Functional Yard Art

If you've been to this blog before, you may remember the firewood cabinet project. It holds a cool canvas bag full of firewood brought in off the porch - enough for a night or two.

Further down the project list was some sort of storage box on the porch to keep me from having to hike out to the woodshed every day.

There were problems with the porch box idea, including bugs, mice, and the ability to access wood from both sides, so nothing ever got built.  The other day a simple solution came to me, and I already had the main component. The rusty old wheelbarrow that was the inspiration for the Redneck Recliner.

If I could make the old thing presentable enough to live on the front porch, I could bring over a week's worth of wood and just leave it in the wheelbarrow, right next to the front door.

Bro-in-law Danny just happened to be coming to visit me this week, and since he was my partner in building the recliner from a new wheelbarrow, we figured that between us we would be smart enough to restore an old one.

  

One of the handles was broken and crudely spliced.

The metal was pretty rusty and the wood was rotten, but with some sanding, priming, new handles from East County Lumber and Ranch Supply, and some home-made wooden parts...

 

We ended up with something pretty spiffy.  Since the Redneck Recliner didn't need a wheel, we used its brand new one on this project.

  

Back to the farm supply for some
pavers to make a ramp.

Ready for winter!

My Ancient Roman Invention

I have a couple buddies who are a lot smarter than I am, and we got into a conversation the other day about how the ancient Romans were able to build aqueducts that were miles long, with lots of hills and valleys in the way, and know that the bottom end was going to be just enough lower than the top end to make the water flow nicely.

Turns out they did it by measuring in baby steps, sighting along a level plane at a measuring stick, a bit further up or down the grade. Kind of like this:

In order to shoot a perfectly horizontal line, they needed a tool, so to help them out, I set about inventing one. The first thing that came to mind was of course water, which is always level (found out later that they did have one tool that involved sighting over a pan of water, but I didn't know that and besides, I think mine is more elegant..)

Gary's Ancient Leveling Transit

Here's my prototype:

Since I didn't have an assistant, I propped a measuring stick up at a slightly different elevation and taped yardsticks to it.

First, I calibrated the stick by placing it right next to the transit and marking it at the same height as the nail points.  Due to uneven density of the wood, one point was a little higher than the other when I spun it around to check against the first mark, so I added a Roman coin (actually a washer) to balance it out.

Sorry, bad picture, but the stick is in my left hand and you can make out the marks and the washer if you squint.

Here you can see that the water is level, even though my tripod is not.

First attempt was a little shaky in a slight breeze, so I attempted to steady it with my fingers.

Maybe what was needed was a more viscous pool, like mercury (Wikipedia says the Romans had it), or perhaps olive oil?  I was too cheap to try that, so made a batch of Roman gravy, with flour, butter, water, a bit of milk and a dash of Mediterranean sea salt (because why wouldn't you?)

Even more effective was a couple of movable stops I attached to the bowl, just kissing the floating beam to keep it from moving in the wind.

If I had an assistant (a trusted slave) he could slide his finger down the yardstick until I told him he was lined up with my nail points, and one of us would record the rise (XVIII inches in this case).

The top of the blue tape on the stick is the "reference"- the same height as my nail points

When we laid out my house, we used a fancy expensive laser version, but the principle was the same, and my brilliant engineer buddy assures me that accurate elevation surveying, including over long distances, is still done in roughly the old Roman way, one sight at a time, inch-worming over hill and dale.

Oh, and Bigfoot was back today, hopefully dining on some of my delicious gophers.

Air Conditioner.. Just in Time for Winter!

When I decided to air condition this off-the-grid house, I felt I needed to take it easy on my electrical system and installed a "mini-split' unit in the living room instead of central air.

It does a pretty good job on most of the house, but sometimes doesn't quite make it all the way to the bedroom at the other end of the house.

So I bought a little window unit on Craigslist for 40 bucks and stuck it in the bedroom window.

Unfortunately, I had to block off the only window in the room, so this was not a good solution.

Time to bite the bullet and chop a hole in my lovely wall...

A little framing...

A little plaster work...

 

Bedside remote

And we're in business!

Wired it up outside...

 

Until it's needed, the AC will hide behind a picture of a big oak tree.  I made the frame from some ancient fence boards.

While I was in a framing mood, I added a bonus picture to the living room.

Thanks to Merrily for the pictures!

A New Look for Kini

Kini's my vintage travel trailer.  (The name means "Tin Can" in Hawaiian.)

The upholstery was starting to look a bit shabby and faded, and besides, I wanted a different bed arrangement. Having a couch is all well and good, but when I travel alone, I rarely sit on it, and it's a pain having to convert it into a bed every night, so I widened the seat to twin-bed size and reduced the backrest.

Here's how it used to look:

And here's the new look:

 In the event a double bed is needed, the twin bed will pull out and the back rests will drop into the space.

I split the backrest into two pieces that can be easily stashed out of the way. I'll leave the twin bed made up all the time unless I'm at a show or rally and feel I need to be tidy.


The house got a little out of control during the process...

Carefully posed candid selfie

Since I was redoing the bed, I needed to re-do the dinette as well, and for these cushions, decided to put piping around the edges.  Didn't bother with that on the bed, because... it's a bed.

30 yards of homemade "piping"

The "Guest Bed."

Getting ready to take a little road trip, so the New Look will get a good test.

View From the Top

Good buddy and Grandson-I-Never-Had Brian Anglin came to visit me and he brought his drone. Here's what my little homestead looks like from the sky.
Thanks, Brian!

Latest Project

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Thanks,
The Management
Just finished another bookcase for the living room. I've been trying to come up with something that I could easily access from my chair. Not that I'm lazy (OK I am) but I didn't want to have to get up from the chair and reach around in front of a normal bookcase.

This ought to do the job.

In looking around for inspiration, I came across this, which gave me the idea of "side shelves."  That would solve the problem of easy access from the chair for the current book, current beverage, and glasses.  Also a magazine rack at the bottom big enough for crossword puzzles.  Still need to install a little rod to keep the mags from falling out.

As usual, this one started out with an Adobe Illustrator drawing:

Carved "Roycroft Roses" designed in the early 1900s by a guy named Dard Hunter. You often see this rose and variations of it in Arts & Crafts graphics.

 

The side cabinets are easily removable to make it easier to haul off to the Goodwill when I'm dead...:)

Found these lovely handmade dragonfly tiles from a small shop in Ohio

Stay Tuned!