kitchen window. I caught a giant white ball out of the corner of my eye, and looked over at this feakishly huge looking spider staring me down.

I wouldn't have been suprised if the damn thing started talking and demanded my wallet. Turns out, this spider is called a Jewel Spider, and/or Cat-Face Spider. Mainly because when you look at it from behind, it looks like.., well, a cat.
I looked up this spider and according to this site: http://www.royalalbertamuseum.ca/natural/insects/bugsfaq/jewelspd.htm
the spiders aren't harmful to humans. In fact, they are beneficial. Still creepy looking though. This thing will scare the bejeezes out of you if you've never seen one before. This is the time of year that these spiders begin to show up.

Redwood Deck

This weekend i'm heading up to Priest Lake to build a deck for my folk's cabin. Originally we were going to just pull the old topping off the existing deck and replace it with fresh redwood 2x6 topping. Upon pulling off the old topping, we discovered the suports were all rotten and would need to be completely replaced.

I think it's better this way though. Whenever you do a remodeling job, you never know what you will uncover. The projects almost always tend to be way bigger than orignally thought. Rather than trying to salvage what was already there, we decided to completley demolish every last remenant of the old deck and start from scratch.

We will be building a 24' x 12' deck. I have some experience with framing and would consider myself somewhat of a "handyman". I have enlisted some help from my father and brothers whom have little to none experience. We'll see how this goes...


************* the aftermath *************************************

Well. It went pretty well. Even though we did our share of drinking while building. See pics below.


(Yup. We had the women with sangrias making sure we were level)



(Tah Dahhh!)

Not too shabby looking. A splash of stain and a couple steps and it's ready for parties. Next step will be fabricating a railing/bench system all around. But we'll save that for another day.

Construction Begins

Emily and I have begun construction on our new home. We purchased 11 acres just south-west of Spokane.
We broke ground and put in a well in March. We have gone through the foundation stage, and most of the framing stage. The roof is now in progress.....

^^site where house will be^^

^^foundation is done!^^

^^first floor framed^^

^^second floor framed^^

roof trusses installed and garage has begun framing stage

FAST FORWARD..........

Siding almost complete on house. Sheetrock has begun as of 8/21/2007