digging in the dirt.

It was sunny today. And kind of warm. So after a long winter that was not really much at all winter except for maybe a week and a half of clear cold days I finally got to dig in the dirt a little. And mow the lawn. It was quite wonderful.

oh yeah ... happy halloween!

This, umm, took a little bit of magic to create but it was all in good fun (carved while watching Charlie Brown's Great Pumpkin on Hulu).

I quite like it.

uhh, side stairs [finally] finished.

Hmm, let's see ... I started a post back in (hold on I have to check) July about the stairs. So back then, before I tore them out but after I built the sidewalk they looked like this -

Yep.

So then I painted the house. Installed new lattice. Got a new porch light. And finished building the stairs ...

Nothing radically different, but I opted for two 2x6s per tread instead of what the other folks had used (a single 1x12 which bowed cos it got wet over the years) - spaced them out 1/8" so there is room for the water to drain in between them. Hopefully they don't bow. Added roofing felt to the bottoms of the stringers where they rest on the concrete footings I built. And at least now this set of stairs is up to code what with having railings and all. And much more solid than the previous ones, which pretty much moved when you looked at them. Oh, and they're level now, too.

Now this weekend I get to finally finish the front stairs after, uhh, a few months of not having any stairs. Yea!

(Although that means the solicitors may be back - having no stairs and a three or four foot high front porch sort of kept them at bay)

stairs and front porch stuff ... continued.

So 4th of July weekend - three-day weekend so had to keep plugging away on the front porch stairs. Like everything, a job that goes from a spark of an idea of 'hey I can build new stair railings!' to completely redoing the stairs. And maybe all of the porch railings. Hmm, what about the porch floor ... ? No no no - must stay on track to set aside the month of August to, well, paint the whole bloody house.

So stairs ...

Step 1: inspect what the previous owners had done and cringe/laugh/wonder what they were smoking when they did whatever it was they did. Case in point - as a footing for the stairs they apparently figured tossing an ol' garden brick on the ground would suffice -

Awesome! Nah, that won't sink or become unlevel over time ...

Step 2: plan to do work that meets code/will stand the test of time/makes sense/the complete opposite of previous owners/etc. For this particular project, that meant building footings in which to pour, oh I don't know, that cement stuff. So to the garage I went to find scrap 2x4s and 1x4s and got to work -

I had to make five of them but it went pretty fast. I screwed together the 2x4s so I'd be able to easily unscrew them (as opposed to nailing) for taking them off once the concrete had set.

Then it was a matter of digging some holes and burying them in the dirt. The challenge of course (since I wasn't smoking crack or other miscellaneous drugs while doing this) was to make each one level and then across all of them level -

After some pounding here and there mission accomplished! The stringer will then sit on top of the concrete like this (well once there is concrete and the 2x4s are removed) -

And here is my work to the stringers that were just resting on those lowly bricks -

The main stairway had - wait for it ... - two bricks per stringer! Much much better. But still only two stringers, whereas I believe I read somewhere there should be at least one every 16 O.C. So I put in a footing for a third to keep the staircase from sagging in the middle. And then mixed up (I'm getting good at this) and poured the concrete -

Good times.

Of course I was now one stringer short so I had to build another one. Well, I initially made the mistake of copying what the past owners did (note to self: never ever ever do that again and question everything they have ever touched!) so I had gotten some 2x12s to make the stair treads (same as the stairs I was gutting). But then it hit me at some point that a) they will likely bow over time and b) then they will trap water. So I decided even though I had already plunked down the cash (oh, and primed and cut them to size) for the 2x12s to go back to the lumber yard and pick up enough 2x6s to get the job done right - two 2x6s per tread so a) they won't bow over time and b) rainwater will drain through the crack between the two.

Well all that to say that I had some 2x12s laying around which is what stringers are made from. So a couple bucks for some handy square guides to turn my ordinary square into a framing square and I went to work -

After drawing it up and sawing it with a circ saw and about thirty minutes later cos I'm slow and used the square as a guide for the saw since I don't trust my sawing ability in making straight cuts - wallah - a brand new stringer!

And that's as far as I got.

Next step - figure out how to actually bolt the stringers to the concrete footings after installing them and making sure they are level front to back and side to side ...

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Parting shot - awesome birthday present this year from my folks to keep me company in the garage as I work!

And ps - that NeoAir in the background that I just ordered from Therm-A-Rest ... ? Best. Sleeping. Pad. Ever.

front porch railings.

So this weekend it was back to trying to finish up the two pairs of railings for the front porch. I had everything primed so I just needed to cut and assemble each railing. So around noon or so on Sunday I headed out.

