Hey, every once in a while we all have something fail in our home or car that is plugged into a wall or is wired into the house power or an important part of our car. If you are into fixing stuff on your own you wouldn’t think twice to just turn off the breaker or pull the fuse and dive in.
In light of this, I have two pieces of advice that will NEVER let you down:
- Don’t piss off the electrons, they bite.
- Always double check your GROUNDS, then check them one more time. Your stuff will do the most peculiar things if the ground is loose or not connected. In fact, there are way too many odd things that can happen with electricity if the ground is bad to list here. So, if you are working with something electrical in your house or car and something spooky or unexplainable is happening…check those grounds.
Have fun and don’t get electrocuted!
Posted in Projects & Work, Thoughts & Ramblings.
Tagged with DIY, electrical, electrons, repair, volts.
I am not a professional stone mason
I am not a contractor
I am not a structural engineer
I AM a home owner with big ideas and little funds
I AM a persistent guy with little fear of failure
I AM willing to tear it all down and try again
Check with your local building codes before you begin, make sure there are no restrictions regarding the construction of retaining walls or free standing walls. Also, be realistic and safe about what you are about to do.
If you are reading a news feed from Facebook or Google Reader, click through to the actual blog post.
There are a few pictures and resources on the internet about building a dry stack, round field stone wall. My intent is to add to the volume of information on this process by including pictures of my build-up as well as put in links to some of the more useful websites I found when trying to figure out how to do this. More detail concerning my key steps are in the captions of my pictures, so I’ll let them speak for themselves. Here are a few things you should know before you get started.
- Don’t neglect site prep. I live in Southern California and on some pretty hard dirt. Freezing dirt and frost thrust and all that jazz is just fairytale to me. But if you live somewhere that freezes, its worth it to dig down nice and deep and put a gravel base in.
- Natural field stone doesn’t have to be expensive, in fact, it doesn’t have to cost more than a little fuel to go pick it up and lunch for your friends who help you move it. Any BLM managed land has stone free for the taking as long as you can pick them up by hand and put them in your non-commercial vehicle. If you aren’t building anything too big, this might be a good option. If you are building something bigger, take more time and visit more locations. With a little hunting you can find all the stone material you need. Don’t be shy about asking around to see if anyone has some stone that was illegally dumped on their property. Some of these folks are happy to have you come and remove some of the trash that has been left on their property, just ask first.
- Lay out all of your material ahead of time so you have a good view of it all. As you are building, remember you are putting together a puzzle with all kinds of pieces that may or may not fit. Remember that biggest on the bottom, smallest on the top. Use really small stuff to fill in gaps.
- Have a lot of DG or soil around that you can shovel in as you go. You are not using mortar, so you need something to create some friction and to take your stones captive.
- Don’t be concerned about ‘perfect’. If you are doing this project, perfect actually doesn’t look right. You want something more natural looking and a few small gaps here and there are ok as long as there is some soil in the gaps. Its a great opportunity to plant some cool rock rose or some other small, rock-loving plant.
Click on the pictures below to get a better view of what I have done, there is a description with each picture. Remember, I am not a professional so this shouldn’t be considered professional advise. Think of me as your neighbor who did this last year and is willing to offer some pointers from his experience. I successfully built a wall that is stable and has survived rain and a dog running around on it. It fits in nicely to a rustic setting and as long as you stay within some simple guidelines, your wall will be successful as well.
I found these websites helpful when I was figuring this out:
DIY Network’s Rock Solid: Corny hosts, but they seem to know their craft. They handle this topic a lot.
Drystack Retaining Walls (Moss/Field/Stone): PDF uploaded by Cornerstone Marketing Group. Handy write up on site prep. I don’t know anything about the authors.
eHow-How to Bulid a Dry Stack Stone Wall: This was handy little taste of building a wall. No pictures and brief summaries of what do to. Add it to the knowledge mass.
Google: Yea, its a sarcastic link to add. But search for dry stack fieldstone retaining walls, maybe its how you found this post. Keep searching. There is lots of good stuff out there.
Remember that being persistent and embracing failure as a learning experience will get any project done well. Since you’re doing a dry stacking wall - taking it down and changing it up is easy stuff. When you are done you will have a beautiful fixture in your landscape and it will likely remain for years and years. And guys, your wife will be really impressed!
Have fun!
Posted in Projects & Work.
Tagged with DIY, dry, fieldstone, landscape, retaining wall, stack, stone, wall.
Lately I do three things: Work, Family & everything that goes with that, and home improvement. Mostly the house is good to go. In fact, when we bought it in December it was turn-key. All the work had to be done outside. The place had been empty for almost 2 years and the abundant yard was showing it. Not long after we moved in I started with all the things I needed to do as well as wanted to do. I have learned 2 things along the way. One: You can do almost anything if you put your mind to it and Two: Most DIY websites don’t have a really good explanation of whats going on in their projects - leaving you to put a lot of the missing pieces together on your own.
I always think, “Someone should put up an article with better pictures or more detailed explanation.” Well, I am going to start putting up my own how to’s or DIY articles that revolve around projects I have done or want to do. I don’t think I can do a better DIY article than the other sites, but I think I can help others fill in the gaps that are left by the DIY television shows and free articles online.
I’ll start with a dry field stone wall or planter. Stay tuned.
Posted in Thoughts & Ramblings.
Tagged with DIY, Home Improvement, How to.
Lately I haven’t had any idea what to post on this blog. I sometimes use it as a place to posit an idea or two but other than that, like many others, internet citizenry occurs in places like Facebook and Twitter.
But, this morning…I have a new idea.
Keep an eye out, I’ll post something up this evening.
Posted in Thoughts & Ramblings.
Tagged with blogging.
I was just reading an article on CNN this morning and its a familiar story of a family who has been battling with Cancer for years and eventually couldn’t afford their skyrocketing health insurance premiums. The article points out that in 1981 6% of personal bankruptcy was over medical bills. In 2007 that number is up to 62% of all personal bankruptcy resulting from medical bills.
Our system of providing health care is broken, and its getting more broken. Although we have some of the most innovative specialists in the world in this country, many can’t gain access to them. So when reading this CNN story it occurred to me.
Health Care provision should not be in the hands of for-profit companies. Its only natural that they are concerned with profits, investor concerns and Wall Street. So they make decisions only as generous as is required by state law. Their very existence puts them at odds with patients needs. Maybe its time to rethink this. Maybe a public option or single payer system is in order because this is an issue of protecting the citizenry.
We have a public military.
We have a public police force.
We have a public education system.
We have private alternatives for each of these. However, the public service is adequate in most cases and in some cases, exemplary.
Just a few thoughts for this morning.
Posted in Thoughts & Ramblings.
Tagged with business, health care, reform, wall street.
