Compost Bin

Composting yard and food waste seems to me to be a pretty easy thing to do. I grew up on a farm in the Midwest where we had to take care of our own trash. We tossed food waste to the chickens (when it was chicken type food) and table scraps went to the dog. If it burned, we put it in the incinerator. If it didn't, it would be piled up behind a shed somewhere until we had time to take it to the dump. Was it environmental or "green"? I doubt it. But anyway....

We wanted a compost bin to take care of our food waste and yard debris. I found plans for a 3-bin compost system online through the Oregon State extension office. I made a couple modifications based on available space.



I built a two bin system with removable slats in the front for access. Wire mesh on the sides and nailed in slats on the back.

I figured out a kick-stand to hold up the lid. This way it won't bash you on the noggin or flip over and rest against the neighbor's fence.

Here is the bin in action. oooooh - look at it go! This year I've dumped the majority of the yard leaves in the bin. We should have a good crop of dirt for the garden beds next spring.

Basement - The Long Haul

Jacq and I recently worked out a few different floor plans for the basement space. Nearly 640 sqft. of potentially awesome living space is available to us down there (here?).

We use our basement now for laundry, pantry and storage of a few things. D has her Nintendo with some games and there is an ironing board and a couple work benches. Bad lighting and worse paint jobs.

The biggest and most tedious item on the list is sealing the basement from the environment. I have a few leaks or seeps through the walls that are mostly taken care of with proper downspout management and directing the water away from the foundation.

Basement as it is today.....

Awesome basement of the future!

We'll chop this up into phases the first of which will be the downstairs bathroom. This is needed as our upstairs and only bathroom now is in desperate need of a complete tear-out remodel.

First set of quotes are coming in now. To do the rough plumbing for the new bathroom. Stay tuned...

Laundry Chute

My daughter's closet floor has a big hole in it. This is, of course, the laundry chute accessed from the hallway with a flip down door.



I built a box around the door and hole in the floor. she can use this box as a shelf inside her closet.





I have not replaced the broken latch yet. I jammed a screw into the latch so we can open it.

Insulation

OK - I'm back.... We decided to insulate our house. Between the federal stimulus (30% or up to $1500) and the state winterization program (~$500) it really wasn't that much moolah to knock it out.

I had the insulation company remove siding top and bottom to blow in the insulation instead of blasting 3" holes all over the house.



Siding removed in order to access the sheathing underneath and drill holes for blowing in insulation.


They drilled holes in the sheathing - this is plugged after insulation is blown in then the siding replaced. We only had one piece of siding completely shatter and they replaced it without any bother at all. You can see that there is no insulation inside this wall. Effectively, this wall had an R-value of about 4 maybe 5. After blowing in R15 insulation, we should be much warmer this winter.



There were, of course, a couple spots near the chimney that they couldn't get the siding off so I authorized the plug treatment here. I'll seal & bondo the plugs so they aren't visible after painting. We were lazy and missed the last couple weekends where outside temperatures were above 70 degrees - we'll paint in the spring....


Magellan Insulation Inc. did the work. They were fast and efficient. Little mishaps here and there didn't really amount to much. They didn't know that my upstairs windows are pocket windows and they drilled into the cavity where the window goes when open. We also had a board under the kitchen sink fall off and the cabinet was filled with insulation.


The attic did have about 4-6 inches of insulation most of which was at or below the level of the rafters. Upgrading to R38 insulation (18" above rafters) is like snuggling under your favorite blanket.

The last thing to do is to take a thermal imaging camera around on a really cold day in January. This will identify cavities that were missed. I can then decide whether it's worth it to go back and fill them or not.

Strawberry Bed

OK... With the wife and daughter in Bend for the weekend visiting Granny AND a very rainy weekend, I had to try and get something done. I knocked off a honey-do today and installed Jaq's strawberry bed sans strawberries. The lovely downspout you see pictured here is a result of attempting to get the drains as far away from my foundation as possible to keep the rain from flooding my basement. This corner, in particular, drains directly to the basement.


I need to seal the basement walls with UGL Drylok (& UGL Fastpatch for the big holes). Well.... that's another project. In 1923 they didn't fully form basement walls. This wall was constructed by digging a hole and building interior forms. The outside of the basement wall is formed by the wall of the hole, no forms. There are really no footings either and no footing drains build. This is very far from what is built today.

Pouring concrete in 1923 was a very labor intensive process. Using wheelbarrows from the mixer to the pour site and mixing in batches causes semi-circular seams in the vertical walls. Things are made worse when the cream separates from the aggregate causing porosity. Anyway, that's enough about my basement walls.

The Chicken Coop

Welcome to Projectorium. This is the space where I'm going to discuss my projects where I'm in the process of making our house a home. First up: The Chicken Coop.

Jacquelyn found chicken coop plans on the internet, she asked me to build her this coop. Here is the project.

Here, the floor frame and one of the wall frames. I found "found" some stain in the garage. Left over from the previous owner so I used it. Turned out to be a bit messy staining these parts prior to assembly like this. The stain did eventually dry but it took about four days....

Starting the assembly and adding in the 1"x1" hardware cloth. Stapling down with poultry staples. Word to the wise - if you think staining is messy before assembly, try staining after stapling in the hardware cloth.

The first chicken :)

The final product.

All in all I loved building this chicken coop. 4 days from when I started the chickens moved in but only had a tarp roof. I ordered the G7 roofing material from Ryerson Metal Building Products and that took about a week to come in. The lumber is mostly reclaimed or otherwise salvaged as is the hardware for the most part. The coop still needs a couple pieces of trim to finish it out completely. Future plans are to place in axle mounts so I can take the tires off of my hand truck and install then on the coop to move it. Making it a chicken tractor. I'm also going to re-size our garden beds this fall so that the coop can sit completely on top for winter over. They can graze and cleanout all of the left over bits and fertilize it for spring. There are a few more pictures of the coop on Broadbrains.