Normally you would start by setting some concrete posts for the deck to rest on. Since there was already concrete underneath several of these posts, I skipped this step and went straight into building the frame. Make sure it's level and square. If your building in a predetermined space which happens to be off-square, then you'll have to deal with that as I did.

Next, use those deck brace things and attach the cross bars, which probably have a real name besides cross bars.

If your deck is awesome like mine and has to go in a space that is not square, you will have to cut at least one board at an angle. I decided to make it the next to the last one, both for aesthetics and to hopefully prevent the narrow end from splintering over time.

Now all that's left to do is screw in the planks across the top and trim them to length with the skill saw. Now the deck is done!

The last step (not pictured) is the call mom and ask her to power-wash the existing deck since it now looks worse than ever with a nice new deck connected to it.

The first, and also the most intimidating part of the project involves adding a breaker to an electric panel. Since my house is extra cool, it has no less than 5 electric panels, 2 of which are no longer functioning. I chose the one under the kitchen to connect to since it was the closest to where I wanted to put the outlets and it also had 3 open slots.

Once you’ve added a new circuit breaker and all the connections are made, run some wire from the panel along the ceiling towards the target location. If you need to get over some duct work, use a 10′ piece of conduit to pull it through. If you’re in a pinch and don’t have conduit handy, a broomstick, scrap piece of lumber, or in extreme cases, a broken tree branch might all get the job done. Just ask yourself, “how would a redneck do this?”.

Take the conduit you just used to fish the wire across the ducts and cut a short section to run up into the location of the outlet. Attach the outlet box to the wall and run the conduit through one of the pop-out openings on the box. I chose the bottom. If you do this step before fishing your wire across the duct work you’ll be out of luck so don’t get trigger happy and start skipping steps.

If you want extra outlets, you can make it easy on yourself and connect them all one after another. There weren’t any (functioning) outlets in the basement so I decided to add one here. The post I attached it to is pretty rough so the outlet looks stupid and not very straight, nonetheless, it has electric current so I’m happy. Once it’s firmly attached, spray paint a random yellow squiggle mark on the post so everyone knows how awesome you are.

Back in the stairway I have now installed the receptacles and used my cool electrical meter thing to test it. You could also use such things as a fan or radio to see if the outlet works, but if you want to feel like a real electrician I suggest using the meter thing. I got mine at wal-mart for $1.50. Also, putting the receptacles upside-down as required by many building codes eliminates the 1 in a billion chance you could somehow electrocute yourself by getting a flat piece of metal to connect the hot and neutral terminals while something is plugged in.

Done! Now you have one more location in your house that is capable of running up your electric bill.

Sometimes the process of painting isn’t very fun, but it is pretty cool being able to completely change the feel of a room in such a short period of time.

1. It looks and feels cool.
2. The seed is expensive, so doing the whole lawn will be a multi-phase project.
3. The grass germinates and grows slowly, so it has to be weeded regularly while it’s establishing.
4. Depending on how ‘manicured’ you want it, mowing is done anywhere from once a month to once a year.
5. Buffalo Grass likes full sun, so if your yard is full of shade, then it’s probably not the best option.
6. Once established it doesn’t need to be watered. I think watering lawns is a big waste of water anyways, but if I did water my lawn then I guess this would be another plus for me.

So, I am pretty excited about the buffalo grass and plan to pick a section of yard each year and convert it to buffalo grass until I have the entire yard done. Native plants are so killa!

I am not generally all that great and coming up with landscaping arrangements and ideas, so I will credit mom with telling me where I should put the plants. I basically just went to the store and picked out some things I liked and decided later where to put them. I tend to prefer plants that are green year round… which is why about 75% of the things I planted are dwarf conifers of various types.

The biggest dilemma was the lightning. I wanted to use solar, mainly because i like the idea of it… but I don’t really care for the blueish light that most solar fixtures give off. So I’m working on a way to power these normal low-voltage fixtures with solar and I don’t think it will be very hard… that will be a “how-to” project for another post!

The name Shortleaf comes from my obsession with conifers and Missouri’s native Shortleaf pine – one of my favorite trees. A guy in Maryland had already registered the domain, but he was kind enough to let me have it for my site! So a big thanks to him.

Also, I am not alone in my creative web ventures… Bridget is making neat earrings, Ian & Co. are doing a project with Adam’s grandpa’s treasure-trove of old slides, and Shelf-life is making some pretty cool “hang-downs”. So I must know a lot of creative people. I bet all of these project doers are left handed.

Anyways… this concludes the promotion of my new photo site for the time being!

