4 birds landed on the garage roof. They were dullish brown when I first looked from the computer screen to see them. When my eyes focused, I noticed bright yellow piping around their eyes. Cedar Waxwings! I don’t think I’ve seen any since living in Wyoming. I couldn’t get to a camera fast enough.
They are such classy birds, at least to look at. My neighbor says they have incredibly fast digestive systems and to never stand under them.
Portland residents just received their annual water quality report, something that would normally go unnoticed by most if there hadn’t recently been a big to-do in the national media about finding trace amounts of caffeine, Acetaminophen, Ibuprofen, and anti-biotics in several major cities drinking water supply. Portland was one of the cities identified, and the Water Bureau has done an excellent job of presenting water quality and addressing the contaminants:
“At the amounts detected, an individual would have to drink 1 gallon of water a day for more than 13,000 years to consume the equivalent of one Tylenol.”
Now there’s some perspective.
I do a half-cringe, half-laugh when I see people buying bottled water in Portland. The Bull Run water is the most wonderful drinking water I’ve ever had. The stuff in Wyoming was pretty good, Yakima was OK (the well water in the Nob Hill area is gross), and the water in Nebraska was wretched. Every time we fly back to visit I’m always so happy to be back at the Denver airport to get some good water again. I guess I’m a water snob.
Let me start this post by saying that Sketch-Up is probably in my top 5 favorite applications right now, but I’m still a rather novice user. Despite my lack of experience with the tool, I’ve used it twice recently for real designs – both the chicken coop and now our basement. Our incomplete basement.
With the chicken coop, it was more about creating a rough design with relative dimensions and such – mostly about visualizing the product. This time, I spent much more time trying to include real dimensions and went through several drafts – each time boring Michelle a little more. Still, I think the visualization exercise was useful and I was actually able to take the dimensions and use them to fit pieces (stereo, speakers, tv) into the overall scheme. Here’s the latest rendering:
Now that we’re closing in on the end of the project, I’m really curious to see how accurate the rendering is. I already know of a few changes, but it seems to be fairly accurate still.
edit: Here’s a mock up of the cabinets that are on the east wall. I built them after prototyping them in sketchup with the dimensions of the sill and beam that they had to fit between. Then I was able to find out the size of the pieces needed so I could make sure I had enough plywood. Really, it’s a simple and powerful tool.
I’m at home with Ella today, and she’s just gone down for a nap, so I’m taking the opportunity to post some pics of what we’ve been up to in the evenings and over weekends the last 2 weeks.
Two weekends ago, we were supposed to go camping with Ella for the first time, but the weather was going to be abysmal: cold and rain. Not much fun in a tent. Instead, Michelle, my parents and I started working on the basement – an addition of walls and eventually carpet and ceiling to make the somewhat dank and scary TV room in to a livable family room. Over the last weekend, we managed to tear down, frame and sheet rock and start taping and mudding the walls. It was amazing how quickly we worked, and it put us a month ahead of schedule.
Over the next couple days I worked on sanding and mudding more, but had to stop to clean for the Kroger for AG party we hosted. Then, Friday I was able to sand and mud one last time so we could sand and prime on Saturday. Michelle’s mom and friend came down over the weekend and watched Ella so we could keep working. They all went to the zoo and had a great time while Michelle and I worked unfettered for a few hours. By Sunday night, we’d primed and put 2 coats of paint on all but one of the walls. I was also able to get some framing for a panel wall that I’ve been dreaming of. The green in the pictures doesn’t reflect the actual color very well. In the pics, it almost looks like 70s gauche.
Since Sunday night, we’ve not accomplished much downstairs other than laundry. Today I went to
Rebuilding Center and CrossCut to buy wood for the finishing touches. I wanted to use reclaimed old growth, clear vertical grain Doug fir, but had trouble finding the quantity and quality needed for the project. I ended up getting most of it from CrossCut, but the wood is beautiful, and the Doug fir veneered plywood will make for excellent cabinets where the stereo and such will sit – well above kid hands. Ella helped me push the wood around and I think she had as much fun at both the Rebuilding Center and CrossCut as I did. Here’s a gratuitious photo of the pile of wood in my garage:
Now we just need to finish the cabinets and one last section of drywall then we can put up the fir and be happy. We’re experimenting with wood panelling for the ceiling, but mixing wood types can be dangerous. We’re looking at Luan for its cost/sustainability/look, though the jury is still out.
Michelle and I have been working on finishing the basement so that its not scary to be in during, well, most times of the year. To make it livable, we put some old carpet down on the floor to hep us pretend that it was a real room. Before cutting out chunks of the concrete floor to repour, we rolled up the carpet and put it in my parent’s truck so we could take it to East County Recycling Environmentally Conscious Recycling. ECR is one of the only options for recycling carpet in the Portland Metro area.
