How to Recycle and Reuse a Southwest Courtyard Gate

We wanted to share our latest project for our house. We found an old and weathered Southwest style courtyard gate. It is made of nice thick pine but showed some signs of water damage and was falling apart. We took measurements on the gate and compared them to the opening in our wall. The gate was almost perfect in width but needed to be cut down in height. This worked out well because the water damage was at the bottom of the gate. We ended up cutting almost 6 inches off of the bottom of our southwest gate. We then used a rubber mallet to pound the tongue and groove features back together. When everything was in place I used a lot of wood glue and long screws to keep it from falling apart again. Next we chose a nice bright light blue paint, I believe it was a good quality outdoor latex paint. Now we had to mount the door to our stuccoed courtyard wall. I chose the correct thickness door jambs, I think they were just the cedar fence planks from Home Depot. I also used simple gate hinges from Home Depot to attach the door to the jamb and then mounted the hinge side jamb to the stucco wall using the new concrete anchors from Home Depot. The latch side of the gate required a double thickness door jamb so that the rabbits don't come in eat our plants and flowers. We were very happy with the results and now have a rabbit barrier for our front yard. Here are some before and after pictures.

Old Weathered Southwest Style Courtyard Gate

Renovated Southwest Courtyard Gate

DIY Solar Power Blogsite

Hi All, here is a great DIY Solar Power Website. It is just starting out but it has down to earth small system builds for the every day guy/gal. A small solar power system would be perfect to have on your houseboat, RV, or camper. Check it out at:

   solar-nm.com.

Perfect for your Homemade Houseboat

I placed a picture of a homemade houseboat on this blog about a year ago and I am surprised to see how much traffic that picture gets. Here is another look at that picture of the houseboat:

Homemade Houseboat

I imagine that the increase in popularity of houseboats could be due to the fact that people are looking for alternative places to live that don't cost you an arm and a leg. I found a great article on building your own solar panel assembly here on this site: http://solar-nm.blogspot.com/. They show you how they built a small stand alone solar panel system complete with small inverter for under $150. Check it out.

350 Chevy Blazer S10 Update

Here are some up to date Chevy S10 Blazer Pictures. I recently installed better tires on my 1994 Camaro aluminum wheels. They are taller tires just meant for pushing the truck around the garage while I am preparing the 350 for install. This winter has been too cold for my blood to go out and work on it. Enjoy the pictures.