Monday, April 23, 2007
Glass Houses
It has been a real ass-kicker of a week. The wife is down to less than 20 days before starting her new job so getting the flowerbeds done became a priority. We had 2 goals, look nice and keep the cats from crapping under the porch. Since we have embraced the rustic look I was struggling to find some skirting for the porch that would match. The wife likes lattice, something I detest but time was ticking and if I didn’t come up with something soon that is what it would be. One of the “treasures” I hauled home a while back was a 18 foot long riveted sheet steel smoke stack for a large industrial steam engine. God only knows why, but I did. It dawned on me if I could pop the rivets and spread it out that would make a fascinating skirt for around the porch. It was harder than it looked, I drilled then chopped out each individual rivet. Have I ever mentioned how much the neighbors love me?
After pealing it apart and jumping on it to take some of the curl out I spread it on some sawhorses and beat it into submission with hammers. Once it was flat enough I snapped a line and slit it from one end to the other with a skill saw running a metal abrasive wheel. Sparks some and again the noise was impressive. Once it was in a strip, (the width varied depending on what part of the porch I was working on), I could flex and pound on them to flatten out the rest of the wrinkles.
That would have been it except for a passing comment about how cool it would be for some sort of design, so we cut up some copper and aluminum and made some mountains. The blue is also aluminum; it just has some anodized coating on it. I figure it will last for a while. We hope the copper will tarnish and green up with age. I attached it with honest to god rivets, 100 year old rivets. I had never hot riveted before, it will be a while before I do it again. It does match the smokestack in appearance so that made it all worth it right?
Having got the skirting in we had to build the beds. Quite a bit of heated discussion went into this. Mostly my wife talking about how she had her heart set on a certain brick and my speculating as to what happens when you miss a mortgage payment. She won and we got the brick, $300 and 3300 pounds worth. Came from Lowes, they were cheaper than HD. In the picture many of the bricks have already been placed. We got a whole pallet plus some, I don’t know 16 maybe.
Digging and setting the bricks 2 high is boring and mostly uneventful. The only real difficulty was in 2 places the turn we wanted to make was sharper than the bricks naturally allow so I had to cut them. Did it with a saw and a dry blade but don’t have any pictures. Cost me that saw so now I am looking for another beater, that or drop the one I cut the metal with to beater status. Its nice having such a good skill saw that all I ever do is use beaters because I don’t want to hurt it…anyway here is the little bed all prepped.
Here it is with glass! Oh and dome dead flowers!
This was just the little one, the big bed wraps all the way around the side of the house. On that one we have the bricks in all the way, the ground cloth part way and only one sheet or 8 feet of the skirting up. It still has to be weeded and the inside dug out some, neither task very sexy. We will be held up for some time waiting for the glass to fill it. Takes about 24 hours of constant grinding to totally ‘sea glass’ 15 gallons of glass or 18 hours for a little bit of twinkle. We sort of mix and match. I feel to badly to subject the neighbors to constant daytime grinding so I limit tumbling time. The time it takes to bust it up in to appropriate sized chunks is also quite substantial. I get the windows from the dump. They are not supposed to give them out per sec but $40 worth of palm grease got me a new best friend and all the glass I can shake a stick at.
The last part of the project is the installation of an old tin topped concrete wash sink as a tulip bed. We prepped a little pedestal for it to sit on. It had to be stout; this thing is 4 feet long, brutally heavy. Sort of rustic looking with an anchor embossed on the front of it.
It should look really cool when the top is overflowing with flowers. The funky copper pipes are to feed the soaker hoses in the sinks. I hope they will turn nice and green and sort of disappear into the flowers. I am not happy with then so we will see how they turn out.
So there you have it, all caught up, though a bit late. Still have some work ahead backfilling and reseeding but the hard stuff is done. I will shoot some shots after the foliage perks up some. You might notice the creation of a third blog when you click on my profile, that is for this summer. I will be working 4 ten’s with my wife in Virginia City. She will be a tour guide and I will be doing grounds work. Some might find the up-keep of historic buildings fascinating, but a lot of it will be cutting grass. It has been hinted that I might just be able to get my hands on their functioning steam train. Morons, to think they will be paying me to work on a steam train, I would have paid them.
