Tag: Nesting

Kitchen Cabinet Build and Remodel

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When looking at the house that we now live in the one room that had us on the fence was the kitchen.  it had original cabinets, but it was dark, dated, there were no outlets, and one wall was just a hodge-podge of appliances.  I have spent the better part of my very limited free time trying to fix those issues.  I have added a dishwasher, a knife rack, lots of paint, cranberry glass handles/pulls, outlets, pullouts, switches, a microwave, under cabinet lighting, build drawer organizers and am in the process of finishing hand made, period and house perfect cabinets for what was the ugly wall.  It has been a very long and laborious process.  I would never be this detailed in a house I was building for someone else – I would lose money.

Below is a gallery of the progress up until this point:










Lawn Furniture done!

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As I mentioned in a previous post, there had been parts for Adirondack lawn chairs all over the house and shop for 9+ months waiting on me to gather the will to glue them up and drive some weatherproof screws home.  The Ruminator and I put together when he was here this summer – he supervised while waxing poetic about dressing up like a viking – and I spent a combined 12 hours priming and painting them candy apple red.

Since I don’t want to repaint them every spring I used an oil-based exterior paint.   Holy crap, it was hard to find!   It seems that everyone has switched to latex based paint for homeowner use (ease of use, easy cleanup, better for the environment, etc…) and I had to resort to having gloss deck and concrete paint custom mixed.  It went on like glass though and should be impervious to our rainy long winter weather for three or four years.  My sweet wife super loves them and could barely wait until they were dry before giving them a proper, reading a book in the sun, test.

Below is a gallery of the whole build process:



Our yard is in bloom – Spring 2012

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Magical Spring has finally come to Le Maison du Talley. Our rhododendrons are back and in full pooping bloom after they were hacked back last year. The tulips, daffodils, and poppies have all decided to bloom at the same time. The Spanash, English and Provence lavender has taken root and flourished along the front fence. After a two year struggle with blossom-rot, the two cherries up front are full of flowers and green cherries. We have Mandarin orange blossoms, apple blossoms, apricots, figs, raspberry buds, a fence line of blooming roses, and 3 Meyer’s lemons on the dwarf tree in our backyard mini-orchard.

Stamps-with-Foot and I planted garlic and onions in the fall that are close to being pulled and we spent an afternoon planting tomatoes, squash, corn, and zucchini in two of our raised beds. After in initial problem with early blight last year, our two full beds of tomatoes went NUTS! and we had more that we could use or give away. We were more selective this year and planted just a couple varieties and only 7 plants. I hot-housed a bed of spinach, Swiss Chard, and beats all winter that is now in full production mode.

I plan to be home more this summer and really spend some time tending and harvesting, although one wouldn’t know it from all the traveling so far. I can’t wait until mid-August when I can sit in my cotton hammock, gently swinging over my Ireland-green grass, drinking a Dunkel Weissbeir, snuggling my wife, and patting our puppy while gazing out onto our yard and garden.

Ignoring the yard and building stuff

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Horror of horrors, I did not touch my yard this weekend. My lush, Ireland-green grass (I am a wee bit narcissistic about my grass) was left to grow and stretch toward the sky in the weekend sunshine. I spent all available daylight hours outside and didn’t even attempt to take the mower out, turn the compost, or battle with my creeping nemesis – the dandelions. Stamps-With-Foot did a little weeding on Saturday, but the bulk of our weekend was committed to getting the kitchen cabinets done enough so that we could do a test fit and install.

Success! My wife was a priming and painting machine: taking care of the microwave cabinet, the lowers, and the drawers. The lower cabinets were positioned into place and their rock-maple tops fitted (waiting on the drawer fronts and pulls to be finished). I cut all the frames for the doors, assembled the fridge cabinet, installed it with my wife holding the thing up in the air (hehehe), tacked together the trash/recycling slider, and cut the shelves for the microwave cabinet. When completely done, our cabinet space will increase by more than a third, will include al the latest and coolest amenities (slides, organizers, spice racks, pullouts, etc…), and the new cabinets completely match the original 1928 built-ins, both in construction and style.

I need to finish the fridge top cabinet, install the drawers, add a corner cookbook shelf, tack up cove-crown around all, and one final coat of paint. SOMEDAY, this will all be finished and we will have the most awesomest kitchen a tiny, period appropriate, craftsman house can have!

I added a pic of Brodie lounging in the sunshine, just because.

Spring Cleaning and Garden Prep -2012

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The sun is out and it looks like spring has finally come to Seattle. I had a full weekend off and was in the country for a change, so it was time to get busy waking the garden and yard up, prepping for planting, take care of some spring cleaning and enjoy a sunny warm day outside. Below is how this past Sunday went for me:

Up and out of the shower by 10:00am
Wife made yummy breakfast with Trader Joe’s Croissants
Coffee made me human
Put on my overalls
Removed extension cords that powered Christmas lights
Started taking down Christmas lights – 2.5 months late
Realized when on top of ladder that I needed long reach tool I made last year
Spent 30 minutes searching…
Remembered that I turned old tool into something else
Muttered dirty words
Spent 10 minutes making new long reach Christmas light removal tool
While on top of ladder, cleaned gutters – 5th time in 12 months…. Stupid Pine tree…
Turned compost
Cleaned and swept shop a little
Took apart one of our winter hot houses.
Planted forgotten bag of tulip/Camila bulbs found in hot house
Shook head and hoped that they will come up
Mulched roses
Feed roses some of the pink Miracle Grow good stuff
Treated roses for Black Spot as preventative measure
Killed some evil dandelions
Laughed manically while committing the deed
Reconnected the garden irrigation system
Wife brought me coffee and a kiss
Mulched the apple and cherry trees
Ran out of mulch
Started to Home Depot and somehow drove past and all the way to Second Use
Found $220+ of oak flooring for $25
Bought oak flooring…
Picked up more mulch at Home Depot and replacement drill for one that was stolen
Unloaded truck
Wife didn’t raise eyebrow at truck full of wood
Got away with unplanned purchase this time…
Trimmed dead shoots from lavender
Mulched around all the lavender
Sweet wife made me lunch
Moved new cabinet from shop into basement
Started to move charcoal grill
Found football sized mass of blue and black mold inside grill
How in the hell does that happen??!?!?!
Gagged more than a little
Muttered more dirty words
Cleaned out mold, scrubbed every surface with bleach solution and wire brush
There were some additional words spoken that start with F
Made HUGE hot fire with oak shop scrap to kill EVERYTHING in grill
Grill now ready for spring
Laid out spot on outside garage wall for new garden tool shed.
Cut stakes for raspberries
Dark outside so went into basement
Sanded kitchen cabinet shelves that are under construction
Put a coat of primer on them
Installed in some drawer slides in what will be new 15″ cabinets beside the stove
Fv#%ing drill battery ran out of juice
My lovely bride made a yummy dinner
Can’t find new charger for new drill
Wrapped last of wife’s birthday gifts
Put finishing coat of clear-coat on Persian table base that I have been redoing
Somehow got finish in my mouth
Spat and tried repeatedly to scrap the turpentine taste off my tongue
Failed
Gave up
Went to bed
Opened book
Not a single word read before I passed completely out.

