Earlier in the year my daughter brought me the remains of the
frame for the safety net that was on their trampoline. We discussed the possibility of making some sort of shelter using them but didn't get any details. After finding I had source for pallets I decided that I could create half walls the width of the frame with them and then slide the frame inside the pallet and have a pretty stable structure. I could get the pallet for free and I had a pile of metal fence posts so all I needed to purchase was a large tarp to cover it all. With four frame pieces my structure turned out fairly long and thin and I had more than one person ask why I was building a cattle chute in my back yard....
I thought I had taken a picture of it before putting the tarp on but I don't find one. Below is a picture from the front....
...this is looking at it from the street. I put a "doorway" on either side at opposite ends. Not too bad for the cost, though, don't you think?
This is a later picture with the back flap down, I had lowered both sides when storm had come in. It suffered some wind damage and I do have some repairs that I need to make on the tarp where it attaches to the frame for the awning. Tarps often don't last long in the Kansas wind if it can get up under them.
If you notice, in the picture above, there is an electrical outlet inside the structure also. This is also the reason I haven't gotten a lot of posts up on my blog lately. I've been spending a lot of time out in the yard.
Wednesday the grandson from Wichita was out to visit and he always calls his buddy over, the grandson that played ball this summer. I told him to ask if the girls could come over too, so they could swim....
...to be continued...
The day was a bit overcast, but a wonderful day for spending outside. With all the rain we've had everything is green and growing. You can see my garden to the left.
You can see a little of the damage caused by the Kansas winds. The frame across the front awnings is bent. I forgot to mention the the additional frame pieces came from an old dog kennel.
In the background of the shelter you can catch glimpses of my old van. It was still running when it was parked here several years ago, but had problems. The battery has since run down so I don't know if it would even start now. I have been using it for storage for tents and such and it has a bed in the back that the kids have slept in instead of a tent. The grandkids have also decided that it is their new clubhouse/playhouse. Though they have a lovely playhouse built specially for them, they prefer to play in a van (which convinces me that they are gypsies or maybe hippies). I was sitting comfortably reading in the shade of the shelter and my older granddaughter came and asked if I would put that "thing" up on the van, you know, with the poles and the rope? Oh, you mean the tarp. And what would I get out of doing this? "Well, you can come back and sit down and relax when you get done." Huh?
Guess I shouldn't have asked. She also set up her beauty shop and seemed to have pretty good business...
...at one point she told her sister to wait there, her hair needed to sit for 10 minutes before she could do anything else and she climbed into the van. She commented that she would be in the other room while she waited. Her 10 minutes was only like 10 seconds.
As you saw in my previous post, I moved the grill into the end of the structure and set up a table and chairs. Then I grilled hot dogs and a few steak kabobs, I had fresh zucchini to put on these also. Afterward the kids went swimming again and once I got things cleaned up from the BBQ I got a fire going in the firepit. The kids made s'mores as it was getting dark. Then we watched "National Treasures 2" on the big screen on the side of the house.
The oldest grandson had brought the movie over and when it finished the girls went downstairs to bed and another movie while the boys played a few games of Xbox on the side of the house. It was a long day, but they all had fun, and I almost got some reading done.
