Last weekend Jim and I ran out to Doug Jones’ sawmill and picked out a piece of wood for my weekend project. I’d been hearing about Doug Jones for some time now and was really interested to meet him. He was exactly what I’d pictured him to be with neat white hair and teeth, flannel shirt and jeans. He spoke slowly with a deliberate drawl, in a smokey, gravely voice, warn from years of smoking. It was like meeting a cowboy from way back when.

So I spent Saturday and Sunday, sanding and polishing and my old piece of wood turned into my new bench. The legs were salvaged from an old coffee table I found at the Salvation Army.

Instructions: Readymade mag Feb/Mar 2010
Wood beam: $10
Legs: $2
Paste wax: $7

Sunday, I took a break from sanding and helped Jim set up the kids new trampoline. Eden has been relentlessly begging for a trampoline. Jim was adamantly against it, but she finally wore him down and he agreed to pay for half if she could save up the other half. I think he didn’t think she could do it, but in less time than you’d think she had amassed $150 and we had to go to Sams to buy the giant, bouncing monstrosity. Our backyard isn’t that big and since we already have the swingset, it’s being overtaken by kid stuff. (We start out parenthood so idealistically, thinking that our kids aren’t going to mess up our design style, and then one day, we wake up and our lives are filled with brightly colored plastic crap that makes casino-like noises… such is the life…)

I think I will always remember the moment that the trampoline was finished and we all climbed in for the first time, hysterically giggling and bouncing to our hearts content.