Step 1: Connect the stakes to the staves.

I don’t call my abode the Bourbon Bungalow for nothing. This weekend, I decided to try and create a border for my landscaping out of bourbon staves, and while it was lot of work with the power drill, I think I figured it out.

So how did someone who never owned a drill until January manage to do this?

Well, I purchased 13 staves from a guy in Bardstown at $3 each. Then I went to Lowe’s and bought a bundle of wooden stakes and had the friendly saw worker cut them to foot each. (He asked if I was hunting vampires.)

Then, I just drilled two screws on each side to connect the stave and stake. After that, I sprayed on some weather-proofing polyurethane, let them dry, and then the following morning, I gently hammered them into the ground.

(Hint: Keep an extra stake nearby to hammer into the ground first, so that the stakes that are attached to the stave just fit easily into those holes you make.)

The finished product.

My neighbors seemed a bit confused and frightened at first, but I think they understood once they returned home from church and saw the finished product. “It would have been easier just to buy some bricks,” he said at one point when I was wrestling with the drill and had black bourbon char all over my face.

But nevertheless, I persisted.

Now, let’s just see how long they stand up to the elements.