What I Want Thursday – 3/15/12

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Time again to reflect on some crap that I have been obsessing over for the last couple of weeks:

1.  To be in Hawaii on vacation with my wife and OUT of cell phone range
2.  To organize and back up all my computer files and pictures from the mess of harddrives and CDs/DVDs
3.  For my shop to be back up to 100% after the break in
4.  A fantastic sport coat
5.  For it to be sunny and 70 degrees outside my house
6.  A Midi-Lathe to complete some house and garden turning projects
7.  A sliding tool box for my truck
8.  A set of 2010 leather-bound Encyclopedia Britannica
9.  To get a real, hand written, paper letter from my son and daughter
10.  To never  worry about the IRS or April 15th EVER again.
11.  I want to ride my bike like I did when I was 12:  aimlessly and all day!!
12.  More time…

Hot tub installation and emergency preparedness

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I bought my sweet wife a hot tub for our wedding anniversary. We had been looking for a while for just the right used tub, but most that were out there on Craigslist and the Inter-Webs were utter crap or cost almost as much as a new one. We found a machinist who wanted to sell his immaculately maintained soaker so he could put in a lux outdoor kitchen. It is an older tub, but he had all the maintenance records on it, the interior looked brand new, it worked great, and we paid about what it would have taken for him to have it hauled to the dump. I hired three giant Pacific islanders to deliver it – money well spent – then dug the trench for the electric and ran the wiring almost right away. I then made five trips to Home Depot and bought 2,450 pounds of gravel and sand to make a base – my back ached for a week from carring and packing it all into a solid foundation.  The the hot-tub movers were absent on installation day, so I used my big monkey-brain and with the help of my nephew, I moved the tub into place with rollers, planks, a lever, and wedges.   It is within 1/2 inch of where I planned it on paper and is almost dead level – 1/8″ up on the west side.

Due to my homeowner’s insurance restrictions, I was not allowed to wire into my main panel – it voids my fire coverage (yours probably says the same thing…), so I hired three successive electricians to tie it all in (one showed up high, the second was a complete no show, the third finally doing the needed work). While the third and final electrician was there and since I was paying for his time, I had him install a generator transfer switch, an exterior generator plug and a grounded exterior outlet.   I reasoned that when the power goes out, I can crank the generator and we will still have the fridge, lights, TV/DVD, and heat as long as we have gas.

Stamps-With-Foot LOVES the tub. Given to her own devices, she will sit in it all day like a Japanese snow monkey. It was great when the snow storm hit us this year in January.   We sat in the tub with snow piled all around, reflecting the city lights off its white surface.   I will build a deck over our existing concrete pad, from the house to the tub this spring, which will make her doubly happy.

November 2013 Update:

The tub ran like the German rail system for over 2.75 years. The water was always perfect, the heater and pump worked just like they were supposed to. I had a plastic fitting crack while switching filters that cost me $250 to have replaced, but that was it for maintenance. We ran the tub year around, turning the heat off in the summer for a nice cool soak on hot nights/afternoons. In the preparation for the move to France, I winterized it by shocking the water with chemical treatment, then I drained it completely. I vacuumed out all the lines as best I could – any water left should grow mold due to the shock treatment. I built a 2X4 platform and put the cover on it so that any accumulated snow or rain wouldn’t cause a cave in, before shrink-wrapping and tarping the whole thing to keep out any and all errant moisture. The cover has had it, and we will get a new one when we return to Seattle in a couple of years. My hope is that the tub springs back to working order and we have more trouble-free years together.

A fruitful season

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I am sitting in our breakfast nook, drinking coffee and getting mentally prepped for my J-O-B. As I sip my needed and delicious cup o’ joe, I can see the winter sunrise reflecting off the tips of the frost covered grass in the front yard. It has me ruminating on the intensity, goals, minor failures, and harvest from this years garden and yard work.

I spent our very cold spring getting our raised boxes ready for a bumper crop: perfect soil mix, irrigation lines, compost, etc… The tomatoes were planted a little early and they got an early blight that stunted them for a time, but they came back in force and we had more tomatoes than we new what to do with this year. I didn’t get the onions in the ground soon enough or plant garlic at all, so e ultimately gathered 2 medium white onions and I left the rest of the shoots in the ground this fall, planted winter garlic and covered them with straw so the we will have a summer crop next year.

We feel our biggest success was with our greens. Planted spinach, butter lettuce, and chard that fed us all summer. There was an unfortunate incident with the broccoli (bugs, microwave, crunchy dinner…), but on the whole our bed of greens was were most of the bang for our buck came from.

Fall hurt a little. I was away a good bit traveling for work and the garden was neglected. My very first apple was stolen by a squirrel, the slugs went NUTS on the last of the tomato crop. Fvcking slugs… There will be a battle next year and I am planning on a plan of full slug eradication. There was some definite success though: we gathered almost 2 gallons of raspberries, made mint mojitos and mint juleps from the 6 types of mint I have growing in containers. There were probably 3 bushels of tomatoes that came out of one 3×7 raised bed – really. We had our first lemon, first fig, cherries, huckleberries, strawberries (also hurt by the squirrels though), a full cup of blue berries, beets, greens, and lot of knowledge gained through screwing up.

