Casa plomada

Picking up after a year long hiatus (of documenting work not working itself)....

After replacing the oil furnace with a high efficiency gas and continued work on restoring old wood window sashes, not to mention gardening, and interior painting, and sealing the torch down on the roof, and other stuff I can't remember but will probably haunt my dreams when I am old... we decided to start the task of plumbing. Everything. Why did we chose plumbing over all the other priorities??? Because Drew told me to.

Drew. Part-time personal injury attorney, part-time dad, and old friend going back to fifth grade, somehow built up some pretty amazing home renovation skills over the years. This includes plumbing. He offered to teach me how to plumb my house and bring with him a bunch of extra stuff laying around from his previous projects. Free help + free materials = OK.

So a few weeks ago we began putting in a "ghost" system, meaning a totally new system running parallel with the current system. The idea is to get as much in as possible before turning off the water to the old system and scrambling to complete the new so water can be turned back on. Or at least, I think.

So here was my first lesson in soldering copper:



While Drew patiently waits for another free weekend day to come back over, he graciously tasked me with several prep jobs for our next work day. This included mostly cleanup of old insulation in nasty dirty spaces that we'll need to get to next time (waiting for the lab results to tell me whether it's asbestos). It also included removing the plaster and lathe from the wall in the bathroom closet behind the tub.

It sure was interesting taking the stuff out. I wonder how that's going to get put back together. Drew?

It ain't easy being cheep

While we are probably the first household in Seahurst in a generation or two to raise chickens, we are by no means pioneers.  Urban poultry is experiencing quite a upsurge these days, up there with Schwinn 3-speed bicycles and wool clothing.  I never knew what a "Victory Garden" was 6 months ago.  Now I hear the term weekly as folks explore ways to become 
more connected with their sources of food.

You can get on Craigslist and see any number of chicken coops for sale around Seattle.  They tend to start around $350 for simple ones and go up pretty quickly from there.  $800 appears not to be an outlandish price tag for a backyard coop.

We went down to Second Use, our closest salvage yard, and bought a bunch of oddball, yet 

solid, lumber.  About $56 would get enough for everything except two pieces of plywood we would need (we had some sitting around from several years back that we got free from my mom).  The main thing I learned (again) when doing a project using salvage lumber is that you probably will need at least a table saw to get your wood into workable dimensions.  My skill saw was a work horse on this job but I will not use it again to cut twisted 12-foot long 2x8's into 2x4's.

We checked several books out from the library on chicken coops, which gave us the outline for what needed in terms of security (from animals), size, ventilation, and access.  We then looked around online for free plans.  You will find a plethora of plans online - such as this one at Backyardchickens.com - but they all cost money; usually starting around $30.  Marya finally pulled a halfway decent one out of a library book.  But we pretty much just winged it.

We were also able to get recycled paint at Second Use for $16/gallon.  We were not able to buy some things used.  We dropped about $75 on new metal cloth (a better defense from raccoons than traditional chicken wire), $20 on screws and another ~$40 on hinges and other miscellaneous hardware.  We spent another $60 on a carbonate roofing material.  All told, we probably spent $300 on materials (not including feeders and waterers) but got pretty much what we wanted.

It did take about 4 full days of work when you add in the painting, time that could have perhaps been better spent on electrical or insulation.  But in our defense we have put off building the earth oven for at least 3 months.  

Tomatoz for sal

About a day after our offer was accepted on the house, we put in an order with the Territorial Seed Company for 7 or 8 seed packets for garden crops.  One rainy saturday in March, Carmen and I planted a whole tray of tomatoes: cherries, early girls, Heinz slicers.  The germination rate was staggeringly high and we ran out of 1 qt. yogurt containers to transplant them in.  Solution?  Let's sell them!

After a couple months of pampering our little starts inside our kitchen (Seattle's frigid spring would have claimed an arctic rose this year) we set out to offload a couple dozen extra toms.

The timing couldn't have been any more perfect as Carmen had just set her sights on a Tinkerbell journal, which cost $8.  Selling her extra plants would present the best shot she'd have at raising the needed funds.  So on the day before Mother's Day, we set out for the Seahurst Post Office to see if we could chip away at that $8 goal of Carmen's.

We barely made it one block in our wagon when a neighbor bought 4 plants at 50 cents a piece.  At the post office we sold ~16 more plants in a span of 15 minutes.  The kids wanted to hit Lake Burien Park.  We sold 4 more in along the three block stroll to the park, four more at the park, and two more on the way home.  One hour after we left the house we arrived back home with about $15 (nearly enough for two Tinkerbell Journals) and one remaining tomato plant.

A few key observations... our neighbors are gardeners.  They asked good questions (are they hardened off?).  They also appreciated the idea of kids selling 50 cent tomato plants (cute doesn't hurt). And when we got down to the half dozen or so containers that had lost their labels, people didn't care.  They were content to buy the tomato and find out what it was later.  I think we found the right neighborhood.

Architecture - 5 cents

We were very fortunate to get a 3-day visit from our old Peace Corps friend, Dan Roll this past weekend.  Dan just finished a 3 year program earning a Masters in Architecture from the University of Oregon.  Conveniently for us Dan was, in his words, "unemployed and on vacation".  Certainly a common status for architects these days who are coming up with creative ways of marketing their skills in a down economy.  So knowing about our new craftsman place Dan swooped in to play, which usually means poke around, play with the kids, and fix stuff. 

In addition to Dan's now highbrow professional credentials, he also does plumbing, masonry, drywall and paint, and pretty much anything else that presents an interesting challenge.  He also knows cows and chickens, which he spent a little time teaching our son about.  This trip was Dan's opportunity to simply get acquainted with the house and start to assess repair/remodeling needs for us for purposes of energy efficiency and just... the stuff that needs fixin'.

This weekend though we did have a project, which was replacing the back door.  This incredible endeavor deserves a post just for itself, which we will do when the final cost has been tabulated.  But to make that long story short, after nearly three days of solid work we now have a back door that can be secured without propping it up with a stick.

One nice thing about working with Dan is his patience and attention to detail.  This is especially impressive given that he is usually working on something that is not his own.  No amount of anal retentiveness on my part is too much for Dan even if I myself cannot produce work that meets my own standards (with Dan's help I usually can).

We do give him beer and food for his services.  So if anyone needs an architect who is not afraid to get his hands dirty with neither caulk nor manure, I know a guy.  I suspect, however, given his wide range of skills that he may not be available for much longer.

The first weekend project... vegetation removal

Acer circinatum.  Latin for "lovely from a distance".  Anyone who has the pleasure of driving over Stevens Pass in the fall knows that Vine Maple offers some of the best fall colors we have in the northwest.  But anyone who has to work in Vine Maple can point to the scars on their shins and can tell serious stories of bushwhacking through a temperate jungle.

About half of our backyard was consumed by one tree, which in and of itself is bad enough.  But in Seattle any plant that has the audacity to grow more than ~3 feet high on the south side of your property is asking to be firewood.  This particular tree-shrub did just that 

Mr. Circinatum meet Mr. Stihl.

Marya dusted off her fire boots from her Hot Shot days and fired up a rental chainsaw.  For about 45 minutes she methodically took down about half of the tree while observing every safety rule in the book.  When her arms needed a rest Brooks, in his Asics running shoes, finished off the rest only getting interrupted twice by a screaming Marya for apparent safety violations..."use two hands!"  

In any regard the tree was reduced to a few piles of cord wood.  And we now have enough daylight in the backyard for a vegetable garden and space for the chicken coop.