Our New Compost Pile in No Man's Land

In honor of Chile's new challenge, "Cut the Crap - DECLUTTER", I finally finished a project started last summer! I built a compost pile and wood pile in the space we call "no man's land" between our garage and the fence.



I used pallets salvaged from the city recycling center to create a frame for the compost pile... I'm starting the compost on one side and finishing it on the other. The pallets had been sitting around since last spring... just waiting.

There's more wood for the pile in the backyard... it just needs cut down to size and stacked. Lazy summer nights around our fire-pit, here we come!

By the way, the red garage is NOT our garage; I just noticed that big hole in it today. I'll have to patch it for them since they can't see it! (It's the property line).

Camera! Action! Lights!

I stressed about the lights in the study all week. Then, I walked into ReSource, a local salvage and used building supply purveyor on my way home from picking up the pillars.

I saw these shades and bases:



Three of each, to be exact. They aren't from the same light... in fact, they probably aren't even from the same decade, though I am bad at that (anyone have any guesses for the true age of either?). They look really cute together, though!

Can't beat the price: $5 for each complete light fixture
Can't beat the environmental impact: Three light fixtures reused

Here's what it looks like on the ceiling:



I took the light from the study and moved it into the living room; quite an improvement over the nipple lamp.

I discovered some scary looking wiring in the lightbox of my study:


Here are some before and after shots, including a picture of the never before seen "smallest room in the house" (it's 8'x10' minus a closet, and my studio).

Front Study (my husband's)

Before: (with huge light)



After:



Back Study (Mine)

(This room is the only one with those neat windows, and this is the ONLY shot I can get of the room and the light at the same time, since it's so small)



Living Room

Before:



After:

(Complete with two sleeping puppies)



I would love any ideas you have about the scariness of the electrical wires in my ceiling or the age of the light fixtures!

A Fence Gate

Last summer, we put up a fence. Today, we installed the thing that holds the double wide gate closed. It takes us a while to finish projects around here- it took us 6 months to complete a task that took us 10 minutes when we actually sat down to do it.

We had previously drilled the hole in the cement with a hammer drill and a 1 inch masonry drill bit. Today, we installed the post and brackets. First, we installed the top bracket, which is what will hold the post up to allow the gate to swing. Then, we carefully balanced the post on the top bracket, lined it up with the hole, and slid the other two brackets into place to mark their position.

Cost: $12 (6 months ago... this doesn't count in my February challenge)

Before and After the Fence...

Before: (Last year in 3 feet of snow)

After: (This morning in 1 foot of snow)


The dogs LOVE the fence. LOVE it. Happy snow day!

Our New Slate Floors

This weekend we installed the slate in our bathroom. It took us 2 days from start to our current stopping point. I was pleasantly surprised to notice that my previous mistake was not noticable on the installed floors.

How to install slate on top of HardiBacker:
1) Dry lay the tiles to make sure they fit. The rubber spacers they sell were somewhat useless with the inconsistent shape of the tiles, so we didn't use them.

2) Use a diamond blade to cut the stone. We dry-cut using a diamond blade on a jigsaw for the detail cuts (such as the circle around the toilet) and a diamond blade on a circular saw for cutting the long straight cuts.
Hints: The jigsaw cuts a nice, smooth, even and nice-looking line, with little to no breakage and crisp edges. The circular saw, on the other hand splintered the edges of the tiles, and chipped off a considerable amount of stone. We used it only for edges that would be hidden.

3) We used a rapid setting mortar so that our toilet (only one in the house) would be usable before sundown. I spread it on the floor with an old rubber spatula and used a 1/2 inch trowel to create those "grooves" in the mortar. After 4 hours, we were able to replace the toilet/
Hints: A drill with a mixing paddle makes quick work of the required 5 minutes of mixing.

5) We installed the grout using sandwich baggies to "pipe" the grout into the cracks. We did this because we are inexperienced at grouting.
Hints: Use lots of warm soapy water to clean up... and wipe every tile at least three times to remove the excess grout.

The finished and dry grout lines. The grout looks darker in real life; it is about the color of cement.

The finished floor!

What and Where and How Much?

• Laticrete Tri-Poli Sanded Grout- Habitat for Humanity ReStore- $2
• Ultra Flex Thinset Mortar- All About Floors- $18
• 1/2 inch trowel- Habitat for Humanity ReStore- $1.25
• Diamond Blade for jigsaw- Lowes- $5
• Sponges- Grocery Store- $2
• Slate Tile- Craigslist- $30
• Sealer- Habitat for Humanity ReStore- $2
• Hardibacker- Freecycle and Lowes- $30
• 1/4 inch trowel- Habitat for Humanity- $2
• Wax Rings for Toliet- Home Depot- $5

Total Cost for Bathroom Floor: $104.25

Look at all the Energy we SAVED!!!

One of the first things we did to our house was install a programmable thermostat. We chose this Honeywell 5-2 Day Programmable Thermostat. $30 later...

This is what we set the thermostat to:
Year 1: 62º (No programmable thermostat)
Year 2: 62º During the Day, 54º at Night and While Gone

Table 1, Monthly Therm Usage

Year 1, Year 2
October: 47 Therms, 30 Therms
November: 24 Therms, 19 Therms
December: 96 Therms, 75 Therms
January: 113 Therms, 63 Therms
February: 69 Therms, 71 Therms
March: 72 Therms, 50 Therms

Average: 70.16, 51.33
Total: 421 Therms, 308 Therms

Table 2, Monthly Outside Temperature

Year 1, Year 2
October: 53º, 56º
November: 44º, 46º
December: 32º, 29º
January: 29º, 38º
February: 37º, 29º
March: 39º, 36º

Average: 39º, 39º

We saved 19 therms a month, simply by installing a programmable thermostat! Installing the thermostat took about 20 minutes of our lives. WELL worth it! We have definitely saved our $30 many times over.

Cost: $30

Our Limestone Patio- 200 hours of work!

Before:

The front part of our backyard, with two apple trees, an old picnic table, and a large quantity of gravel and wood chips. Oh, and 12 bottle caps, a rusty spring, a door hinge, a bunch of broken glass, including the bottom of a beer bottle, and more!

During

What a great workbench that picnic table makes! It is serving as jack-of-all-trades in our house remodel. Notice the wonderful "gate" into our backyard, too... the vinyl lattice we wired up!

After:

How we did it:
We are very lucky to have access to a large scrap pile of stone, from which we can pick whatever we want and have it delivered for the price of a case of Negra Modelo or Bass Ale. My father-in-law runs and owns an architectural stone cutting shop. He works on multi-million dollar houses. We get the rejects, overages, and off falls!

The patio is made out of Cottonwood limestone. It is all from the waste pile, where it was headed to be ground into aggregate. It is approximately 3 to 4 inches thick, and sitting on a bed of about 3 inches of sand. It is framed in with recycled railroad ties that are dug into the ground and anchored below the frost line with 3 foot rebar. We used a circular saw with a diamond blade to dry cut the limestone, and used a belt sander with garnet sandpaper to finish the stone.

We went through a LOT of sandpaper, and a LOT of beer. A long, HOT project!

Where the materials are from:
Railroad ties- Freecycle
Limestone, Diamond Blades- Father-in-law's shop and waste pile
Sand, Sandpaper, Rebar- Home Depot

What we spent:
$20 for a case of beer for my dear father-in-law
$200 for sand and rebar
$10 or so for gas to haul the railroad ties
$40 in sandpaper
___________
$270 total cost for patio!