Thoughts for this winter and next year:

Death to all slugs!!
Need more bees early in the season for fruit trees – hang some mason bees in a warm area.
Grow starts in basement and do not plant too early.
Mulch raspberries and roses.
Cut all blackberries out.
Need more drip irrigation hose.
Raise kitchen herb planters up another foot off the ground.
Raise strawberry pots up as well.
Prune tomato flowers so that crop is smaller and fruit larger.
Use apple bags to keep apple pests at bay.
Spray fruit trees early!
Spray roses with anti-rust/fungal early and monthly.
Spend more time in garden.

MIA – last seen with paint on new pants and sawdust in eye

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I realized yesterday that haven’t posted anything for almost a month: no astute observations, not one pointed remark, no weird OCD-driven lists, no pictures of adventures at home and afield…. Nothing. Hmmmm.  I have just been REALLY busy!! It started with painting the living room, the kitched paint was next, we expanded into wiring a hot tub, I decided to finish up a furniture project, the breakfast table “needed” to be cut down, fancied up, and refinished.  I am heavy into finishing my incredibly overbuilt and way too complicated kitchen cabinets, Halloween came, there was Thanksgiving prep, I had to put the garden to sleep for the winter, blow all the water out of the yard irrigation system, clean the gutters (4th time this year – grumble, grumble… hate neighbor’s tree… grumble, grumble…). On top of it all, my J-O-B was INSANE: lots of late nights, weekends, travel, OT, pressure, stress, etc…

There is some proof of all the work that we have been doing – I have semi-updated the pictures on my project page, but remember that most were shot with an iPhone in crap conditions.  None of this pics are going to get me into National Geographic!

It hasn’t been all work though:  I have been able to go to the range with my cuddly .45s and punch holes in some zombies a good bit – fine, fine stress relief.  I mentioned Halloween – Stamps-With-Foot and I outdid ourselves again this year at our local Halloween party. We went as Wednesday and Pugsly Adams – a big hit at the festivities.   I went as a pimp to work – think Will Ferrel in The Other Guys movie: grill, blond ‘fro, leopard coat/fedora, purple faux croc high-heeled side-zippered boots, a pimp cane, crunk cup, loads of bling, coke nails – I had it down. A my fellow engi-nerds let me down though… Not one other costume in my group – not even a funny t-shirt!!  Sales had some good ones this year, HR was all in, the fiber optics group brought game, but Engineering sucked it! How is it all those people with big brains, imagination, and vast amounts of reasoning ability could not come up with something?! There are WOW players, Trekkies, SGA initiates, one D&D uber-geek, and every single one of them (including the female members of our team) have slave-girl Leia dreams…. They let me down, but I soldiered on and even gave a new-hire tour and orientation in my pimp-o-rific attire. I will not forget or forgive their breach of the nerd code! Philistines.

Speaking of my J-O-B, the long hours, travel, all the late meals out, and my general lack of physical motivation has gifted me with 20 extra pounds of fat compared to this time last year.  In essence, it is my own fault – my bikes are all sitting there waiting on me to love them, I have a sweet pair of new running kicks, A gym membership that we pay for every month, and a dusty yoga mat.  I HAVE to dig deep, put away work and get my butt moving or I will be the size of Jabba the Hutt in no time and the Wife is not into Slave Girl Leia…

I think that brings it all up to date for the most part. I will try to be more diligent about keeping up when life starts swirling around me.

Big Game huntin’ in the back yard

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I can say with certainty that there are some unique benefits when you are my child:  They are allowed to watch cartoons at any point during the day, expletives are allowed as long as they are in another language (points given for Chinese curse words), cookies (in moderation) and cold milk are a food group of their own, no brussels sprouts will EVER appear on their plate, I have the tools and childlike imagination to build most anything that can be dreamt up, big game and zombie hunting are allowed in the back yard, sword fights with foam batons are good clean fun, mohawks and blue hair are just fine, and I will trick out a BMX bike like a hustler will pimp out a Caddy.  Apparently, I am an overgrown man-child with credit…  I am constantly amazed that my sweet wife both puts up with my antics and is contemplating procreating with me .

My son knows all the benefits of “Dad’s house” and this summer we worked on a wooden boomerang, build stuff in the shop, and sniped at dinosaurs with a pellet rifle perched atop his Wimbledon Cup-worthy bench rest that I built for him last year.  He is a dino-slaying machine!

Desk Fetish

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As previously noted, I have a certain almost unnatural attraction to desks.  While in Dubai a few weeks ago, I happened into a swanky furniture store.  It is the type of store that rich folk with vast oil deposits peruse. I walked in and marveled at the pieces and the prices for about 30 seconds, when a sales person was ON me.  She was nice and said I could stay, but followed me around the store for ten minutes.  She was fine with me taking pictures, I just wasn’t allowed to touch any of the gorgeous desks or sit in any chairs.  Fair enough…

There was no particle wood to be found.  all solid wood with a smattering of exotic veneers.  The jewel in their crown of desks was a huge cabinet desk that had a price tag of 71477.000 Dirham – that would equal $19455.13!  I was astounded, but I will admit that my heart was full of lust for that finely crafted writing destination.

A bowl and a mallet

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I few weekends ago I spent some hours hunched infront of the lathe just playing with shapes and chisels.  I came away with a much needed maple carving mallet and a large elm bowl for Stamps-With-Foot.  She was all smiles when I presented it to her and turned it in every direction to see all the detail.  There was some kissing.  The mallet is now in my shop and I have used it for some clean-up chiseling on some trim and the bowl is sitting on our kitchen table filled with fruit and the first roses clipped from our bushes this year.

I find that if I spend a whole day in my shop and come out out with a little something that either makes the wife’s day easier or something that she has requested fixed I can get away with walking into the house covered in wood chips and sawdust.  A hour or so of labor is a fine trade for 8+ hours of shop-time were I am not penilized for not mopping the kitchen floor, washing dishes, or cleaning the toliet.

