{DIY} Septic Tank Box: Part 1
Yep. That’s what we started to build last weekend. When you live in Likely you have your own well for your water and your own septic tank. Ours is right there in our back yard, and it’s really not buried that deep. As you can see from the photos I took this weekend, we have two green tank lids that stick up right out of the dirt. They’re made of plastic and plastic + sun = brittle plastic. We didn’t want the tank lids to get sunbaked because that would be downright dangerous if something (or someone – eek!) fell through. Fortunately the septic tank is only as old as our home ownership journey (which is about 16 months), but we didn’t want it to be left out there in the elements any longer. So a few weeks ago, Glenn dug some holes, poured some concrete and set some recycled wood posts in, which was the beginning of our new septic tank box.
Although we needed to build a box around the septic tank, we still needed to be able to access the tank for pumping, etc. So when planning the design we decided to make the box do triple duty: protect the tank, act as extra storage, and built at seat height for a little extra seating outside. As I said before, Glenn used some scrap posts that we had around and he set them in concrete around the box. He then purchased some brackets and framed it in with 2×4′s to reinforce the box and add strength.
Here’s a photo, admiring the new window in Harper’s room. 
But it reminds me that we still need to paint the trim on the house…..
Harper was a big help, too…and you can see that the green plastic lids are right there, sticking up out of the dirt. Perfect size for a little girl I know to fall through if they somehow got damaged.. Not good!
This (above) is right after Glenn cut the tops of the posts off with his chain saw. Good thing that Glenn is married to an interior designer, because I knew right off the top of my head, exactly what height to build the top at for a standard seat. Or he could have just walked inside with a tape measure and measured a chair…
It’s approximately 18″…in case you were wondering.
Does your man own a chain saw? Mine does. And he uses it…a lot.
Almost done! Doesn’t our new grass look nice? A little patchy still, but at least we have grass now. We should be able to fix that this winter while there’s snow on the ground.
Finished! With the frame, anyway. Now we just need to put the sides and top on. Hopefully it will be finished this weekend, but you know us…fishing might be a little more important while the weather is good. Isn’t this a beautiful November so far? Here in Northern California it’s been sunny and in the 70′s! Love it! Not looking forward to the gloom and cold.
Happy Veteran’s Day! Go thank one you know tomorrow…or every time you see them. I’m giving a shout-out to my cousin, Matt, who is stationed in the army in Hawaii (poor guy, right?) but he’s also recently home from his 2nd Iraq tour and he’s only 24. He’s also my hero and I really hope that I get to see him over the holidays!
xo, L.
PS – My giveaway for 3 Rosebud cards is still going on through this week! Head over there for the details!!
Read MoreHe Says/She Says Poll Results
Good morning, everyone! How was your weekend? Mine was great! Just too short…I cleaned my office (aahhh – that is a big sigh of relief), made a few Christmas cards and helped Glenn build the frame around a box that is protecting our septic tank in the backyard. Gross. Well, the box isn’t gross, just the thought of a big tank of poo that is right underneath our feet in our backyard. It’s just weird. The tank isn’t buried very deep – the top of it is actually level with the ground, so we have these big plastic lids that stick up on the lawn, so we’re building a box to protect it from the sun. You really don’t want those plastic lids getting sunbaked and brittle!! A few weeks ago, Glenn dug some holes, poured some concrete in and set some posts. And yesterday he started on the frame…and I helped. Anyway, more on that later!
Next up is the results of the “He Says/She Says” bedroom paint dilemma poll I posted last Friday. So far it’s 53% for painting the trim, chair rail and ceiling brown…41% say leave it how it is…and 6% (1 vote) says Other, but I don’t know what Other means! Anyway, to let you in on who is who…I am the one who wants to paint. Surprise, surprise, right? I feel like at the very least the orange and white needs to be broken up (by painting the chair rail). And I saw a photo online SOMEWHERE of a bedroom with a chocolate brown ceiling and I LOVED it. But I can’t find it anywhere now…let me know if you have seen it or know where I can find it…please! Glenn wants to paint the trim around the windows the same color as the lower wall and be done with it. And he is seriously fighting me on it…straight up says ‘no! Do not paint it!’ It must be nice to have such amazing psychic powers and knowing how ugly my idea must turn out. ::Grrrr…::
I’d even consider doing a tan ceiling instead if chocolate brown is that scary for a ceiling. I still think the chair rail would be best in chocolate, though. But I could always paint that tan as well and if I don’t like it I can paint it darker. Whatever, Glenn, ha!
