More raised beds

These raised beds are 2ft by 4ft by 10ft. they hold about 3 yards of dirt. My exorbitantly high taxes pay for things. One of them is free compost on the last Saturday of non-winter months. We plan to exploit the heck out of this resident benefit.

I had to buy a wheel barrow for this endeavor.

I made a screen board so we could add some local soil for minerals.

Tristan was a huge help. He, Toly and I were at the secret location where compost is available at 6am. I shoveled from the pile into the truck while Tristan shoveled it deep into the bed. Toly helped too. He was in charge of knocking the huge mounds of compost down to a much flatter and manageable size. 

Black Gold...  

Toly was so insistant on helping. I didn't have anything for him so he went and found a container and filled it from the truck and drug it to the bed filled it. Drug it to the bed and emptied it--over and over and over... That boy never quits. 

A completely full bed.

Here is my work half full truck after a raised bed.

DAY TWO...

And raised bed number two.

Tristan got into the act and became very helpful.

No Bamboo, EVER..

Many more artifacts were found

Initially worms were of a huge concern. Tabitha exclaimed "We are not in Tibet" 

In the end most of them survived.

My Obama shirt is a bit more popular here than it was in Missouri.

The back of our house still a little rough. We are getting there...

Two beds are finished in the back yard. It will be two months before we can build more since we will be camping with our home schooling group during a bad time next month.

raised beds

A few weeks ago we built two raised bed out front of the house. This afternoon I built a double deep one for the back yard. It is the first of eight proposed beds. We hope to grow a substancial portion of our vegetables. First we had to dig down and kill all the invasive bamboo in that area.

This bed wil go right next to the old concrete pad. Eventually this concrete will get removed. For now we'll work around it.
Rome is my little helper.

He found some old toys. All the kids have been pretending that they are archeologists.

Here I am chopping the bamboo runners from under the slab. Die, Die, DIE....

This is a sketch of our general plan.

I got some copper based pressure treated (safe for food gardens) lumber.

Kassi and Toly were huge helpers.

This is Bamboo hell. We have spent many days digging in this area. I hate Bamboo now.

I don't feel this serious when I am in the moment.

I made my own brackets from some recycled angle aluminum.

Bolting it together.

Pre-drilling for the sides.

My ballest/helper enjoying the job.

Tristan saving the aluminum spirals for moustaches.

Cute Boy in his Communist party shirt. (I find that shirt very funny)

Toly

Noisy impact driver.

Kids in motion.

A gang of helpers. I wonder if there is a collective noun for "helpers" that are small kids?

closer...

Kassi

It is shaping up.

We finished it before dark. This morning is Berkeley free compost day. Before daybreak I will take Tristan and Toly to get a few yards. It is hard work shoveling but well worth the effort.

life has a sound track

the kids have had about three months of piano lessons. Tabitha says "her life has a sound track." I always wanted a house filled with live music.

Slow and steady wins the sanity

Yesterday was a big day. Our front yard is tiny and adjacent to a busy street. It has been neglected for decades and continued to be neglected since our arrival. The interior of our house simply needed too much work to make it livable. So our yard has languished while we pecked away at indoor projects. That all changed yesterday. It all began a few weeks ago when we bought a mission olive tree for Valentines day. It needed a home and the front yard is it.

We ripped out those filthy juniper bushes. I have always hated juniper bushes they smell like cat pee to me.

Here you can see the years worth of trash that has collected under them. Over the course of the next week or so we will need to dig a trench and install a french drain from along that with fence out to the sidewalk.

My work truck and a chain proved instrumental in pulling those big bushes.

After cleaning the trash and debris we made our plans and I cut the concrete walkway a little to make way for the new bed.

My worm drive saw, not really a concrete saw but it will do in a pinch.

I had some scrap aluminum that I made the corner stakes from. I used my infinitely useful metal saw to sharpen them as easily as I could a wooden stake. I had three saws going during the day, concrete, metal and wood. I also needed a hammer drill to cleanly finish out the inside corner.

Toly and Rome were big helpers while I built the box.

Now it just needs some dirt.

