House Made

power washer

We’ve been working on a lot of little projects and doing prep-work. While we certainly need to do those things, you don’t really see progress they way you do when you’re actively building, installing, and repairing. Wow, that stack of wood sure is drying in the dining room. Those nail holes in the door casing really are filled and painted. Hooray: a list. You know what I mean.

A diet of only that kind of stuff just kills my motivation after awhile. Needing to see some clear progress, I broke the Christmas (Thanks, Mom and Dad!) pressure washer out of the box. Helllooooo satisfaction. Pressure washer = payoff. I took it to the garden walls we’re planning to stucco and got instant gratification. Slime, lichen, dirt, loose paint: gone! It’s like a before and after photo unfolding in real-time.

Satisfying and remarkably motivating.

I proceed directly to the Japan Woodworker where I fall in love with a $700 dollar tool. (I think there’s a dirty joke in that sentence. Scott or Greg?) So I went to J.W. today (If you live in the Bay Area, go visit this place and try to leave without spending all you money on cool and beautiful tools, accessories, knives, books, etc. If you find Bill working tell him I say hi.) Anyway, I went in there today for router bits and they happend to be demonstrating this new tool from Festool: the Domino joiner. (Forgive my rough image crop. I don’t have photoshop on this computer for quality photo-editing.)

It’s beautiful, quiet, versatile, and it lets you create super strong joints by cutting mortises that use it’s pre-made loose tenons. The tenons are solid wood not compressed chips like biscuits giving you beefy connections between your work pieces. If I were a furniture maker or cabinet maker I’d buy this thing without thinking twice. It’s a bit out of my league as I’m just now learning to use my first router. Clearly that didn’t stop me from watching it in action for a good 30 minutes. Oh and the saw!!! But that’s a whole other story. Anyway, if it’s been awhile since you’ve seen something new or if you need a new item to encourage you to play powerball, check out the domino. It’s like, I don’t know, tool porn or something.

tile from the salvage yard

It’s a wonder we get anything done. We get sidetracked by neat stuff and neat places and that goes triple for the salvage yard. The salvage yard might as well have a neon sign that says “Hey M & B, lose your weekend here!” That place is a giant slot machine that keeps us going back with frequent little wins (salvaged bricks) and occasional jackpots (two mid-century chairs). In fact, here’s a conversation that will never happen:

B: Hey, you wanna run by the salvage yard?
M: Nah.

Here’s a conversation that will:

M: Hey, you wanna run by the salvage yard?
B: Let’s take the truck.

So all that is a long way of saying that we went to the salvage yard where we found this box full of awesome tile for the bargain price of 8 bucks. What will we do with the tile? No idea beyond something garden/landscape/hardscape-y.

Now we’re just looking for our next hit. We can handle it. Really. Just a little one.

Beth here.

As cliche as it is for house restoration bloggers, Merideth and I are big fans of This Old House.  Part of it is that we always learn about new methods (dustless floor refinishing!) and materials (PEX flexible plumbing!), but there’s the added fantasy element that one day Norm Abram and Tom Silva could show up and fix things for a couple months.  Hey, girls can dream.

We’re especially excited about their next project: A green restoration of a bungalow (yay bungalows!) in Austin, TX.  Not only will the construction be green, but they’ll be making the day-to-day running of the house ecological.  We’ve been looking for ways to green up the Casa Chunkita for awhile, and I’m interested to see what the TOH team recommends.

Let’s just hope that they don’t recommend we stop watching home shows to save on electricity.  That’s just not going to happen.

Since we got the truck in May, it’s hauled this:

25 cu f of manure and compost
76 feet of trellis
7 boxes of books for library donation
14 bags of everything for Salvation Army
1 sofa
2 arm chairs
5 windows
1 christmas tree
300 lbs granite pavers
300 sf saltillo tile
72 f of talavera tile
240 f of trim
bags of grout
bags of concrete
2 trees
15 bushes
3 wood doors
1 crib (Don’t get excited. The neighbors borrowed the truck.)
25 lbs of apples
lawn mower
a load of gravel
30 f pvc pipe
35 f gutters
countless sheets plywood
beadboard for the bathroom
respect from guys at home depot who normally assume that women are just there for window-coverings
and of course, Ikea

In other words, totally, totally worth it.

Beth here.

This weekend, Merideth and I prepped the vegetable garden for the spring planting that will take place in two weeks.  Among other things, this involved putting down two inches of compost and two inches of chicken manure.  Inadvertently, this ruined a Sunday social engagement, as it turns out that no one feels like going to a Superbowl party when covered in poo.  Those at the unattended Superbowl party thank us.

With a nod to Domicile, this year we’re going to try the Square Foot Gardening method, which will be a change from our previous method of Throw-Out-a-Bunch-of-Seeds-And-See- What-Happens.  Square Foot Gardening is an answer for small urban gardens who really only need to grow enough veggies to support a 2-4 person household.  Turns out I don’t need five tomato plants or infinite rows of lettuce.  It all ends up going to seed before we can eat even a third of it all.

The SFG method is testing my limited skills of (gasp!) math and (the horror!) science, what with the ph-testing, water measuring, spatial planning, and manure-amount figuring (one does not want too much manure hanging around the house).  But it is also catering to my fondness for Excel spreadsheets and visions of orderliness (everything in a perfect little square!).

So far, so good.  The soil is prepped and Merideth is ready for trellis-building for the climbing plants. 

Dixie the Wonder Mutt learned an important lesson when she got an unplanned bath after her own investigation of the chicken poo’d soil.  She’s a quick study, and has decided that anything that leads to a bath is to be avoided.  Thank goodness.