My latest step in making the backyard functional was to install a sidewalk through an awkwardly large area that was probably supposed to be landscaped at one point. This sidewalk has three benefits:

• Makes use of the old bricks I found piled up in the front yard, therefore also de-cluttering the front yard.
• Provides a more natural and logical path to get from point A to B. The existing setup was kind of like going to Wichita by way of Kansas City and Salina – for those of you familiar with local geography.
• Divides the large awkward space into smaller, more manageable areas that I can more easily landscape.

I was very much intimidated by the idea of making a sidewalk but found it to be surprisingly easy. Sure, it’s not perfectly level, and the sides are a big jagged in spots, but overall I am extremely pleased with the results! In case you want to know how to make one of your own here is how it’s done:

The first step is to dig out a trench a few inches deep in the approximate shape of the sidewalk-to-be. Then line it with weed barrier. Use landscaping railing stuff (not sure what this product is actually called) to contain the sidewalk area. I used the recycled composite kind and found it extremely easy to work with, but you can also use plastic or metal.

Once all of the framework is in place, cover the area with a couple inches a sand and smooth it out.

Get some paving stones or bricks and arrange them however you want. Since this sidewalk was curved I had to use a chisel to break lots of bricks into odd shapes.

Once all of the pavers on in place, sprinkle the new sidewalk with sand and sweep it around to fill in all the gaps. This will help hold the pavers firmly into place.

Once the sidewalk is complete, begin using it by walking on it.

What’s interesting about this book case is not just that I made it, but what I made it out of. There was once a large black walnut tree growing into the side of the house. It was so close that a notch had to be cut in the guttering to make room for the trunk and about half of the branches hung directly over the roof and would keep me up all night long in the late summer because of the loud thuds of the walnuts dropping and rolling down the roof. So as much as it pained me to cut down such a magnificent tree, I felt the tree’s useful life as a feature in the lawn had run it’s course.

With the help of dad, the trunk was taken to a saw mill somewhere south of town and a few months later a bunch of walnut lumber came back and sat in my barn for about a year while I thought of good ways to use the cool wood. When I decided to make a bookcase I felt like it would be a good opportunity to get my feet wet with autocad. Plus, since this was by far the most complex thing i’ve ever built on my own, it would be good to have a nice set of technical drawings to make sure all the sizes work out correctly.

If you want to try to make the same cabinet, you can download my plans in a pdf format. I had no idea what I was doing so they probably suck as far as plans go, but it got the job done for me, with only a few fairly minor design flaws.

Here is the wood in it’s raw form after Jimmy helped me transport it from the barn to the shop. They were extremely rough as you can tell.

I used a planer to smooth the surface of the boards and get them to the correct thickness. Btw the planer is now one of my favorite machines in the shop, mainly because it shoots tons of sawdust everywhere and makes a huge mess. (note the snow shovel in the background)

Here I am using a simple radial arm saw to cut notches into the side pieces for the shelves to sit in.

Once all the pieces were cut, I assembled the body of the cabinet.

The doors and window panes were made out of a bunch of long skinny parts. I also put glass in the doors, but I had trouble with that part and was in a bad mood so I didn’t take any photos of that process.

Once it was all assembled it was ready to be transported home (again with the help of Jimmyjack) where I would put on the finishing touches!

I wanted the cabinet to match the existing woodwork of the staircase, which is also made from walnut. I figured since it’s 130 years old, the finish was likely an old-school type, called shellac, which also happens to be an organic substance. Shellac dries extremely fast and I had trouble deciding if that was a good thing or a bad thing. I found it difficult to keep the finish from looking splotchy in places but that’s probably because I had no idea what I was doing. The shellac did bring out some really sweet grain patterns in the wood though and it was almost a perfect match to the staircase.

Then I attached some magnetic door catches and some plain, but old looking knobs.

There was a lot more in between these steps obviously, but you get the idea. And now I have a pretty sweet book case made from scratch!

In October of 2006 with the help of Fatt Matt I started by tearing out the nasty sink, toilet, and medicine cabinet. I contemplated busting out the old tub, which was covered in decades of filth, but instead opted to have it refinished – which was a great decision.

I attempted to remove the existing light blue floor tile, but the tiles were about a 1/2″ thick and even using all kinds of tools and wreckless force, I couldn’t get them out. So I decided to tile over them. One of these days someone will decide my small white tiles are ugly as sin and tear them out to find the old, 1950s era tiles underneath and think they have struck gold.

I couldn’t find a medicine cabinet to fit the hole left by the old cabinet so I decided to build a new custom one myself out of scrap wood i found in the dumpster at work. I am probably more proud of the medicine cabinet than anything else in the bathroom!

And here we have the finished product!

Although this was the last major room remodel I had on my list of things to do… as with any home it will never be “done”.

Sometimes we build walls all around us for various reasons, and sometimes it makes sense at the time. Then when we decide we no longer need that wall, it feels really good to take it down and see the other side.

Before:

After: