Bathroom Re-Model: Finished!

The 99% finished bathroom- two years later!

Storm Window Reuse: Cold Frame

Check out this beautiful cold frame built by my brother Simeon using an old wooden storm window from my 1912 Arts and Crafts/Prairie style house. The design is simple, and pretty self explanatory.  Recently I've also used a large storm window over our strawberry box to help the new plants through the cold snap at the beginning of the month (April 2016).

Porch and Columns: Start to Finish

No commentary, just photos!

Patio Project Part 1

Two years ago, our lovely neighbors agreed to include a side yard in our joint fencing project (joint is sort of a stretch; I researched, got quotes, and did demo of old fence, but they financed it all!). In preparation, I demolished the side entrance steps to the house (the door was rendered a dummy with our initial renovation of the kitchen) and removed several bushes.

 

 

One major hurdle was what to do with all of the dirt I'd be digging out. Having a bit of landscaping experience from high school, I know that a firm stone and sand base is pretty key to any patio\paver project. I posted to Craigslist and started asking around. A local landscaping supply company that I planned on buying materials from thought "maybe" the owner would let me dump the topsoil for a fee, and I'd be on my own getting it there. That was a no go. It turned out a colleague and friend from school was looking for topsoil to fill in an area of their lawn- and had a trailer! It was a mutually beneficial swap, Mike!

 

A major downspout is located in the middle of the patio area, and after digging about 6 inches, I realized I would have to lower the drainage pipe further than I had last year. I installed a hard PVC elbow below the downspout, linking to a black plastic drain pipe with large holes on the underside to allow for drainage into the soil. The pipe was seated on small rocks and sand. The end of the drain pipe is buried in rocks right at the edge of the sidewalk. When there's a significant amount of rain, water makes it to the end and bubbles up and over the sidewalk, watering the tree we just had planted along the curbside this spring.

 

It was sad\fun to dig up portions of the old French drain from the original building of the house. You can see pretty clearly why this one wasn't working so well anymore.

 

Once I had dug out and leveled the ground using mason's twine and a level, I laid down weed barrier cloth, swayed by my Pop (Laura's father). This was a last minute decision as I am not a huge proponent of weed barrier especially when used in flower beds. Here,  I couldn't think of a downside and thought it we had a weed issue 2-5 years down the road I might be wondering if I had made a mistake in not using it. 

 

Over the weed barrier, I laid about 2.5 inches of "stone dust." The name is a little misleading because you can't see a lot of the dust- it settles down through the tiny bits of crushed stone- especially after being rained on. I was amazed at how after spreading, leveling, and tamping this base how hard the surface became once we had a good rain. I think the dust settles down through the crushed stone and hardens a bit. You can buy polymeric stone dust, but that's more expensive and wasn't necessary for my project. I suspect it might be more applicable to a pavers project.

 

A year ago, a neighbor was giving away about 2-3 cubit yards of sand left over from a building project. Knowing that we'd be doing something like a patio in the side yard- and also wanting to give the kids a sandbox- I bagged the whole pile of sand and had a few friends help me move them via car 4 blocks to my house. When my buddy Warren asked how much the bags weighed prior to helping, I said, "Oh, 20-30 pounds or so." He was pretty shocked when we started moving them, and after some logical reasoning got me to admit that they were more like 50-60 or more pounds per bag! I still get teased any time the subject of the sand comes up. But I can point out that I saved us, let's see... maybe $100.

 

The sand has proven very useful in leveling, especially from mold to mold as you can see in the picture below. Phil (my Pop) and Laura are spreading the Quickrete concrete in the WalkMaker mold. We used the fact that Pop Pop and Mom Mom were up visiting for Memorial Day weekend to get started on the concrete since we'd have an extra hand with the kiddos.

 

Working the concrete into the molds is tedious. We are using a small trough to push the concrete in the corners and level each stone. However, the results are very promising. Below, you can see a total of six molds fitted together, which took us about three hours. Convinced that this project was going to be successful, we ordered 60 additional bags of concrete delivered on a pallet. As of writing, we're up to about 1/3 finished. Part 2 to include the staining and sealing process...

No Mess Shrub Cutting or Removal

Have you ever launched into a massively overgrown bush with shears only to discover that after twenty minutes of ecstasy you've created an hour or more of back-breaking clean up? Is your city or township persnickety about bush pickup requiring bundles using twine only, with branches of no more than X diameter and Y length? OOO! Me! Me! Pick Me!

Oddly, this isn't my first post on overgrown shrubs. Clearly we bought a house whose landscaping was far beyond its expiration date, hastened by negligence and\or neglect. I've had plenty of opportunity to devise new techniques for making life with large shrubs more enjoyable. In this post I will share a method I've discovered for effectively cutting back or completely removing a bush in about half the time it would otherwise take.

STEP 1- Start with a bush that needs a haircut in a bad way...

BEFORE

This bush, while screening our porch from the street nicely, will be unnecessary once the fence is finished, and boy is it ugly!

STEP 2- Tie a small loop to the end of twine.


 

Twine, cheap and plentiful

STEP 3- Divide the bush into "chunks," bundling each tightly before cutting anything on the bush. Go on to the next picture to see how to do this.

After wrapping the twine around a portion of the bush, thread the end of the twine through the loop you created. The lasso you now have will help you tighten down the portion of the bush you've looped. CAUTION: Especially if you have twine like that shown, don't rely on the strength of the twine to condense the branches of the bush into a tight bundle. Use your hands and arms and bear hug the branches while tightening the twine. 

STEP 4- You've already done the hard work. Now comes the fun!

Cut or trim the bush at the desired height. If your city requires brush to be a certain length, keep that in mind. In this case, my city asks for 4' bundles maximum, and that was about the height of the bush WHICH I WANTED GONE. I didn't bother with shears and went straight for the chainsaw.

STEP 5- Move your bundles to the curb!

Inevitably a few stray branches have to be tucked into a bundle or a bundle needs to be tightened or needs additional wraps of twine. But for the most part, your work is done.

AFTER

Jericho's Room Finished! (almost)

...and just in time for the homecoming of Shadrach and Moses (projected sometime between Friday and Sunday!)

The final phase of renovation in Jericho's room was focused on the floors. The excessive amounts of adhesive, water damage, delay in ordered wood and the complications of custom planing and "routing" the red oak all caused this to be a mammoth project. As with most projects I post on this blog, I owe their completion to a half dozen people who gave their time and talents.





The room as a kitchen...



Adhesive!



Water damage!





Removing damaged wood

 Construction Zone
Thanks to: Steve for the assistance in fabricating the custom plank flooring
(5/16 thick and 1 1/2 wide!)

Patched in and sanded!

(Thanks to: Ben for carpentry, Father and Simeon for stripping, Susan and Brian for sanding)

Two coats of Cabot stain (pecan) and three coats of Varathane Oil-Based Semi-gloss

Thanks to: Warren and Pop Pop

We bought this bed along with two dressers more than a year ago in anticipation of this day!

What's left? Moulding. The original shoe molding has been sanded and awaits staining and sealing. We couldn't wait any longer to move furniture!