The most awesomest desk ever!!!!!!!

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The wife and I have desk issues:  Not problems with sharing, it that we own too damn many.  I have a 1950s copy of a 1790s Federal secretary, we use an Art Nouveau drop front secretary as a liquor cabinet, her sewing desk is a ’80’s maple laminate, there is an 7X3′ drafting desk in the basement, I am currently refinishing a solid oak university desk for her office and we pay the bills on a Duncan Phyfe drop-leaf.  We need another desk in the house like John Hinkley, Jr. needs an assault rifle…

For Stamps-With-Foot’s birthday, we went and perused jewelry stores, had lunch and coffee down town, window shopped for a new Persian carpet, and eventually wandering into our favorite antique market…  Damn!  I bought another desk.  In my defense though, this is the most awsomest desk ever!!  No, really.  It is a solid wood 1960 build of a Norwegian/English/Swedish cabinet desk – a modern interpretation of a Moore or Wooten folding wing desk.  It unfolds and slides like a fvcking Optimus Prime Transformer!  The minute I saw it, I felt all funny in my lower abdominal region…

Now, to get my little bride to agree to this purchase, I had to promis to sell the Federalist secretary and a 5-drawer quarter-sawn oak dresser, but it was SOOO worth it.  Additionally when I went back a couple of days later to pick up the desk, I also brought home an additional 2’ section of library card catalog.  The wife was not as pleased with that surprise…

Sorry, the pictures were snapped with my cell at the shop and do not do this beauty any justice at all.

Fresh cut grass makes me tingle in the lower abdominal region…

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After 100+ days of rain, spring is finally here.  I only really know that because my lapin cherry tree and the ornamentals on the block are in full blossom.  Hopefully, all the hard work done in the rain and mud till now is about to start paying off.

Prep has been the theme for the past few months.  I spent some quality time killing yard moss, reseeding in the front and back yards, adding weed and feed, conducting property-wide dandelion genocide, planting 70+ bulbs, and getting the soil in the garden bed ready for the tomatoes, carrots, onions and garlic.  In addition to finishing the raised beds and converting the cat litter-filled pond into a flower planter for my wife, I have cut all the trash trees, vines, and blackberries from my south fence.  My neighbor on that side keeps his home and yard in the Miss Havisham fashion.  I have taken three loads of branches/leaves/vines to the dump and I can now see from one end of our property to the other.  So far this year his pine tree has delivered three 5-gallon buckets worth of pinecones in my front yard and I have had to clean my gutters three times.  I have a sneaking suspicion that the particular pine tree in question is not long for this world…  There is a holly tree of some relation that is not looking all that well either...

I finally got a great espalier apple tree in the ground, two columnar apples to flank it, and an additional cherry (a glacier) up front.  There is now a fig for Laurel, a dwarf Helena apricot from Dave&Sarah, a Satsuma, and an Improved Meyer lemon – all in containers so we can hot-house them this winter.  For the side yard, there are two huckleberries in bloom – ready to plant.  The last rose bush (a J&P Radiant Perfume) has been planted on the back fence and irrigation lines have been run to the roses, garden boxes, raspberries, and fruit trees.

The Apricot and citrus trees will stay in containers so that I can

move them into a hot-house when the temperature drop in the fall.

The multiple weird cold snaps this year have been decidedly unhealthy for my strawberry pots, but the kitchen herbs planted last spring are doing well.  The orange-mint has taken over a rectangular container and the rosemary is starting to bloom tiny baby-blue flowers.  The two sunshine blueberries in pots are covered in small white blossoms and the grass in front and back is thick, healthy, and Ireland green – I can’t wait to string up the hammock and snooze gently swinging above my lawn.  Although I still have dandelion farms on either side there have been very few that have dared to peak up in the grand lawn of Le Maison Du Talley this year.  Their appearance has been followed with swift and forceful retribution.  Speaking of the weed farms adjacent to me: It seems that someone sprayed them in the middle of the night with Scott’s liquid death.  Now all the yellow-orange flowers that they were cultivating seem to be shriveling up. I think it was the gnomes. -I have a couple of English garden gnomes that are leftist lawn militants.  The local dogs give our place a wide berth – narry a singe poop on the parking strip this year and there is a racoon living over at Miss Havisham’s and they are preparing to hunt safari-style…

The second of three loads of branches taken to the dump in the last month.  My neighbor loves me so much that he shares his trees and yard waste with me…

I am slowly being replaced.

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I have mentioned previously that my relationship with my wife is a Polaroid of happy modern love, with a side order of belligerent puppy.  Her dog REALLY wants to be alpha-male in our house !  He wants prime the snuggling position when TV watching.  If I get up off the couch or chair, he is immediately in my spot.  Brodie tries his dead-level best to sleep between the wife and me – sneaking into the blocking position in the middle of the night.  I ofter wake up to jowles and puppy breath sharing the pillow with me.  If we have to leave him in the car for a minute while we run in somewhere, he waits for us in the driver’s seat.  My bathrobe is now his bathrobe, etc…

So night before last, I got up to pee and got caught up for like 30 minutes writing a work e-mail on my iPhone.  I came back to bed and I found that not only does Brodie share a love for firm pillows, my side of the bed, high thread-count cotton sheets, and cute girls, he apparently also has a deep affection for presidential biographies…

That dog has some sort of diabolical plan formulating between those big ears…  I feel that he is trying to slowly replace me – you know, like some morning he will dig a deep hole out back, help me into it, and trot back into the house to have his morning coffee, read the news, and get ready for a hard days work, all  without Stamps-With-Foot ever knowing the difference…

Trying to make my neighborhood a better place.

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I live a street over from an arterial road that is renowned for both it speeders and the accidents that they cause.  There have been individual demands and requests for YEARS to have the city do something about the collisions and deaths along “I-35.”  As this is my neighborhood, I need to be involved if I expect things to get better.  I recently sent different versians of the letter below to my city council and our mayor:

Councilman _______________;

As this May is bike to work month, I would like to invite you to either join me for my daily commute along 35th Ave SW in West Seattle or for a stroll and discussion along that same stretch of road.

There have been repeated community pleas asking city officials to do something the speed of the traffic on that road for years (see links below), there are multiple speed-related accidents a week, and at least one  pedestrian or cyclist death a year since 2006.  According to SDOT’s own findings six of the top 15 most frequent accident prone intersections for the past five years are along 35th (at Morgan, #4; at Webster, #7; at Barton, #8; at Juneau, #12; at Thistle, #15).

I would like for you to join me for both a first-hand look at the issue and a discussion of possible rational solutions.

Thank you and regards,

Hiram Crookshank

Links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, & 8


No reply yet, but I will wait a week or so and see.  If I don’t hear anything, then I am going to turn it up a notch – the squeaky wheel gets the oil and all.

Library book sale time again

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It could be worse; I could have addiction issues with heroin or gambling.  Instead I am afflicted with a cookie habit and Biblophilia.  I have reduced the cookie bingeing to reasonable levels – I was at Santa-level consumption during the holidays – and I have been using the library more instead of haunting bookshops and trolling Amazon.  That said, the Seattle Public library bi-annual book sale always does me in.  Last year, I bought a full set of 1911 Encyclopedia Britannicas and missed a complete set of Harvard Classics by 20 minutes.  This year I went to buy 4 novels and see what their mountaineering/sailing lit selection was like…

Crap.  I left the sale with 3 boxes and a grocery sack of books and Stamps-With-Foot left with a bag full as well.  I got some GREAT stuff:  a first edition (signed) of Red Sky in Mourning, a KILLER 2 volume micro print edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, the Ed Veisturs’ K2 book with a spotless dust jacket, some fiction I HAD to have, and a cloth bound complete Britannica Great Books set.  We are now full to the brim and if one more book comes in, I will have to build some new shelves.  We are planning on a large book case/Murphy-bed combo for the office, but that is years away and at this rate it will be full on the first day it goes up.

Biological Clocks and Mad Travel

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In the last nine days, I have been in three States, have held three new babies, and have watched my wife’s baby-clock go from tick…tick….tick… to BOOM!BOOM!BOOM!  There were three pregnant bridesmaids at our wedding and one of the groomsmen had a very pregnant wife.  In Portland, we met Trystan: A handsome 3-week old little man that is the spitting image of his father.  In Orange County, CA I met Valiant:  a 5-week old heart breaker that looks like his Mommy.  In San Francisco I met Valentina for the first time – Stamps-With-Foot was there for the birth.  Valentina is 6 weeks old and also looks like her daddy.

All these little ones have, seemingly overnight, turned my sweet little “puppies-are-better-than-babies” wife into one of those crazy ladies who talks of nothing but nurseries, baby clothes, water births, talcum powder smells, and the merits of cloth vs. disposal…  All the diaper talk mania is taking its toll on me:  I had a dream a couple nights ago in which Stamp-With-Foot locked me in a room and made me perform till there were babies.  By the time I woke up (I should saw was jolted awake, sweating), there were like 20 of them at all different ages and sizes as well as 4 rabbits.  Some jars of my grandmother Talley’s plum jelly also made an appearance (WTF?!)…

The dishwasher that ate my March

/ Matt Talley / 1 Comment

Stamps-With-Foot hates doing the dishes.  She has about as much appreciation for dirty plates as the Dali Llama does for Chairman Mao…  Since moving into our 1928 wonder, we (mostly she) has been hand washing the pots, pans, silverware and plates and letting them dry on our limited counter-top space.  When discussing kitchen options a dishwasher was her number one priority.  There was some huffing and foot tapping…   I did as commanded and cut out a cabinet beside the sink (GOD! It hurt to alter the original cabinetry!), planned for plumbing and wiring, worked out the floor build up, cut access holes, made trim pieces, marked off measurements, etc…

For insurance reasons, I brought in an electrician to run the new power line back to the panel and while he was there, I had him install three outlets above the counter (there were none), move the stove power line and add a receptacle for our future over the stove microwave.  That sounds fairly simple, but there was some drywall to remove, some 420 time, weird access issues, and a stove cord he drilled through…  It took him two visits over a three week period to complete the needed work.  The plumber (I don’t plumb, I suck at it and old galvanized pipes scare me!) was easier to get a hold of, a nice guy, knew his stuff, and completed his part – two valves and line installation – in just a single morning.  I do recommend the later type of contractor instead of the former!

So, after maybe 6 hours of my labor and $1200 (washer price + craftsmen), my wife now has a dishwasher and lots of outlets to plug crap into.  Now, I can get on with the rest of the kitchen remodel – 9 feet of new cabinet build and installation.  I won’t need any additional professional assistance, so hopefully the rest goes smoothly and quickly.

Matt and Laurel’s AWESOME Holiday Newsletter 2010

/ Matt Talley / 3 Comments

We sent this note out with our Christmas cards this year:

Hello Friends and Family!!

It has been quite a year for us and as neither of us have the necessary literary skill or dextérité to write a full clear, concise, and truthful tale, we have decided to send out the truncated version in list form.  Those of you who received a very thorough list earlier this year detailing Matt’s adventures with building some garden boxes may recognize this style.

