Well, I’ve put up a trial version of my fake transom windows over the new bathroom door. I used matching garage-sale picture frames with “stained glass” cling film on their glass. Currently they’re simply sitting on nails half-driven into the wall. Not permanently installed. Proof of concept and all. But so far, so good. They let a pleasant, muted light pass between the bathroom and the rest of the house and vice versa. But they have this vibe of “broke bohemian college student ca. 1965” about them. Long before cling film existed, college bohos managed to fake this same stained…
Category: Home improvement
This is going to sound very silly to some of you smart guys, but I’ve never been up in the attic crawl space of this house. Reasons are complicated and I’ll probably go into them in some future BHM article. I knew generally what was up there, but until today I’d never even climbed a ladder, stuck my head through the cobwebby little hatch, and flashlighted around. I didn’t go walkabout up there; just stayed on the ladder. But where I thought I’d find only unappealing but potentially useful storage space, I found this: That peak is about nine feet…
In the olden days, people around here built garages (or perhaps they were originally carriage houses) on steep, otherwise useless, hills. The front of the building faced the street while the rest of the structure stood on posts. These great old garages had magnificent 4 x 12 treated floors you could have parked a tank on. But the combo of wooden understructures and unstable soils of the hills doomed the buildings. Ninety or a hundred years later, most of them are gone and those that remain look like this: Until a couple weeks ago, this one was still completely shingled…
Various non-news, non-link musings follow
How other people see the ‘Net
So there I was last night, all set to prep a links post for today. And — boom! — down went Firefox, taking with it all my tabs.
Maybe the Intertubz is trying to tell me something, eh?
BHM has a buy-one-get-one-free offer on any Backwoods Home anthology. Offer is good through Sunday at midnight. NFI on my part, except the usual undying gratitude to the Duffys and the wonderful staff of BHM for keeping me writing and keeping the pups in kibble.
A bird in the brush
Yesterday was the first moment after … ohhhh, 40 days and 40 nights … that it wasn’t either raining or threatening to rain. Between that and the end of the year’s big hunting seasons, the dogs and I were finally able to return to long, leash-free walks in the woods instead of annoying, leashed walks around town (annoying because Ava likes to gallop and Robbie barely moseys these days; I end up walking sideways with my arms extended in two directions).
It was glorious. Chilly, but blue and still.
On our afternoon walk, though, we came across a lone crow feasting on an elk ribcage. Ava — she of the killer prey drive — alerted and paused. Figuring the crow would fly off, I gave her permission to run at it.
It didn’t fly off. It hobbled into the weeds, limping and vainly flapping its wings.
Saturday evening just as it was turning dark, a young man came to my gate. He was as clean cut as a Mormon missionary (about the only other people prone to show up hereabouts at such an hour) and traveling on foot as they do. But he was solo. I had the vague feeling I’d seen him somewhere before. “I was here with Mike the other day,” he said by way of introduction. He gave no name. Mike — meaning Handyman Mike — has gone through a steady stream of minions or minion wannabes, all pretty much interchangable to me.…
Cop shoots murder victim’s mother in the leg; misses dog. EU Parliament votes to protect Snowden against U.S. extradition. Reforming school policing. While The Atlantic fails to ask some basic questions, its heart is definitely in the right place. It’s all part of the school-to-prison pipeline. And good old “zero tolerance.” 🙂 Everything you need for household repairs. Cannabis fights liver cancer. I’m not sure why even some good, aware people continue to be surprised that there is no justice from the Department of Justice.
The most important item in the house is now installed and plumbed and has hot water to fill it. Yum! The wainscoting behind it is beadboard from the old ceiling of the enclosed porch. The doorway you see on the left will eventually become a wall and the wainscotting will continue around three sides of the tub. (That’s Bathroom: Phase Two after the finances have recovered.) Scrounging and garage saling worked for everything else in the room, but I was determined to have a fabulous faucet, complete with shower attachment. So I found what I wanted online then searched for…