Life and Compost

When you have the time, you don't have the money...When it rains it pours...When life hands you lemons...Tonight I'm at the end of a 12 hour shift.  My brain is a little fuzzy.  So, I'll shift gears and touch on the glamor of compost.  Improve your soil at little or no expense.  Fashion some free pallets into a sort of three room condo and start adding your browns and greens.  Browns = carbon (leaves, straw, wood chips)  Greens = nitrogen (lawn clippings, kitchen scraps...no meat..., and manure of a vegetarian animal) Shoot for three browns for every green.  If you don't have enough browns, it will be stinky.  If you don't have enough greens, it won't break down as well or as quickly.  I keep a bucket with a clean liner in it to catch the kitchen scraps.  I throw it on the pile once a week and cover it with straw, poop, and cedar shavings from cleaning out the chicken coop.  When room one of the compost condo is full, I'll move the contents to room two, then room three and then to the garden or grow boxes.  If your short on browns, fall is on its way.  Grab all the free leaves you can get from friends and neighbors.  Stir your compost once a month.  I spray mine with a little water when the weather dries it out.  You CAN do it!

Decorate a Wall...Cheap!

A quick fix for a wall that just needs a little something is windows!  We stopped by the local antique shop and scrounged around the clearance bin.  We picked up a 12 pane window.  It was in real bad shape.  All the panes were barely hanging on, but we liked it.  We snagged three stained glass windows, too.  All of them looked pretty battered.  I think the 12 pane one had it the worst and was the oldest.  When you look at the panes, you can see the ripples in the glass.  The quick fix was to lay the big window face down and run a bead of caulk around each of the panes to keep them in place.  Once that dried, it was ready to be cleaned up a bit.  Next we masked off all the glass with some old newspapers and blue tape.  ( I love that stuff!)  Then came the primer.  Each window got two coats of spray primer.  It took nearly two cans to do all four windows, but we primed both the front and back of each.  Finally, we sprayed the fronts with several coats of flat white paint.  We kept the window frames rough and imperfect to add to the charm.  The paint coated beautifully.  The we bought a little three-dollar picture hanging kit and outfitted the windows with picture wire to hang them, and...voila!  Have fun with this one!  You CAN do it.

Have no fear...the recession's here

Aside from my mad skills with that nail gun, I want to give all homeowners a little light in this economic tunnel.  This last weekend the local builders put on a display of their talents in the home show.  It can be a real drag to get all inspired with ideas for your own place and then be stuck in the money rut!  If it is new cabinets that you crave, seek out your local cabinet makers.  They can outsource cabinet parts directly to you, the home owner.  Just ask them.  (You can try looking online for a shop, too.)  They can build the toe-kicks, and many of them will even do the stain and finish (for an added fee).  Just ask them.  You'll come away with a pile of neatly cut pieces and more cash in your pocket.  All you have left to do is building the boxes (I'm of course speaking of European style cabinets).  With some glue, a few pipe clamps, and a crazy nail gun, you can put them together.  Then you'll need some doors.  Ask the cabinet maker who they use.  Then get some friends and have an installation party!  I will break this process down in more detail in future posts...so stay tuned.  Remember, you can do it yourself!

Nail Guns and Wives

On a job in sweaty, southern Nevada, I asked my wife (who insisted on tagging along) to hand me my finish-nailer.  She picked it up, and I swear took aim, and pulled the trigger.  A thin nail tumbled through the air as she turned red in the face and blurted apologies (between bursts of laughter).  That moment gave birth to this blog.  Like the saying: If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day.  If you teach a man to fish you feed him for the rest of his life.  I'm not dishing out fish but hard earned tricks and techniques for getting a job done.  

Lesson one:  Nail gun basics and how not to load it...