Chip Ahoy

My winter project was to clear some of the impenetrable Dark Forest & open up a view of the creek from our deck. I did take down a lot of trees, both scrub and well established. I pulled up or off 8 lawn bags of Virginia Creeper and poison ivy vines, carefully cut up to maximize the amount in each bag. I rented a chipper for the trees and brush with the intent of creating a wood chip trail. Here it is about halfway done. The first pic is a view from our deck, and the second better shows the area by the creek where we'll setup a picnic table or some sort of seating arrangement. Just below that space, a limestone ledge creates a mini waterfall and the 'crick' babbles. It's very pleasant to just stand there and listen. The remains of the woodchip pile is on the left in the first shot. There's still quite a bit left, so barring the coming rain washing it all away, I should be able to extend the trail at least halfway to the house from its present end. The logs that line the path all came from the trees I cut. I've never built a chip trail before and make absolutely no guarantees about its longevity. I did my best to anticipate and block the runoff from rain to keep the chips in place, but we'll just have to wait and see. Thankfully, we won't have to wait long. A large thunderstorm is due to pass through tonight, so the effects of heavy rain and high winds will be immediately apparent tomorrow morning. I just hope I'm not digging wood chips out of the creek tomorrow! Anyway, the ultimate plan is to line the sides of the path with native wildflowers or ground cover. Probably won't do that until next spring though, because Ellen and Mom have a project list for me that makes my business life seem sedate and relaxed. To Kevin and Betty S., you can now get to the creek without being snagged by thornbushes, whipped in the face with branches or having to dodge creepy vines hanging off trees. Looking forward to a leisurely stroll with you!!

Furnished and moved in!

Here's a tour of Mom's apartment. She moved in last week and feels it's a really convenient place to live. It really is a residence. Despite her encouragement to just walk in, I feel compelled to knock before opening the door. It just doesn't feel like walking into your own basement. As for the tour, the top photo shows an empty wall on the right where two bookcases will be placed. They haven't arrived yet, but Mom wanted me to show the wall. The second pic is taken from her bedroom looking the length of the room. The next is the bedroom followed by a shot of her office area. The bathroom door is opposite the desk. Finally, the last shot is from her interior entry. There's one more pic to show, which I'll put in a separate post. This was the maximum number of images I could load into one post.

Almost chipper ready

This pic doesn't really show the extent of the clearing I've done, but here's the brush pile viewed from the deck. It's about chest high on me and spills down the slope a bit. All I have left from a clearing standpoint is to clean up two deadfalls and make a final pass with branch pruners to remove the last few saplings that were hidden by all of the timber and underbrush. Then the chipping starts, followed by trail construction. I hope to have enough logs that I can use in place of landscape timbers to create the checks against the chips washing away. Still much work to do, but I'm pretty much back on schedule for this project.

A creek runs through it

I've always characterized our purchase of this lot by saying, "Ellen and I bought a ravine." That is quite literally true. However, the one great feature of that ravine is this creek. We've had a lot of rain and snow melt, so it's chock full of runoff now, but the natural stone ledges create little waterfalls with a delightful sound, the proverbial babbling brook. This shot was taken in the rain near dusk, when I was walking Jett. When the weather dries, so does the creek, dwindling to just a trickle. This photo represents a big change in our property though. In January, I was enjoying a cup of coffee on our deck when I noticed a silver ribbon running along the base of the hill. I asked Ellen if my eyes were accurate this time, and if that was the creek I saw. She confirmed it, so on the spot, I decided my winter project would be to clear some of the woods all the way to the creek, so we could see it in summer too. I've been working at it with greater or lesser energy ever since and am getting to the point where I only have some of the larger trees to knock down as well as clean up the deadfalls. What was an impenetrable wall of nastiness overrun with thornbushes, poison ivy vines (some 2" thick if you can believe it) and trash, will soon be a quite pleasant, unfettered stroll. This is where I walk Jett these days, and after a snowfall, it's fun to look at the animal tracks, guess what made them, and wonder where they were heading as they passed across our land. So that's the rather wondrous aspect of this project. Now comes pretty much what you'd expect to hear about anything I attempt to do.