Happenings for 2010…

  • Matt has shoulder surgery and spends New Years Day hopped up on pain medication
  • Donald and Matt find venue for Matt & Laurel’s 2nd wedding
  • Large cedar tree is removed and we complete a back yard makeover
  • Matt catches world record Great White shark using a cane pole and stink bait
  • Fly to San Francisco for Emmy and Nick’s gorgeous January wedding
  • Brodie dominates a 100 lb. bulldog in playground skirmish.  DOMINATES
  • Our own wedding planning stress begins…
  • Try to adopt 2nd puppy – ends badly when she and Brodie do not become friends
  • Laurel and Matt plant their first garden together
  • Laurel becomes a salaried employee
  • Matt travels to Tobi and Brian’s wedding in Orange County, California – Laurel had to work (joys of becoming salaried employee…)
  • Laurel makes cousin Rosie Brezynski a dress for her 8th grade graduation dance
  • Unfortunately miss Matt and Lola’s wedding in Sedona, AZ on a lovely Monday
  • Drive to California for Grover and Stacy’s beautiful Mt. Shasta June wedding
  • Carlton comes to Seattle for his first visit
  • David and Maria show up for our 1st summer BBQ
  • Matt, Carlton, Donald Burton and David Brezynski cycle from Vancouver, BC back to Seattle
  • Carlton rides 154 miles in three days at nine-years old, even peddling backward up a few hills…
  • Matt real tired
  • Spend fourth of July on a houseboat at Bainbridge island, watching fireworks from the deck
  • Madison comes to Seattle for the second time – spends two weeks text messaging and facebooking
  • More wedding planning – original budget shot
  • Wedding stress almost makes Matt cry
  • Sarah and Laurel remake Laurel’s fairy princess wedding dress
  • Matt and Laurel miss Henrik and Britta’s wedding in Hamburg three weeks before our own, but get to be the first stop on their three week honeymoon in the US
  • Brodie sires 19 litters of puppies – he feels being “fixed” is just a state of mind
  • Matt’s mother Nelda flies to the West Coast for the first time
  • 93.743% of the people we love in this world fly in for our wedding
  • Matt loses shooting bet with Ross – the SHAME!!
  • Matt and Laurel have 2nd wedding – Laurel looks stunning in her dress and makes Matt cry
  • Nelda, Henrik, Britta, Herbert, Mark, Matthew, and Lola all share our one bathroom for the days leading up to and after the wedding
  • Brodie is the most photographed wedding participant
  • Matt Builds most over-complicated garden boxes in Seattle
  • Laurel gets promotion at work and Matt becomes a stay at home video game tester
  • Laurel helps costumer friend Sarah with a production of Alice in Wonderland: A Rock Musical
  • Try to adopt another puppy (same one as before) – Still hates Brodie and incredibly gassy
  • Travel to Eugene, OR for Thanksgiving weekend
  • Matt completes his circumnavigation of the earth on his 1895 Penny Farthing
  • Matt takes 10 months to complete a hutch refinish project in the living room
  • Matt goes to Paris and Hamburg in December for work – Laurel tries to stowaway in his luggage
  • Christmas Eve 2nd Annual Zombie Shooting Fest planned.
  • Christmas at home with Laurel’s mom Beckie
  • Laurel and Matt plan to climb Olympus Mons to greet the New Year for its caldera rim.

We look forward to another year of working on our home, welcoming guests from near and far, having the kids out to visit, puppy snuggling, garden planting and other adventures not yet known.  We love you very much and are blessed to have you as part of our lives.  All our love, Matt and Laurel

…A number of people didn’t get the jokes above and seemingly didn’t notice how the word “truthful” was in bold/italics in the header of the letter.  My mom told everyone about our New Years mountaineering trip and my fishing skills.  A friend asked if we were keeping any of Brodie’s puppies.  I had cousins who voiced their concern about fireworks so near a volcano…  A distant (and very old) relative of my wife’s actually asked if we were polygamists due to the second wedding…   He really and truly asked it in writing, in the Christmas card he sent us in reply!  Man, I can’t wait till I am old so I can have no filter and get away with it!!

I have a warped sense of humor and anything in the above list written in italics should be seen as a humorous untruth. For the record: we are not polygamists, we will not be traveling to Mars for New Years to visit Olympus Mons, Brodie fathered no puppies after the snip-snip, I do not test video games as a profession, the furtherest I have ever ridden the Penny Farthing is 15 miles, and the world record Great White was caught by Alfredo Cutajar off the coast of Malta on April 16, 1987. 🙂


Unduly expensive and complicated raised garden boxes

/ Matt Talley / 2 Comments

I have spent something like 40 total hours of labor over the entire summer and spent ~$250 to build the most over complicated raised garden bed boxes within a four mile radius.  I have obsessed over the design & materials, changed the layout and location no more than 4 times and used child labor (my 9-year old son) during construction.  We now have Garden Boxes that can support the weight of our entire house and my wife mentioned that I might need an intervention.

It all started when we decided to grow some veggies and I didn’t want to use treated lumber from Home Depot.  I considered landscape bricks, but the total project cost would be over $700 for three 8X3X2’ beds.  I wanted to use 3-inch thick cypress beams, as that particular wood is rot proof for 50+ years, but that type of wood is outrageously expensive here in the Pacific Northwest ~$1000 for the needed lengths.   I considered redwood, but it was also too pricy to be left out in the yard, half covered with dirt.  The predicament was solved for me when I happened upon a bunch of 4”X10”X8’ fir beams that were end cuts from a beam roof construction project in the neighborhood.  As they were “scrap” I picked them up for a song.

In addition to the boxes, there will be an espalier apple tree and two columnar apples on that side of the yard.  I wanted the garden boxes to mesh with that plan and still be functional, pretty, and to fit in with the style of our house & yard. To help with that goal, I decided to lap joint the corners of the boxes and use hardwood dowels to both keep the joints together and as homage to the period craftsmanship of our home.  I know I have OCD.  Since I was already using dowels, I wanted to marry the planks together (see drawing) so that the whole structure would be stronger and resist and bowing in the middle as the dirt pressed on the sides of the beds.  I felt it might also be nice to add replaceable cedar top rails to shed water and to take the brunt of any abuse.  I may have over-thought the concept and might have been better off just using concrete cinder blocks…

The finished product with espalier apple trees cartooned in.


Here are the exact steps to take in building raised garden boxes just like ours:
Plan obsessively
Re-design twice
Buy lumber – get great deal
Bring home and cover with tarp
Let sit for a month
Measure and layout each joint with son’s help
Let son drop board on your shin
Try REALLY hard not to say curse words
By son ice cream.
Limp for a couple of days
Carefully cut all end notches with son
Tell him no when he wants to run the circle saw
Tel him no when he asks again every 10 minutes
Lit it all sit for 2 more weeks
Find really expensive combination square your son left in the grass
Smile because you love him anyway
Drill all dowel holes in the middle of the individual sections with spade bit
Let sit for a week in rain because you forgot to tarp it
Assembly all sections dry for 1st box
Realize that the pieces are now warped and twisted more than a bit
Say a LOT of curse words
Hand-fit each joint with a mallet and chisel
Cuss some more
Purchase ¾” X 2’ auger bit
Assemble 1st box with glue and dowels
Get HUGE splinter in palm
Say hurtful, mean things to the lumber & loudly question the legitimacy of its parentage
Cry a little while digging the jagged hunk of wood out with utility knife
Use Super Glue creatively as first aid supply
Spend a full hour getting 1st box square using one hand
Call it a night
Make sure the thing didn’t move while you were sleeping
Drill corners for dowels
Almost burn up drill
Look at sky and count to ten
Run out of waterproof wood glue
Say dirty words all the way to Home Depot
Buy bigger drill, glue, and more dowels
Apply glue and hammer in dowels with wooden mallet
Look over to see puppy chewing on your hat
Say the F-word
Retrieve soggy hat
Clamp box up with 8 huge pipe clamps
Let joints dry/sit for a week
Construct next two boxes with minimal dirty words
Let sit a further week
Ask 15 year old daughter if she wants to help
She will look at you like you are insane for the mere suggestion
Try not to break her phone when she returns to texting
Look up and count to twenty – repeat
Spread out boxes in yard and turn over
Apply two coats of white primer to bottoms of boxes
Get paint on favorite pair of shorts
Let wife help paint over primer with green outdoor paint
Look up and notice that wife has painted halfway down the box…
Take paint brush from wife
Say sweet things to her and laugh about the extra paint coverage
Let boxes sit for two days
Finish painting bottoms green (keep ground moisture out and blends with grass)
Let sit a week
Position in yard where they should finally go
Ask visiting friend for his opinion
Take his advice (as it is better than your plan) and reposition
Let wife see
Move 3 more times to make wife happy
Move back to position friend suggested
Let sit for a week
Get married to wife a second time and almost loose mind to stress
Have house full of guests for a week
Try not to kill Ross when he makes fun of your yard
Drink lots of beer
Buy gravel and hardware cloth for box foundation
Cut sod from under box locations and move to bare patch in front yard
Wife will work hard in front planting lavender and arranging sod
Lay hardware cloth and pour gravel footings
Spend Saturday with wife finally placing boxes
Drink beer and wine until you hurt the next day in celebration of your hard work
Let sit another week
Cut top rail on table saw
Decide to really complicate things by adding hardwood splines to top rail joint
Devise special spline jig for table saw
Cut last rail too short
DO NOT throw anything, close eyes and count to ten
Revert to cussing
Trip to Home Depot for extra cedar
Re-rip and re-miter last rail
Glue joints of rail and try not to glue rail to box
Wait 3 days and cut away spline waste
Find “cute” little ceramic tiles from the 1920’s that wife will love for boxes
Spend 2 nights in shop making custom cedar frames for the tiles
Add corner splines to match boxes just because
Measure twice to find box center
Attach tiles to front of the boxes with proper outdoor screws
Coat top rails with food-safe clear coat
Wait 2 days
Apply another coat and repeat
Show wife your handy-work and wait for her to swoon
Point out the joint details and all the thought that went into the build
Wait for batting of eyelashes and the swoon…
Mention the period tiles and their perfect symmetry
Keep waiting…
Waiting……………

A drawing of the project shoeing some of the detail

Image 1 of 23

BOOK SALE P0RN

/ Matt Talley / 3 Comments

Some people collect books out of compulsion: odds and ends, with no order to their accumulation.  We have our issues, but to call it a compulsion is a stretch.  Unlike many of our bibliophilic brethren, we can actually sell a book from time to time and are somewhat choosy where and on what we spend our money on.  I think that our current library sits at about 1,200 volumes, equally split between history and fiction.  With the purchase of our home and my subsequent attempt to return all the period architectural details and furnish the living room as the original owners might have done, I have started to gather a few editions that could have been found in our home that first Fall.  I have 1928 editions of:

Edgar Rice Burroughs – Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle,
Hermann Hesse – Steppenwolf  (German edition)
Erich Maria Remarque – All Quiet on the Western Front (1929)
Virginia Woolf – Orlando: A Biography
Margaret Mead – Coming of Age in Samoa
Agatha Christie – The Mystery of the Blue Train
The Common Book of Prayer
Felix Salten – Bambi: a Life in the Woods (Bambi. Eine Lebensgeschichte aus dem Walde)
Herbert Asbury  – The Gangs of New York: An Informal History of the Underworld
André Maurois  – Disraeli
T. E. Lawrence  – Revolt in the Desert

To add weight to the our pre-stock market crash collection, I been on the search for a complete set of 1909 Harvard Classics, the 1917 Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction, and a set of the 1910 11th edition set of the Encyclopedia Britannica, as this is THE edition to have (for the Über-booky folk).  All taken together, this will give our parlor a true sense of period nerdiness.  None of the above volumes are particularly pricey ~ $6 each in decent condition and ALL of them are available for download since enough time has passed that the works are in the public domain.  The wealth of information contained in them isn’t the sole point for wanting them; it is also their tangible quality – the faded bindings, the smell of their paper, the care taken with the block-printed illustrations…  These are all books that have witnessed the same history as our little home and deserve a safe and revered place there.

This past weekend we attended the bi-annual Friends of the Seattle Public Sale, where we usually pick up some Travel Lit, a few mountain climbing related tomes and the odd cookbook.  Well, on this trip I hit the motherload!  I found 14 mountaineering books that are on my “List” and in the Sets and Rare Book Room I happened upon a complete set of 1910 of the EB.  I may have swooned.  I snapped up those bad-boys faster than a lawyer cashes a check.  The set is of Ex-library stock and there is some serious shelf wear on a couple pieces, but nothing that would keep them from being used for another 80 years.  For a grand total of $33, I walked out a very happy little hobbit.  I will work on the rest of the list as further opportunity presents and as time and money are available.