We needed to pick up some sheet rock with the truck, so we set the carpet roll out on the parking strip. Later that afternoon when we returned, the carpet had disapeared. There’s a phenomenon around here where you can set out some reasonable item you’re done with and a free sign and it’ll be picked up within 24 hours by someone. The phenomenon is so strong that the following things have happened:
If you attempt to use this phenomenon, do not attempt to kick-start by posting something on craigslist. You’ll end up with multiple unhappy parties who show up to get the free item when some dude who was just walking by picked it up not 4 minutes ago. I mean, it’s not my fault they drove from Vancouver to get a few rolls of sod.
I love recycling, but I love reusing even more.
Sometimes you start to question doing something unnecessary. I did that several times during the process of putting a greenroof on top of our chicken coop, but now that I’m done and have forgotten the extra time and cost, I’m happy we went with it.
Why did we put a greenroof? (an “eco-roof” to some) I must admit I liked the novelty and wanted to see how difficult it was. Plus, it gave me the chance to learn a little more about the process. Sara lent me here notes from the 1-day greenroofing class she took a few years back, and with that, I developed a simpler, less expensive version for the chicken coop.
Different how? Fewer layers of complex stuff. My roofing layers look like this:
A better designed roof would use a real waterproof membrane, but I happened to have a lot of black plastic leftover from when our basement had radon mitigation. Also, the there should probably be a slip sheet between the membrane and padding, then a barrier between the soil and the pad, but I’m not too worried about root intrusion into the pad. I added a small drain to the lowest corner (it somehow lost square/level once we put the 150 lb roof up) in case of excess moisture. Hopefully it doesn’t get used much.
Finally, the roof media came from ProSoil in Tigard, and the sedum, not the ideal choices, came from Livingscape Nursery on Vancouver and A-Boy. I couldn’t find all the ideal varieties, and Michelle wanted some hen & chicks on the roof, so we’ll see what works and what doesn’t (thus the tags). I need a little more soil, so I’ll be making another run to the soil place to fill up another computer box with someone else’s roof media.
Michelle and I spent the whole of the weekend readying the coop so the chicks could move outdoors. We managed to finish the coop with the exception of paint and the green roof. Saturday, while we put the back wall on, painted it, then placed the coop & run wiring, the chicks wandered around the yard with Barley watching intently. Sunday, we finished the side walls, nesting boxes, feeder, door, roof decking and impervious layer. The chicks did the same, though in the evening, when we knocked off to grill and relax, they entered their new coop. A terrarium pad, a heat light, and a straw floor kept them warm at night, though they didn’t stray far from the heating pad. A few comical highlights from the weekend:
The biggest reason I caved to Michelle’s desire to have chickens was the part where I got to design and build the coop. There was never any formal agreement, and I’m pretty sure the design has spiraled beyond what Michelle had anticipated. We’ve tried to use scrap and rebuilding center materials where we can, and new items only where it makes the most sense.
One aspect of the coop that I picked to include recycled material was the floor. The floor has to have spaces to allow feces (poop) to fall through. our neighbor’s coop had a a wooden grill similar to a cold air return from a 1940’s house. I liked the idea of using wood with ample space between the slats, so I picked up a bunch of old trim and laminate edges from Rebuilding Center, then cut them to the width of the coop. To seat them, I took some studs over to my dad’s shop and used his dado blade to cut notches for the slats. I was still uncertain as to how it would work until I finally assembled it last night. Looks like it should work, though the chickens will be the final test.
Next – the green roof!
Many weekends pass by unnoticed because you’re either busy doing some project the entire time, you’re traveling the entire time, or you’re hanging out and time just slips past. This weekend we managed to both tackle a number of projects and have some fun. While having dinner tonight, Michelle and I both realized we were exhausted, but satisfied with the weekend.
Saturday morning we hit up our big box lumber store to get lumber and pavers. I put an additional support beam beneath the living room floor because it had been sagging a bit, and we’re expecting to have a number of people over for a “meet the candidate” gathering and we didn’t want the floor to collapse. As much fun as it is scrounging around the crawl space, I was glad to get done quickly with my dad’s help. Saturday’s weather was too nice to stay indoors.
Michelle transplanted a rose plant and bricked in the rest of the patio, something that really makes the back yard more inviting. She, Ella and my mom did most of the work there, and the chicks (hens) got to play outdoors for a bit in the sun under Barley’s watchful eyes. To round out the day, Hilary watched Ella for a few hours while Michelle and I checked out HUB and Green Dragon.
Sunday morning we rode with my parents and sister over to the Flavor Spot on N. Lombard to grab some waffles, then rode back to Arbor Lodge park to savor, then play some tether ball. After that, Michelle and I split up and ran errands. Reconvening after lunch, we start building the chicken coop and continued with backyard arranging. By the time we hit dinner, we were all exhausted. Here are some photos – I’m trying out the new gallery feature in WordPress 2.5.
We have new neighbors!
One or two pairs of Goldfinches have taken up residence in our birch tree. I couldn’t be more ecstatic. Their singing is wonderful, and the flash of color as they flit down to the window feeder is always exciting.