Thank you all for your votes – I win, I win!! But we’ll see if it ever gets done…I’m still waiting for Glenn to fill all the nail holes in the new trim so that we can get those painted. We’ll also paint the bathroom ceiling (back to white) when we paint the trim. It’s VERY dark in there…you can still do your makeup, but I think we just need a little more white to balance out all of the brown. It keeps it looking crisp. And I need to get new towels and finish sewing my new shower curtain…
And speaking of paint colors, I recently finished an e-decorating Paint Consultation project for a client. I chose colors for the ENTIRE house and I hear through the grapevine (aka Facebook) that their painters are done and they LOVE their colors. Can’t wait to share those photos with you all!! After I see them, of course…
Edit: My brain and my fingers aren’t working together…I thought I left the contest open until TODAY (Monday, 11/9) but I originally was holding the giveaway open until Monday 11/16. So I’m going to keep it open for another week, so if you want to enter you still have time! Sorry, Trisha…maybe you’ll still win! 
Head back to the post to enter. And last, but not least – the winner of last week’s Rosebud Cards giveaway!! The winner is Trisha!! Congrats, Trisha!! Enjoy your free cards!! Here are her favorites:
And a HUGE, HUGE, HUGE ‘Thank You’ to Rosemary of Rosebud Cards for offering this very generous giveaway to Likely Design readers! Your card idea is absolutely adorable, and Trisha is a very lucky winner. I am so appreciative that someone would contact me because of my blog and offer to give something away for free that you worked so hard on. Thank you so much to everyone who entered – you guys rock!
It’s still open: enter the giveaway here!
And another exciting thing coming up – I submitted a guest post to Michelle over at the blog “When I Grow Up” about my path to becoming a creative professional. How exciting, right?!?! I’ll let you know when my guest post is up!! See you all tomorrow and have a great Monday…. xo, L.
Read MoreHe Says/She Says
I need your help here, people! We have a little “Designing for the Sexes” debate at my house…on a few rooms, but we’ll start here. As you might know, we need to do a little painting in the master bedroom. One of us wants to continue doing some painting, and one of us wants to simply leave the room how it is (after the NEW window trim is painted, of course). I won’t say who is who because I want your honest opinion and I’m going to show Glenn the results of this poll! {See the poll below.} Here are some pictures of the bedroom as it is today.
We do have a wish list for this room…starting with light bulbs with lower lumen output. See the bandannas on the bedside lamps? The light bulbs are ridiculously bright for a bedside lamp. We also want a new bed frame (notice how we took the canopy part down??), curtains over the windows, new rugs, and some serious art and accessories. I think the bed could also use a throw or something for some fun texture.
One of us wants to leave the paint as is. The other wants to paint the trim, chair rail and ceiling a chocolate brown, leaving the white and orange as is. What do you think? We both like the orange (Pilgrimage Foliage by Benjamin Moore) so I’m trying not too show my bias here, hehe…
Alright, here is the poll. Feel free to add your own design suggestion if you can think of another idea!
Thanks for your help! I’ll be sure to keep you updated!!
Read MoreWho Wants Cookies?? {Giveaway}
**This giveaway is no longer accepting entries, but thanks for playing!**
On a Christmas card, that is… Two of my favorite things combined into one for a GIVEAWAY here on the blog; Christmas cookies and Christmas cards!! The lovely Rosemary from Rosebud-Online contacted me and has offered one (1) lucky Likely Design reader the chance to take home their choice of any 3 cards from their website!
I love this excerpt from their website, so I just had to share it with you.
{‘Thank you for visiting Rosebud. For as long as we can remember, our family has shared the tradition of painting cookies during the holidays. We initially photographed our hand-painted cookies and created cards to share with our family and friends on special occasions, which evolved into a collection of paper goods. In the spirit of a handmade gift, our card collections are created with love.
Our Cookie Collection recalls the fond memories of a simpler time: family, holidays and childhood excitement. The creation of our whimsical treats is a true family endeavor, baked from scratch and painted by hand, inspired by the sweet aroma and joys that can be shared over a cup of tea or tall glass of milk.’}
How sweet is that? And if you look at the cards closely, the cookies are PERFECT and look sooo delicious. What a sweet job, right? None of my cookies would make it to the card! I am so happy that they contacted me to offer this giveaway to you – another one that I wish I could win!! Here are a few of my favorites.
How perfect would it be to send these cards along with a batch of baked goods?
What a perfect cookie!
I love the snowflakes!
They have cookie cards for every occasion!
So how do you get your hands on a few of these adorably yummy cards? As usual, there are a few ways to get an entry:
- Leave a comment below after heading over to Rosebud, commenting on which 3 cards are your favorite (that you’d like to win)!
- Tweet about this giveaway (mention @likelydesign), and then leave a comment below letting me know that you did!
- Become a fan of Likely Design on Facebook! Leave a comment if you already are one, or after you become one!
- Blog about this giveaway, then leave a comment with the link!
