Thursday, May 28, 2009
Spa Box & other yard projects
Whitney and I have been building again. At the end of last year’s outdoor season we picked up a table and chair set for our patio. Over the winter the cushions have been getting in the way in the garage. With some extra siding pieces from the house in Seattle, some free tile from Katie’s parents, a few dollars in wood, and more in hinges; we built a box to hold them outside. It’s all cedar T&G so should keep water off them quite well. The steps are also part of the box and will make getting into the hot tub a little more pleasant. I think it came out quite nicely especially for being mostly extra unused material. The tiled surface will make grilling a little nicer with a bigger prep area. The tiled top also provides a spot to put glasses down while in the hot tub so we can have water right there and not dehydrated in the hot tub. The shelf holds some of the grill implements as well as the chemicals for the hot tub.
Sorry about the mess of stuff on the hot tub. The other project for the weekend was building a shelving unit in the shed with some free MDF we got off a craigslist posting. We now have a lot more storage space, as well as a work table in there. However, it meant that we had to move what was being stored in there out, and the hot tub was the easiest temporary storage. The shelving in the shed also means that we could clear up lots of space in the garage making it more useful. Now I can get back to work reassembling the Scirocco.
Another thing we got was a power washer. We got the cheapest Home Depot unit, but it seems plenty powerful enough for us. We sprayed our patio, and what a difference. It is white now, not a murky grey-brown color. I also got an automotive cleaning nozzle for it to help with washing the Land Cruiser down after trips. The hose just wasn’t cutting getting the mud off underneath, so the regular nozzle will be useful there. This auto nozzle has a small car shampoo dispenser built in and a rotary brush. An initially test showed it gets the caked on very fine dust off much better than the 2′ brush and bucket of water had been using. Now all I have to do is actually spend the time to brush it. I’ve never used a power washer before, but it seems quite useful, and frankly a lot of fun.
Our yard continues to clean up nicely. Before power-washing we put in a gravel strip in front of the patio and now it drains much better. Hopefully this will cut down on the green gunk build up we saw on the patio over this last winter.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Power to the Shed
Whitney and I did some more work outside this weekend. We cut down and graded the path area and then firmly set the flagstones. We also bought a few more to finish the path all the way to the shed. Then we started to fill the rest of the path with river rock gravel. It will take a few trips buying a few bags to get all we need. The Land Cruiser could carry them all at once, but I don’t want to pull the cargo unit out, and we know we’ll be going back to Home Depot many more times before we’re done. We will have to pull up the logs that separate the path from the grass when we till and lay the sod. So we are only laying gravel in the path up to about 6” from the log. It has this unfinished look to it right now as a result. But we like what is there. I think we’ll be quite happy with the finished product.
I also ran electricity to the shed. There was a circuit in the garage that was dedicated to a freezer outlet. Instead of drilling up inside the wall to reach the circuit panel, I just tapped into that, ran it along a couple feet and then through a hole into the crawl-space and across the house. It was not fun working in the crawl space. There is lots of rat feces down there, though surprisingly clean otherwise. Before we finished grading the path and setting the flagstones, we trenched enough to bury some wire out to the shed. I wired up an outlet, some lights inside the shed, and some lights outside the shed. A little more work is needed to make it all safe (GFCI circuit breaker and a cover plate) but we turned it on with the current breaker and admired our lights and being able to see in the shed. Even during the day, with only one window, it used to be very dark in there.
While I was crawling around, Whitney was working on the irrigation system for our new vegetable garden. We’re doing a seasonal tap off the hose bib and taking that down into an underground box for the timer, back-flow preventer, and pressure regulator. A line then runs out to the vegetable garden and around various ways. She’ll figure out exactly where once we actually plant stuff.
In other news, after almost two weeks of frustrating attempts, I finally got the intake manifold off the Scirocco. It involved much dremeling and hacking at a stripped allen head bolt. Now I think I have things as far torn apart as I want. The next nice free evening I have, I’ll roll the Scirocco out into the driveway and start spraying the engine bay. Hose water, engine degreaser and much scrubbing and I’ll have something I can spot oil leaks in rather than something that is just a big pile of oil and grime itself. Once I get it cleaned or at least cleaner, I’ll put together a purchase order from a number of online places and get that going. Then I can start reassembly.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Backyard Work
The previous owners made a bit of the mess of the backyard. Apparently they took down a grove of cheery trees and then planted grass seed over some of the area. On one side there was a shed and a carport that they used for their dogs. I’ve been using the carport to store the Land Cruiser, since with the tent on top, it doesn’t fit in the garage. The shed was falling apart, but the first thing we did after buying the house was to fix that up. We tore down a lot of bad wood replaced it and cleaned it up inside. Removed a whole bunch of dirt and dead rats. Installed a new door and window. It cleaned up nicely.
The carport however was quite ugly, but still functional. So we moved it. Now it is blocked by the house so you can’t see it from the seating in the backyard. That also gave us 20′ or so of open space. There used to be raised two flower beds in front of the patio. They made the seating at the table a little cramped, and the dogs thought they were a great place to lie so no flowers grew. We took those apart and used them in the 20′ of new space in front of the shed to build up a garden area. We rescued a bunch of what looks to be good quality top soil and brought it over. A couple extra bags from Home Depot and we might be able to get something growing. We also put an 18” fence around it. Small enough to be invisible from a distance, tall enough to give the dogs pause before leaping into it. So far they’ve stayed out when we’ve been working in it.
In one corner of the patio area, instead of poured concrete there were a bunch off flagstones. These were not laid close together and were set too deep such that they were mostly covered with dirt. We dug those up and laid them down in what is left of a gravel path running out towards the garden. They are set just for looks now. We need to go back in and dig off the top inch or so of gravel then the stones and then bring some nice river rock in around the flagstones. We are also going to continue the river rock around the corner and run along the garden to the shed. The old carport was set on top of a number of 3×3 garden trim logs. We saved as many of those as we could and are going to dig them down and use them to line the edge of the path. This will help define the transition. Something that was sorely lacking in the previous layout where it was just sort of a messy flow from gravel to mossy areas, to places the grass seed took.
A few more ideas that we are playing around with: Sod the whole area. The grass yard area is pretty much unusable because of how lumpy it is. I think it was never sloped to drain properly, that and decay from the removed cherry trees makes it awful. I’m hoping we can till the ground through out the grassy area, break it up, slope it right, and then lay sod across it. This should give us a much nicer grassy area. And with it being nicer, we are more likely to keep it up and free of dog droppings.
We also are going to try to enclose the heat pump with wood trellis since it is rather ugly and right next to the outdoor table. Also, we are thinking of building a little storage area near the hot tub to store all the cushions for that table. Right now half the cushions live in the garage and the rest live near the table. The storage area would hold all of them, would add some steps to make getting in and out of the hot tub nicer, and would provide a big flat spot to place drinks while in the hot tub.
Finally, we fixed the lock to the gate so it should be easy to open from the inside and the outside, which will make getting the Land Cruiser in and out much more pleasant. And, we went around and took down all the various hanging pots and other junk attached to the fence. It was very knick-knacky and they were all quite ugly. Just doing that gave the yard a good face lift.
Now, a puppy picture.