After pealing it apart and jumping on it to take some of the curl out I spread it on some sawhorses and beat it into submission with hammers. Once it was flat enough I snapped a line and slit it from one end to the other with a skill saw running a metal abrasive wheel. Sparks some and again the noise was impressive. Once it was in a strip, (the width varied depending on what part of the porch I was working on), I could flex and pound on them to flatten out the rest of the wrinkles.
That would have been it except for a passing comment about how cool it would be for some sort of design, so we cut up some copper and aluminum and made some mountains. The blue is also aluminum; it just has some anodized coating on it. I figure it will last for a while. We hope the copper will tarnish and green up with age. I attached it with honest to god rivets, 100 year old rivets. I had never hot riveted before, it will be a while before I do it again. It does match the smokestack in appearance so that made it all worth it right?
Having got the skirting in we had to build the beds. Quite a bit of heated discussion went into this. Mostly my wife talking about how she had her heart set on a certain brick and my speculating as to what happens when you miss a mortgage payment. She won and we got the brick, $300 and 3300 pounds worth. Came from Lowes, they were cheaper than HD. In the picture many of the bricks have already been placed. We got a whole pallet plus some, I don’t know 16 maybe.
Digging and setting the bricks 2 high is boring and mostly uneventful. The only real difficulty was in 2 places the turn we wanted to make was sharper than the bricks naturally allow so I had to cut them. Did it with a saw and a dry blade but don’t have any pictures. Cost me that saw so now I am looking for another beater, that or drop the one I cut the metal with to beater status. Its nice having such a good skill saw that all I ever do is use beaters because I don’t want to hurt it…anyway here is the little bed all prepped.
Here it is with glass! Oh and dome dead flowers!
This was just the little one, the big bed wraps all the way around the side of the house. On that one we have the bricks in all the way, the ground cloth part way and only one sheet or 8 feet of the skirting up. It still has to be weeded and the inside dug out some, neither task very sexy. We will be held up for some time waiting for the glass to fill it. Takes about 24 hours of constant grinding to totally ‘sea glass’ 15 gallons of glass or 18 hours for a little bit of twinkle. We sort of mix and match. I feel to badly to subject the neighbors to constant daytime grinding so I limit tumbling time. The time it takes to bust it up in to appropriate sized chunks is also quite substantial. I get the windows from the dump. They are not supposed to give them out per sec but $40 worth of palm grease got me a new best friend and all the glass I can shake a stick at.
The last part of the project is the installation of an old tin topped concrete wash sink as a tulip bed. We prepped a little pedestal for it to sit on. It had to be stout; this thing is 4 feet long, brutally heavy. Sort of rustic looking with an anchor embossed on the front of it.
It should look really cool when the top is overflowing with flowers. The funky copper pipes are to feed the soaker hoses in the sinks. I hope they will turn nice and green and sort of disappear into the flowers. I am not happy with then so we will see how they turn out.
So there you have it, all caught up, though a bit late. Still have some work ahead backfilling and reseeding but the hard stuff is done. I will shoot some shots after the foliage perks up some. You might notice the creation of a third blog when you click on my profile, that is for this summer. I will be working 4 ten’s with my wife in Virginia City. She will be a tour guide and I will be doing grounds work. Some might find the up-keep of historic buildings fascinating, but a lot of it will be cutting grass. It has been hinted that I might just be able to get my hands on their functioning steam train. Morons, to think they will be paying me to work on a steam train, I would have paid them.
Monday, April 02, 2007
Week-end Hijinks
At work so no time. Creston auction this Sat, more garbage than last year. Bought just a few things to refinish and sell but not much. Tracked down a short in the truck that was draining the battery and went shooting with my brother. Thats about it...oh I also got the 65 Riviera out of storage and brought it back to Plains to drive.
Video of the Auction and of removing a stump, also this weekend.
I am sorry about all the video's but I am trying to teach myself for school.
Video of the Auction and of removing a stump, also this weekend.
I am sorry about all the video's but I am trying to teach myself for school.