- Do any or all of the above by Monday, November 16th at 8:00 AM PST and you’re entered to win! Using random.org, I’ll choose one (1) winner and announce who the lucky reader is in Monday’s post! Good luck!!
Unfortunately if an entry doesn’t follow these rules, I will delete it. Read my Giveaway FAQ’s here. Good luck and thanks for checking out Likely Design and Rosebud! xo, L.
Mac Lover
I love my little white MacBook. It’s 3 years old now, which is probably ancient in computer years, but I’m hoping that I can squeeze a few more years out of it. I’m a self-taught PC convert, and I love all of the little details that Macs offer, and make my life a lot easier! You can see my “Dock” below, and some of the most frequently used programs that I use.
I just want to say how much I love iWork, mainly because of how intuitive the programs are, and how versatile they are as well. Pages is technically Apple’s word processing software, but it’s more like Word, Publisher and more rolled into one. Numbers is the spreadsheet program (think Excel) but this is the program that I use to create e-decorating boards like this one:
Now how did I take a document that I created in Numbers and turn it into an image, which I saved in my Flickr account? Here’s how you do it on a Mac: File/Print/Click the PDF button, and there is an option that says “Save PDF to iPhoto” and it turns it into a .jpg and saves it in iPhoto. This is a sample of something I was working on in Pages.
When I send a file to my clients, I convert whatever I’m working on, whether it’s a contract made in Pages, or a paint schedule made in Numbers, into a PDF. I simply use the Print function here again and convert it to a PDF.
You can use the “Export” function as well, and this is how you convert to a Word doc, and it works well with multiple pages or sheets, but sometimes a header is missing or something, so I like to just print what I see. If you also hit the “Preview” button, it converts it to a PDF to see how it will print, and you can save it from there as well. Gotta love it!
Another great thing about Pages and Numbers is that it is also compatible with Microsoft documents (you can convert them so that PC users can read them, and you can open Word docs in Pages). They think of everything…
Now I want to say that I am jealous of the interior design students who are still in school, because right after I graduated they incorporated a lot of great new classes into the program (I attended California State University, Chico – woot woot!!). When I was there we did it all old-school; hand-drafting, hand-rendering, cutting out photos, gluing samples and creating large and multiple boards for each project. We took an AutoCAD class (one class), but it wasn’t incorporated into our other classes. We photographed our boards and created portfolios on the computer. I’m trying to keep learning as much as I can, but I really loved being in school and love learning! So keep that in mind while you view…my…portfolio. And remember, I created EVERYTHING in Numbers…even my logo. Enjoy!!
Numbers and Pages are great because you can save a page as a template, which is exactly what I did here to add pages to my portfolio.
I love the “Alpha” tool. It removes backgrounds…just like Photoshop. You click on the color that you want to remove, move your mouse outward, and it will find anything that color and remove it. I completely removed Glenn from a picture using that tool when I needed a good picture of me for a mailer that I made, ha!
If you notice my samples (tile, paint, fabrics, etc.), you can easily make them all the same size by “masking.” Masking is like cropping, but instead of deleting the part of the image you remove, it’s just ‘masked.’ That’s nice if you need to make changes, plus you can drag the image to show what parts you want to show instead of moving every single side like cropping.
You might notice that I also added shadows to give the pages a little more depth.
Pages and Numbers also has those cute photo frames, making the image look like a paper photo with the edges curled up.
I also love the color tools…just simply take the eyedropper to choose EXACTLY what color you want something to be. For instance, on my e-decorating boards, I make a paint ‘splatter’ using a font (‘A’ looks like one paint splatter, ‘B’ looks like another, etc.), and then I make that ‘letter’ (paint splatter) the color from the Benjamin Moore paint website. So great to show paint colors!!
You can also adjust image colors right in Pages and Numbers. Very, very helpful.
These programs make it very easy to line images up, center them, straighten them…they really are very intuitive and all-in-one.
One thing that I did get a little experience with before I graduated was sustainability and education about eco-friendly design practices. Now you can major in Sustainability!
This was my first attempt at SketchUp. I love SketchUp and would love to learn more about it – I’ve seen some amazing SketchUp projects!!
And the end page…hand drawn by me!
So there you have it – the products I like to use. I like to think that I use them a little creatively, but because they are so easy to use I can’t help it! If you have any questions, I’d love to answer them for you…leave a question in the comments and don’t forget to check back or e-mail me at lindsay@lindsaychristensendesign.com.
xo, L.
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About Me
I'm an interior designer and a draftsperson, but I live in the country. I like it that way. I'm also a firefighter's wife, mom to 2 cute kids, and a homeowner and I like that even better. But right after that is a pretty and affordable space...and I mean a REALLY affordable space. Because I believe good design can be for EVERYONE!
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