Casa Decrepit
Chicken Stoop
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- Published on Wednesday, 11 April 2012
Authors: ayse
The chickens like to kick dirt out of their yard. The dirt kind of piles up outside, and nothing much grows in it because we're always walking over it. It just makes it hard to get the door of the chicken yard open.
In the winter that area gets muddy, and sometimes I throw down mulch to help with that, which is exactly the opposite of...
Building a Raft: Part Three
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- Published on Monday, 09 April 2012
Authors: ayse
It is a sad truth that when you have a full time job they actually expect you to show up at the office on Monday morning and work a full day. So we didn't get any work done until I got home. Fortunately, we'd gotten well set up to just get to work and make things happen last night.
For the most part it was a matter of screwing or...
Building a Raft: Part Two
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- Published on Sunday, 08 April 2012
Authors: ayse
Maybe we should call this "partially rebuilding the raft we built last night," because we came out this morning and realized that we'd used nails instead of screws on a part of the deck where we really need screws, so Noel spent most of our functional working time today pulling out nails and replacing them with screws.
In particular we...
Building a Raft: Part One
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- Published on Saturday, 07 April 2012
Authors: ayse
This morning we went over to Economy Lumber and bought a pile of materials. Notably, this lumber.
That's all the wood we'll need for the structure of the deck, the landing, and the stairs.
We started out by applying the Vycor Deck Protector membrane to the top of the big beams. This membrane is supposed to help cut down galvanic...
Garden Report: April 5
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- Published on Thursday, 05 April 2012
Authors: ayse
I cannot believe how much I love having a garden that was tidied up for me. Even the fact that I am still not done moving that pile of weeds into the chicken yard does not bother me. Or the pile of mulch in the truck that we're going to have to move if we're going to pick up lumber this weekend for the deck.
Of course, I still have...
Waxing Frames
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- Published on Thursday, 05 April 2012
Authors: ayse
The bee packages arrive in only a couple weeks! We'd better get those hive stands built sometime soon. I'm a little disappointed that they're going to straight-up miss the nectarine blossoms this year, but apples should be in full swing still.
In addition to the hive stands, the last bit of preparation I did was to prepare the...
Washing the Ceiling
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- Published on Monday, 02 April 2012
Authors: ayse
I've been washing the old paint off the ceiling. It involves hours on the scaffolding, bent over backwards. It reminds me of seeing this sketch Michelangelo made of himself painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling when I was studying art history in school.
I began by working my way down the hall on Saturday. It was mixed rainy and windy and...
Browner and Browner
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- Published on Sunday, 01 April 2012
Authors: ayse
I spent the day outside, moving the weed pile to the compost (I'm about two thirds of the way through it) and moving mulch around (I got about halfway through the pile in the truck). Noel spent the day inside, removing paint from more of the woodwork.
He used the heat gun to get the flat areas, and made good progress, despite numerous...
Final Stripping on the Door
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- Published on Saturday, 31 March 2012
Authors: ayse
Noel did a little experiment this week to figure out the best way to strip paint off the wood. The heat gun is fast, but hot and fumey and it leaves behind a gunky residue that is basically impossible to remove with the heat gun. Sanding is not a good option, so we were left with chemical strippers. So Noel got out the massive jug...
Gardened Up
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- Published on Friday, 30 March 2012
Authors: ayse
The gardeners finished their work today, and it looks amazing.
I should add here that one of the prices you pay for hiring gardeners -- and I knew this going in -- is that they will inevitably rip out some plant you love. That definitely happened here and I'm not 100 percent happy about it but it all looks so amazing that I can forgive...
