My back yard has problems. I’d like to use it as an extension of the house in the summertime, but I seem to be the only person in this neck of the woods with that ambition. Most of my neighbors seem to think of their yards as a place to imprison the dog when caring for it becomes too annoying. And for storing old construction debris. As such, my yard is overrun with flies and mosquitoes.

Trapping them has become something of a hobby, but until I make some headway I decided that I needed a more immediate way to enjoy the back yard bug-free. Enter IKEA, of course. They sell this great mosquito netting draped around a 56″ hoop, which you can hang like curtains around the space you want to protect from the little winged vampires. 56″ was a bit too big for my little back yard, though; I didn’t have a place to hang the hoop where it wouldn’t bump into things. So I went about changing the hoop from a O shape to a D, so I could mount the flat face straight up against the side of my house.

This involved math (circumference = diameter x pi, yo), a hacksaw, and some DIY L-shaped sockets made out of an old curtain rod to hold the half-hoop to its newly straightened side. The project was a success, though, and an even bigger one when I returned to IKEA today and found an outdoor easy chair for $40 off!

Ahh. I’ve written this whole blog entry from the chair and haven’t swatted one fly. Excellent. Happy 4th, everyone!