Blinding Light

Well over the wekend I decided to silver coat the roof. That is a crazy job. Someone told me a professional charges approximately $3 / square foot including materials, prep work, and labor. I bought 15 gallons of the elastomeric coating for about $190. The roller and extension rod put the price around $220 with tax. That compared to 1200sf x $3 = $3600!

In hindsight it would have been better to start the job in the early morning hours but either way its a hot and dirty job. It took me about 5 hours to finish and despite trying to be as clean as a surgeon while working I found this task to be nearly impossible.

I went up the next day around noon and took the picture above. All I can say is 87% of the sun reflected (according to product description) is incredibly bright! I couldnt see at all up there. I snapped a couple of pictures and quickly got off the roof.

I can say the temperature upstairs is easily 10 degrees F cooler with no doubt in my mind. Since we do not have central air, the difference is really noticable.

New Built-In Closet

Well the weekend was nothing but rain so I was not able to get outside and finish the pond or sealcoat the roof, so Saturday afternoon I decided to build one of those closet kits from ClosetMaid for the first floor bedroom closet.

The original closet has never been touched in the four years I have lived here and so it seemed like an easy weekend project to tackle. The picture to the left shows what the closet originally looked like.

First thing was to pull down all the existing wire mesh shelves which doubled as a clothes hanger bar as well. There were lots of giant holes in the plaster once everything was down so I thought I would try and do a quick plaster job to clean up the walls. This took a couple of hours to set and in the mean time I decided to add a wall safe. I had bought one about 8 months ago and it had been sitting in the garage for an opportunity just like this one. So alas, the wall safe was probably the easiest thing to install, all that was required was cutting out a 14" x 14" hole between studs and mounting the safe with the lag bolts that screwed into the studs. Once I have acquired mounds of cash and do not know what to do with it (assuming this house is actually fixed), I will be able to store it in the safe... but I digress.

After the safe was put in, it was pretty late so I decided to call it a night. The next morning I got up, and painted the walls a light olive green color and the trim a sharp white. The walls were all plaster and had never been painted before! Of course I really hadnt noticed until I started painting. So it was a two coat paint job, the first to seal the wall and the second to make eggshell finish look like eggshell finish and not a flat finish! By late afternoon on Sunday, I started assembling the shelves. I bought a kit from ClosetMaid and everything went together really easily and quite quickly too. The hardest part was cutting the steel shelves (which I did with a metal blade in a jig-saw) and anchoring the shelving supports to the plaster walls (a hack job with toggle bolts and 3" wood screws).

To finish off, I installed a new light fixture as the previous one was just an exposed light bulb. The closet is done but all of the clothes and items that need to be stored are still being sorted through and of course there must be 10 loads of laundry to tackle.

New clothes rack under the staircase niche

New dresser and shelving

New light fixture

Cool James Bond safe

Hard Work Time-Out

A weekend of hard work is over, but the fire is still burning!

Pond Makeover - Part I

The pond project is on. Yes, I had a pond before, but it was very small and the fish died over the winter, so I decided to give the pond a makeover.

Step 1. -- Dug a really BIG hole.


Just as it says, I dug a big hole... It took me about 5 hours to dig the hole in the picture below. If you have ever read any articles on making a pond, most will suggest you layout the shape of the pond in advance, but I think this is a bad idea. The reason is you dont really know what lies in the groung below and it is difficult to visualize the shape of the pond in 3-D so as soon as you start digging your plan will change and it should change because the unexpected is what makes nature so delightful, not just a big amorphic blob.

Step 2. -- Cut and Lay Bitumen Roof liner

This can be tedious, depending on the shape of the pond you dig. I used a propane torch to seal the overlaping edges as shown here.

I then cut 2" wide strips of liner and melted those over the seams. The strips seem to give a little bit nicer finish and hopefully prevent any leaks.

As I worked from seam to seam, there was a real need to use weights to keep the liner in a certain shape and prevent slipping when melting the pieces together. Fortunately I had some stones and bricks in the yard I could use to help keep the shape together.




There is still about 1/3 of the pond to cover with roof liner and now that the weekend is over, I will have to work on in the evenings after work. Hopefully I can have the rest of the liner in place by Wednesday night.

Yard Work Marathon Continues

Today I waterproofed the cedar fence in the backyard I built 2 years ago. Although the fence had grayed signifigantly, the finish had a dye in it that gave the fence a nice warm walnut color. I had to put 2 coats of finish on and it was really hot outside, so next time I will be sure to work in the early morning hours.

I also added my blog to HouseBlogs.net. This is a really cool site that lets you find other DIY'ers with your same interests.

I'm going to bed. Tomorrow is a big day, I'm going to increase the size of the backyard pond... lots of digging to do

:(

Saved From Work By The Rain

No work today. Yeah! Lots of storms here. Glenn didnt make it to work on the house today. Hopefully he will get started tomorrow. He fit us in between projects so I'm anxious to see how the entry way will turn out. The only thing that will be left in there after that is to re-grout the marble tile in there.

Busy Evening

Snuck out of work early today and caught the early train. Came home, took a short nap, and got to work on the yard again. Sprayed the front yard for bugs and the gang way. Cleaned up the staircase around the basement and threw away a lot of trash that had collected under the back stairwell.

I'm beat. Tomorrow Glenn is coming over to install a new stair hand rail and wall paper the entry way with a natural grass fiber wallpaper we picked out at Thybony's. I hope to post some pics real soon, but it is late and I'm tired.