Random nature boy stuff

so, I've been making more local tea in the morning. Penny Royal, Yerba Buena, Yerba Santa, Wild Rose... lots of stuff. and my teapot broke, so I'm using a mason jar:

and I fixed a basket handle with some young hazel branches. Getting Natural!

KaYun Tackles Project

KaYun is here again, and I managed to talk her into fixing the hot tub patio. Digging down in front of the fire area,

and then replacing the pavers. This way, it's easier to work on the fire!

Plumbing fix (#1)

Redid that joint at the shower mixer with sharkbite connectors (which are awesome, by the way) but had to chip into the stud to get the elbow to fit while screwing it in. The red PEX line then met the PVC before it goes out the wall. I haven't actually run water through this yet, but one of the great things about the Sharkbites is they spin on the PEX, so if the joint needs tightening, you can crank away without worrying about the other end of the pipe (not) spinning.

Meanwhile, Melissa is working on how she wants to lay the tile in the bathroom. We have a bunch of nice tile (from our friend Karl) but not quite enough to tile the whole thing in one way.

This river rock stuff is cool though.

Plumbing Fail

well, all things considered, it hasn't been that bad. Turns out where my cold in PVC meets the shower mixer, there's a leak.

and, since the PVC is all glued in, I'll have to cut it out and replace the whole cold side. Of course, due to the fact that I couldn't check for a leak until it was all together, this was the only way to find out. and, it's not too bad a leak, but anything is unacceptable.

hardware store run tomorrow.

First Run at Shelf

The bookshelf over the windows got formed up today. The brackets were hard to put in, but they're solid now. Now I'm going to create covers for the horizontal bracket parts, and a fence to hold the books in.. and then fasten everything together... and then add lighting!

More Plaster, fixes, finishes

Getting to the end of the plastering, I did above the front door, so as to have a tighter seal between wall and door:

Re-did the re-do job on the middle step. This time I added a huge amount... perhaps it won't flake off and will take the abuse of the step flexing:

and the toilet bench got sealed in as well:

Manifold Central

Well, all the water lines are in, and the drain lines are ready to be hooked up (but I want to wait, as they will run through the west patio, where I do a lot of work) and I need to figure out how I'm going to cover this up and protect it. Here you can see the white cold water line, the gray and green and yellow gas line(s) and the black and red hot water lines.

The tool box is holding down a PEX line that wants to bend up, and is in there for scale. It's also sitting about where I want to have the clothes washing machine when all this is done (thus the water riser there with the shut off). Now, one issue is how to deal with the slope from the wall to the 2x4 on the ground. Remember also that the patio (to the right in the above photo) will probably come up 8" to 10" with flagstones, etc. I should probably build a deck that will allow access to those pipes on the ground...

Maybe a railroad tie along the front that the deck can sit on and the flagstones can come up against.

Sunshine

As it warms up around here, the grasses are getting longer and the field mice are out in force. Jack thinks he can get them if he sits still and watches:

and the sun is starting to come in nice and bright on the limewashed areas. This is the high spots of the bathroom wall, which still needs another coat or two:

Substructure of Counter

Here's a bit of the work done to support the granite piece at the end of the counter: Next to the plywood box that will hold a drawer, I've put in a batch of 1.5" redwood pieces as supports. Here's the west one being screwed on (I thought it was such a nice carpentry moment, I took a picture)

and here, with the cross pieces notched in, is the whole thing that will then get a layer of plywood, and then the granite:

Tiles and More

Melissa's work is coming together

The shower with the start of the fixtures going in, and the floor tiles getting laid out:

The French doors area gets grout:

The liquor cabinet tiles get grout and cleaned up:

and look good all together, huh?

Things are growing

We've got tall grasses and budding flowers all over the place. This is me checking out our artichoke plant, with one real artichoke on it!

and the irises that were given to us a couple years ago are really coming on this year.