Creative Designs

Donovan's Irish Pub

Donovan’s Irish Pub evolved out of the fact that my daughters grew out of the Play Structure I had built for them and we were pivoting our side yard to more for adults as a result. I had this half-demoed structure in the corner and in its next life it became a place for my friends and me to gather and enjoy adult beverages.

Cork Dart Board

I had seen Wine Cork Dart Boards online but never in real life. It was a natural addition to our new and improved side yard for adults. I used my CAD skills to design a purposely complicated design and my whole family jumped in to help. Many people contributed bags and boxes of used wine corks for our project. It is a very time-consuming project and it does not handle bad weather well, but one day we will finish it.

Sea Monster

The Sea Monster was an idea that I borrowed from a Halloween display I saw during COVID. I needed to replace the pirate and sharks in my own Halloween display and thus Sea Monster came to life blowing smoke out of its mouth. It was made from plywood, carved foam, and a great paint job. Special thanks to Nina Hoffmann for the Art Direction help. During Christmas, we placed him on a large boat to be part of the King Harbor Holiday Parade and won first place in our division.

Ferris Wheel

I came up with the idea to construct a moving Ferris Wheel out of PVC pipes with a wood A-Frame as the structure. We used 5-gallon buckets to create seats for the stuffed animals. My neighbor and good friend Ben “MacGyver” Biddle desires most of the credit for making the Ferris Wheel light up and spin with an electric motor. We were able to design and build it in a little over 2 weeks and put it on a 40-foot yacht as part of the 2021 King Harbor (Redondo Beach) Holiday Boat Parade and won our large powerboat division. We later placed it in my front yard as part of our annual Christmas display.

Santa Christmas Train

I have always been fascinated by trains, so this was my opportunity to create something from scratch that my neighborhood would appreciate, annually, during the Christmas season. There is a USC Football helmet donated by neighbor and I designed the caboose so that families could taken their Christmas Card photo there as we did. Santa drives the engine that has a list of the good boys and girls who helped us build this neighborhood feature.

Pirate Ship

Halloween 2019 we introduced the 22 foot tall Pirate Ship complete with crows nest, rope ladder, canons and mast with sails.

Scary Halloween Door

Halloween graveyards are what we have done for years so the next step was having a Scary Halloween Door in front our house. Redondo Beach Detective C. Daniel provided tons of advice on how to create this very aged look, which was highly appreciated.

Scary Singh Theatre in El Segundo

For Halloween 2020, we have created a scary Theatre in the front yard of our favorite family friends the Singh Family. They were already showing scary movies outside their front bay window. We have introduced an Art Deco Theatre Surround complete with dark red drapes and gold tassels. In the corner of the yard is a free-standing Theatre Ticket Booth and several scary movie goers.

Kiddie Academy Pasadena 2020

A new happy client, Jen Moore, just opened this Pre-School in Pasadena and wanted the outdoor play areas to truly be special for her children. We designed all of the play structures and landscaped play areas. Models were built 50 that the carpenters build exactly what we agreed to and I designed.

Daughters Play Structure

Not wanting to buy something off of the shelf at the store, I always wanted to design and create a very special place for my daughters to enjoy daily. We have a small side-yard so going to levels was the answer and each of my daughters has their own special space joined by a bridge.

Winning Boat Parade Entry

I was asked by the Girl Scout Troop Leader if I could create a Cookie Booth Display to help them sell more cookies these year and she suggested a Jeep so I came up with this design.

Girl Scout Cookie Jeep 2019

I was asked by the Girl Scout Troop Leader if I could create a Cookie Booth Display to help them sell more cookies
these year and she suggested a Jeep so I came up with this design.

Girl Scout Cookie Booth 2018

My daughter and I created a Cookie Booth display that the girl scouts could travel
around and bring to various stores and rest over a folding table.

Folding Robotics Table

My daughter Chloe Belle, was a 4th grader, part of a Lincoln Elementary School entry, in a LEGO Robotics where they took 2nd Place in the Oral presentation competition against others as old as high school. I was asked to build the foldable Robotic Practice table for the team…

Guitar Playing Leprechaun

I created this Guitar playing Leprechaun with moving arms, for the PMYC Boat Parade entry in 2008 and we won some type of award that year, probably for most spirited entry.