You may or may not know that Ellen desperately wants a hot tub. I just as desperately don't want her to buy one. We are both independent people, so there's no way I can stop her from creating a fund and saving for it. She's got a nice chunk of change set aside, but nowhere near enough. I had a weight set that we've carried around for years. Ellen wanted me to sell it on Craigslist. I had no issues with that. I'm past the stage where I'm interested in free weight training. Maybe 20 years ago, when I bought it, but certainly not now. However, Ellen thought that because it was her idea, she should get the proceeds for her hot tub fund. I, on the other hand, had a vision of a woodchipper to turn the mass of saplings and limbs I've cut into mulch. Without so much as a by your leave, I took the money and bought a used one on Craigslist. Ha! Now I was ready. Cut down the jungle and turn it into useful mulch for our spring plantings. Then I read that the worst plant mulch you can use is something that comes out of the business end of a wood chipper, because it actually absorbs nitrogen from the soil for a couple of years before ever putting it back. Ok, so my first justification for keeping her a little further away from her spa was a washout. I am a creative kind of guy, if somewhat inept, so in a flash of inspiration I decided to restore peace by saying I plan to build woodchip trails to the creek. Isn't that way cool, Ellen? Yes, she bought into that and I continued hacking my way down the slope. As time went on, and the piles of brush grew and grew, it became apparent to me that I just did not have enough of a chipper to deal with it. I'd have to rent one of the big ones that you pull behind your truck, so the whole chipper buy was unnecessary. Ellen learned of this new plan second hand, which was an unfortunate twist of fate for me. I was told that I was in big trouble. Not only is part of her hot tub masquerading as a woodchipper, now I'm going to spend even MORE money renting another. Another flash of inspiration was less inspiring for her. I said we can still use the one I bought for annual pruning and routine clean up. That didn't sell. Oh by the way, building wood chip trails on a hill isn't all that straightforward because if you just lay a carpet, they'll wash away. So I'll have an enormous pile of woodchips and another major project ahead of me to make use of them. She doesn't know yet about the cost of the landscape timbers I'll need to secure the chips on that pleasant stroll to the babbling brook. At times, I wish I'd decided to have my coffee in my office that day instead of on our deck.

243B Soetebier - nearly ready

At long last, Mom's apartment is nearly complete! The top pic is a view from the kitchen to the entrance of her bedroom(right door) and our media room (yet to be completed) on the left. The second pic is of the short hallway between the living room and her bathroom (media room door on the right). The third pic is of taken from her bedroom doorway showing the open living area and kitchen. The fourth pic is the best I could get of her bedroom and finally, the last pic is taken from the doorway that separates her apartment from the rest of the house.

Ok, that's the tour. Mom won't move in for a couple more weeks. She doesn't want to live there until the window blinds are installed. I'm living with two women with exactly opposite attitudes toward that. Ellen wants nothing on the windows, so we are open to the world. My sense of responsibility to my fellow man caused me to cover my front-facing sleeping room with blinds, but that was just to eliminate the possibility of mental trauma to the rare passerby. Mom, on the other hand, can't abide an uncovered window at night. The only peeping Toms she has to worry about is an occasional peeping tom turkey, but you'll never convince her of that.

I have to point out the beams. Take a good look at them. They're more than just beams to me. They are actually a life event. You have to first understand that I'm not the most handy person in the world. I do try. I built a platform for our St. Nicholas Village display. We have so much of the stuff that you can see the problems urban sprawl causes for city planners. We made the mistake some years ago of telling people that we were collecting those items. That opened a floodgate of Christmas, birthday and anniversary gifts that was just staggering. It now takes me hours and hours to setup the village. This is the first year we really stood up 'most' of them. I think I had over 8 hours in the project, carefully determining where each structure should go, placing people and fixtures in exactly the right spot where they might appear to be doing something that made sense for their surroundings. The platform just barely carried the load. If anyone had stumbled into it by accident, well, I would not have had to worry about the lengthy setup next year, just accusing looks from Ellen throughout the year. I digress. When I heard the builder's plans for the beams, I wasn't happy. I really wanted them to approximate the timbers on the main floor as much as possible. His plan was to simply build a 6 x 6 square post around the supporting wood and metal columns using butt joints. Those little squares would have looked nothing like our timbers. You would have also clearly seen the butt joints because end grain doesn't accept stain in the same way that the face grain absorbs it. I fell silent when I heard his description. He saw my disappointment and asked me what was wrong. I said I wanted them to be rectangular like our timbers, not square. I then told him that I didn't like the butt joints. Why not do a rabbet to hide as much of the end grain as possible, then put a chamfer on the edges? A debate ensued about the cost and complexity of these changes. He ultimately agreed. We used our master craftsman, Ed at the speed of wood to cut the rabbets in the 1 x 10s and 1 x 6s. When all was done, I was very pleased with the result, Mom was thrilled, and wait for it....the builder said my idea was much better than his, and that he wished he'd done that for his basement. I do not recall someone as competent in the field as our builder ever conceding that my idea was superior to one of his own. I will always look at those beams as a lifetime achievement award.

I believe this will be a very comfortable place for Mom to live out her days. She has her own HVAC system so she can control the temperature completely. We wired, but have not installed, electric baseboard heater connections so that if the HVAC still leaves her chilled, we can easily put those in to provide spot heating in her bedroom and living area. Her laundry is a few paces outside her door, on the same level, so no more steps for her. I have to also say that my investment in sound insulation and the GreenGlue clips we used to mount the drywall on the ceiling are a complete success. Very little sound from someone walking on the main floor penetrates to her living area. It should be a nice and quiet place to live as well. I am actually considering offering her my space and moving in down there myself. After several months under the supervision of two strong willed women, the idea of a quiet retreat in a fortress of solitude has an appeal. Ah, I'd never get away with it. Besides, Ellen gave a megaphone as a fun Christmas gift, but bought an extra one for reasons that aren't entirely clear to me. No doubt I'd hear the electronic squeal of her firing one of them up followed by a booming BBBOOBBB to disrupt my tranquility. Perhaps she foresaw that this might cross my mind, proving that she is several moves ahead of me in this chess game called marriage.