Other progress has been the upstairs saga. Work has continued we painted the main room and kassi's room. I finished out the doors to the future eave closets.

I had to replace all of the electrical outlets and switches since most of the were broken or cracked and filty. 

This is the new "SUN" light for the boys room. Ikea has wonderful and inexpensive stuff for kids.

Here is Kassi's closet shelves after being trimmed but before the final coat of paint.

All the upstairs progress happened two weeks ago. Last weekend I worked on the stairs. They need to be completely re-built. I tore them appart and rebuilt the first few stairs up to the landing. They were in the worst shape. I still need to finish the upper flight but I need a long weekend before I tie into that.

The kids live up there now:) and need continual access. After I rebuild them I will install the new oak treads. We plan to paint the risers ROY-G-BIV

the trial...

Mostly I am amazed that I get to live this life. Surely it is all perspective but I am truly amazed that I have somehow been granted this most amazing life. I have a wonderfully exciting and intriguing wife. She makes me a better person than I am capable. I have incredible children. I am their inferior in every way and it pleases me to be their father.

Blessed and thankful

Fixing the walls upstairs

Along with other walls upstairs the inside of Kassi's closet had big holes knocked into it by the previous residents. I hope to make these exposed large under eave areas into storage bins/cubbies. In preparation for painting we needed to repair the walls and cut the holes for the new closet doors. Here is the "before" hole in Kassi's closet.

Since there is another close by access point for the proposed new closet I was just going to replace the drywall in her closet hole and call it good. Lamenting that I would need to go and buy another sheet of drywall and staring at the problem I had an idea to build some shallow shelves out of wine boxes and recess them into this hole. 

There is a huge semi-trailer sized dumpster of wine boxes down by Oakland airport. I visit it occasionally for the infinitely useful replenishment of nice quality wine boxes. 

I use them for storage, fodder for shelves, and general construction of little stuff. The kids play with them and eventually turn them to rubble. When that happens I simply stop by the huge dumpster of wine boxes and reload. I had several of those "Priorat" boxes that would make a perfect set of recessed shelves.

I cut out the hole a bit larger to accommodate the stacked together box shelves. After screwing them to the existing stud I added additional support. 

I used the very last of my remaining drywall and pieced it in to close the rest of the hole.

I taped and plastered the uneven pieces and just need to let it dry. Now it just needs some paint and trim. I'd be doing it now but I am waiting for the plaster to dry so I can paint these walls with cover/sealer/primer.

Sadly, I did discover live knob-and-tube wiring with blown-in insulation covering it during this recent work. It is a fire hazard to cover post-and-tube wiring with insulation. This means that I must rewire this entire area of the house. This news kinda knocked the wind out of my motivation for today. :(

Upstairs flooring

The returning urine stain of doom has given us a physical and emotional setback. After a myriad of repetitive steps to neutralize, sequester, and remove the urine stain we finally got it to stop smelling, stop rehydrating, and dry out. Yesterday we rented an orbital sander and sanded two of the rooms upstairs.

The night before I had to repair a section of the flooring.

I initially cut the hole square and larger to expose proper tongue and grove to receive new pieces. I used my little battery powered saw and a chisel. Normally it is recommended to not a have a horizontal single seam but there are many other areas that have this type of seam and it should add to the rustic nature of our house.

I then cut exact pieces from Tristans future room since the floor is generally already trashed there. We will need to replace the entire thing so it makes for good pillaging.

Tabitha asked, as I was cutting exact sized pieces, "if I shouldn't cut them larger and re-saw them to fit." No, because I don't have a more accurate saw than the one in my hand.

I watched plenty of you-tube videos of how to do this and felt confident that I completely understood the concept and nature of the task. My new belt sander was invaluable to making a very tight fit.

I cut the bottom tongue from the groved side so the last piece would go down. 

Avery tight fit, I drilled and nailed them down. 

Yes, I am getting old and need glasses for reading and exacting work of this nature,

Here is the floor after the sanding and staining.

Kassi's room.

The main play room and stairwell.

After church today we will polyurethane the floor and protect it from the years of abuse ahead.