Step One - chamfer the edges of the 2x4s to match the original porch railing design (which involved plunking down flippin' $30 for a router bit although as I was routing them I thought to myself it could have also been done on a table saw rather easily ... ) -

Step Two - bring the chop saw somewhere convenient rather than way back in the garage -

Then start measuring. And cutting. And measuring some more. And doing some math to figure out what sort of spacing to leave on each end of the vertical 1x4 slats. Which involved breaking out a calculator. Then cutting some more. I just did one to test building it before committing to cutting everything down. Brilliant.

So Step Three then was pocket hole drilling. I figured since I dropped twenty bucks on that bad boy jig I'm going to get some mileage with it -

So I drilled each vertical slat. Twice. On top and bottom. Well, I tested to see if one pocket hole would hold and it was a little flimsy cos the slat could move around so quickly chose to take it up a notch. Then I drilled the underside of each of the ballisters -

That jig really is awesome and I am serious when I say that I'll get some mileage with it. Pocket holes rule (in this case, it meant no brackets necessary to attach the assembled railing to the posts as well as to attach the slats).

Then onto Step Four - start assembling -

So I clamped a 1x4 to the 2x4, pre-drilled then screwed in some 2" screws. Then another 1x4 on top of that to make what resembled an I-beam. Then drilled in all the pocket hole screws to attach the slats to that -

Then Julian wandered out and grabbed the camera to take some shots of me working (apparently - I found these on my camera). Good times -

I was told to keep this pic for when I am old to look back on. Uhh, so I will.

Then the fun part ... seeing if all my measuring worked out by trying to fit the assembled railing in between the existing porch post and the one I buried in concrete two weeks ago. For this first one it was close - I had to cut some thin wedges for the bottom ballister to make it tight up against the original post but after it's all painted it won't be noticeable.

And then you have a railing on your stairs -

It's so much nicer I realized doing this kind of construction instead of furniture cos you can get away with hacks like that to make up for things not working perfectly. And using crappy, cheap lumber cos it's just painted and, well, outside. I have to lop off the top of the post at the exact height I determine and then install a cap that I have to build out of a 1x4, 1x5 and 2x6 (all cut into squares) that will match the caps on the original posts. And then do the other three. Well, I finished installing the other one on the left side of this and built the other two, but held off installing them on the smaller stairs cos I am also replacing all of the stair treads and kicks cos they look like total crap next to brand new railings and they'd be in the way on that set of stairs if I installed them. That and it was 8:00 and it was time to relax, pop in Avatar and eat some pizza.

A good day though. And my neighbor jokingly told me this was something that improved the value of both of our houses. Well, maybe not but it sort of helps the look of my pretty-crappy-at-the-moment-house.

changing gears ... again.

So my laundry room still sits half-mudded. My bedroom still missing walls. But I built a bed for J and one morning sitting on my front porch with coffee it struck me whoa, I could build porch stair railings! Uhh, not really helping those other projects but I got excited about the idea of building and doing more woodworking. Much more fun than mudding drywall.

So I plunked down eighty bucks on lumber a couple of weeks ago and had Julian prime them for me. Finally, last Saturday evening on a more-like-normal-but-this-year-abnormal-almost-summer-like day of sun and slightly warmish out I decided it was time to install the posts. I needed them in place before I could measure and cut the 2x4s and other lumber to make the railings.

I had borrowed Trevor's post hole digger to dig the holes - worked great. So step one then was to roughly cut the 4x4 fir posts to the height they would be when buried 18" in the ground so I'd be able to hack them off to the precise height with my circ saw once I got to that point. Then, mix concrete - yea!

It's a lot like making brownies. Really heavy brownies. In a wheelbarrow. With a shovel. OK, OK but the consistency I was after was about like brownie mix. So there. I poured some dry mix into each hole, plopped the posts in and poured in some concrete. No sweat. It was kind of fun and now I can add concrete work to my resumé of remodeling chores.

I used some scrap 1x4 trim from the stuff I tore out of the laundry room to hold them level after making sure they were with my trusty 4' level. Easy peasy. Then did the same things for the front staircase -

And wallah - posts for new railings -

The design will match the existing porch railings which are built out of 2x4s and 1x4s (it was the realization of how simple the design was that prompted me to say I can build that!) and the only conundrum is the fact I do not want to paint the new railings the ugly tan/brown combo so I'm not sure how to deal with that. I'll have to revisit this photo and see what color scheme to use - likely the vertical 1x4s will be a contrasting color and everything else will be painted white. So it won't match - for now. Oh well.

Anyways - it will be fun to build the railings.