God willing, the creek don't rise, and the earnings continue to flow, I plan to put in hardscapes in the back, mainly to reduce the area of grass. Mom is a very talented and fanatic lawn care person. I am sure that with just a little publicity to make her known, Augusta National would welcome her advice before the next Masters golf tournament. I'd like to give her a smaller area that she can tend. She does love it so, but the amount of grass out there now is just too much for her. Firepits, walkways, planting beds and so on may give her a nice little yard, and deliver to Ellen and I a lush carpet of healthy green grass to show.

So there's now a 243B Soetebier! The post office isn't aware of it, but most definitely there are two residences under this roof!!

Updates on Mom's apartment

The drywall is up and the painters have begun the taping/mudding task. The top pic is taken from Mom's bedroom door, the second from the entry to the apartment, and the bottom picture is taken from the short hallway to the bathroom. Jett volunteered to be in the photos to give a sense of scale. Thank you, Jett, but leave the insulation alone please. The steel and wood posts you see will be encased in oak to make them look as much like timbers as possible. In the top photo, the wall with the ladder will be Mom's kitchen, with cabinetry and appliances covering the full wall and also the short wall that separates it from the entrance. There will be an island with cabinets as well, giving her actually a lot more storage than she had in her home. The second photo shows where Mom has decided to set up her living room and TV. She plans to purchase a sleeper sofa, so come on down and visit! The last photo shows the exterior doors and the dining area.

All in all, Mom actually has a little more square footage in this apartment than she had on the main floor of her home, although it's not as divided up into as many rooms as her old house. The laundry isn't shown, but it's just a few steps from her interior entry, in the room that houses the HVAC. We are installing a separate furnace for her comfort, and have pre-wired it to later install baseboard heaters if she thinks it's necessary. Each room has windows, so there should be plenty of light.

Mom expressed the desire to have a small lawn to manicure as only she can. Well, we have a lot of grass at the moment, but if God continues to bless Ellen and I, our landscaping plans in the back will cut down the amount of grass significantly, adding hardscapes, flower beds and raised bed vegetable gardens. If we can do that, then I expect I'll hear the sound of a mower three times a week out back, and see a lawn that the botanical gardens might envy.

We expect that Mom will be moving in sometime in late January. We're close to seeing the good stuff go in, like paint, flooring, cabinets, etc. As those items get installed, I'll update this blog more frequently to keep apprised of the progress. It's great having Mom here and I believe she feels it's great to be here too.

Progress updates

Here's a couple of shots of Mom's apartment. The top is from her bedroom toward the kitchen. You can see the entry door from the inside of the house in the upper right corner. Her cabinetry will consume the full wall and wrap around to the end of the short wall. She actually has more cabinet space here than in her old home. Our dog Jett though, will be banished in favor of Mom's Yorkie. :) The steel posts will be encased in an oak box to simulate timbers to the extent possible. They won't look like timbers really, but there's only so much you can do. She'll also have an island just a little past the steel post. Our builder said this kitchen is actually larger than he's built as the primary kitchen in some of his homes.

The second shot is from the kitchen looking toward her bedroom. The room you see on the left is a media room, which will be shared by both Mom and us. I don't expect we'll fit it out right away, but over the next year or two, we'll install up to 6 reclining theater seats, a large screen TV, likely gas plasma since there will be no competing light, a good sound system and of course, an old time popcorn maker. I do love my movie popcorn.

In an earlier post, I mentioned the quandary over soundproofing. I looked at a number of approaches and decided on two. The media room walls are constructed on a 2x6 base with 2x4s staggered so that a 2x4 supporting the media room drywall does not touch the drywall on either Mom's bedroom or the apartment. Insulation will fill the cavity. This is a relatively inexpensive way to deaden sound between rooms. It's unlikely someone will be blasting the audio while someone's trying to sleep in the next room, so I didn't see the need to go overboard and chose this approach.

The ceiling is a different matter. Here we have to be concerned about the noise Ellen and I make tromping around above Mom, or the sound from the apartment infiltrating upstairs. This was more difficult to choose a solution. I settled on clips from Green Glue. You can follow this link to learn about this new approach at drywall mounting ..http://www.greengluecompany.com/noiseproofing_clips.php

I liked this because it made sense to me for some reason, but also allowed me to use drywall instead of a suspended ceiling. I expect this will cost me about 25-30% more than a suspended ceiling when everything is said and done, but I'll have a full height ceiling everywhere except where soffets are built to encase pipes and duct work. There's quite a bit of ducting, so I would have had to lower the whole ceiling to that level with a suspended ceiling,. It just would have looked odd to bring it down for the ducts and then up again for the area where pipes and ducts don't exist. Don't know about you, but I tend to notice height variations less in a drywall ceiling than a suspended one. I think this is the best way to go about it without spending a whole pile of cash to truly soundproof the room. Hope I'm right.