A few notable biblio-quotes:

“Anyone who has got a book collection and a garden wants for nothing.” & “A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
-Marcus Tullius Cicero

“The book can produce an addiction as fierce as heroin or nicotine, forcing us to spend much of our lives, like junkies, in book shops and libraries, those literary counterparts to the opium den”
-Phillip Adams

“I cannot live without books.”
– Thomas Jefferson (in a letter to John Adams in 1815)

“With thought, patience, and discrimination, book passion becomes the signature of a person’s character. “
— Nicholas A. Basbanes

Our Second Wedding

/ Matt Talley / 1 Comment

The ladies

Image 1 of 55

While most people wait until their 20th anniversary to marry their spouse again, we decided to move the time-line up a bit and do it on our 3.75 year anniversary. We is just sort of roll like that… No really, we eloped those long many years ago in Southern California just before our move to Germany. We had planned to have a get-together for family and friends the next summer, but life got in the way. Life kept getting in the way. There has been some increasing pressure from a couple of friends and my mother-in-law to get it done already.

During a visit at Christmas last year (I was still heavily medicated from the latest shoulder surgery so I was in an agreeable mood…) my father-in-law and I went running at Camp Long and happened into the lodge, a WPA built stone and timber craftsman beauty. Donald and I talked about it being a perfect place for a wedding reception and then enrolled Laurel in the idea of having our “DO” close to home (the park is 1.5 blocks from La Maison du Talley) this would simplify planning and logistics and with the rental of all ten cabins on the site, there would a place for everyone to sleep off what promised to be a beverage filled evening. Simple was the plan… Stress was the eventuality, but to see Laurel dressed in radiant white, surrounded by our family and friends was worth every hypertensive moment.

With the amazing help of those gathered, the day of our ceremony went off without a hitch. Our caterer was GREAT, the beer was cold, wine flowed, Donald made killer appetizers, Herbert was on flower and wine delivery duty, Matthew delivered the Nana and was a terrific MC, Henrik was took more pictures than Matthew Brady and Annie Leibovitz combined. Michael delivered the beer, Dani played the violin as if she were truly an angel, Beckie made the cakes beautiful, Gin read the poetry with great flair, Emmy arranged the flowers was Laurel’s rock, Sarah remade the dress, Miguel added the sweetness, the Aunts decorated the hall, Jan was maestro of our crazy little orchestra, Bob the photographer was on time and worked it, Leif was the official dog walker extraordinaire, Brodie was an awesome ring bearer, Nick steamed dresses, Nana folded programs into the wee hours, and the entire Brezynski family was the oil that made it all run smoothly.

The ceremony was held outside in the large meadow and an old Burton family friend was the officiant. I saw my beautiful bride being walked by her father and I cried like a little girl who had her Princess Pony taken away. She looked amazing and graceful and so happy. We said our vows, everyone cheered and at some point I stopped crying. Pictures were taken and we all retired to the lodge for drinking, eating, speeches, dancing, and laughter. As the evening closed, I gave my bride her wedding present. A gift that will always remind her of me and will speak to our journey through life together: a restored 1967 red Schwinn Twin tandem bike. She wanted to ride it in her wedding dress – one of the 10,000 reasons I love her.

schwinn-twinn1-1966

Minimalist self-rightousness

/ Matt Talley / 4 Comments

With a transcontinental move a few years ago and two international relocations in the last four years my lovely bride and I have done a fair job at parring down our worldly goods and keeping our propensity to collect superfluous crap in check.   Tyler Durden from Fight Club was 100% correct when he stated “the things you own end up owning you.”  When you have mountains of crap you have to first pay for them, then maintain and replace them when they break, and you must immediately run right out and buy the latest and greatest version.

This group realization for the need downsize is now in full swing (could it be… the economy??)  and you see more and more minimalism in both furniture design, production staging, fashion, bicycles, computers, etc…  I see the occasional article like the one recently about a guy who has whittled down his life to 57 things and he is super-smug about it – 57 things?  Really‽  I NEED a lot more shit than 57 things.  Go through my SSS kit, thrown in a spork, bowl, pocket knife, thumb drive, soap, shampoo, camera, a few cables, watch, wedding ring, glasses, computer, notebook and a couple of pens and I am standing there naked with over 60 things.

I can identify with his hypothesis that “we’ve been duped into buying things by an advertisement-dominated society for the last 50 years.” However, I need some of that stuff that I was brainwashed by the media to run out and purchase: iPhone, eReader, Global kitchen knives, my bikes, the super-cool Freitag messenger bag sitting next to me right now, etc…  One has to weigh true need, want, and desire for themselves to determine how much is too much and how much is enough.  I feel that the wife (Stamps With Foot) and I are doing fairly well, but we could still stand to par down some, (do we really need 4 computers, boxes of long-canceled checks, and my 4th grade notebook rantings?)

For years American suburban life has been all about keeping up with the Joneses: Big house, fast car, big truck, boat, HUGE TV, toys, toys, toys… The glut of articles and blogs and books about moving to a more minimalist life style is a sure sign that the Joneses may not be as important as they once were.  However, moderation in any movement is the key.  If I lump all the stuff I have read about making life simpler lately, it feels as if there is a thread of one-upmanship that pervades: “I can live with less shit than you…”  Some of the authors are crazy-smug (like the 57-things guy) about living on friend’s couches and having all their world possession in a backpack  (padding their $3000 laptop…)  Instead of the Joneses, there is now the Schwartzes: a section of our proletariat, riding fixed geared bikes, sporting skinny jeans, typing away on their MacBooks, drinking expensive coffee, texting away on $500 smart phones, getting ironic tattoos and swapping stories about how little they can subsist on

To my mind minimalism today is less about freeing yourself of all your crap and more about your attitude towards the stuff you have.   Do you NEED that new Blu-Ray player or do you WANT it?  Are you buying that to last forever or just until…?  Does it have a life-time warranty?  Are you actually going to use or wear it enough to justify a high initial price (price per wear principle). Can you rent it, borrow it (books), or do without it?

Now, before buying something new, I try to have the need vs. want conversation and while mildly successful, there are still some things that I just have because the are cool toys and I like to either play with them or look at them.  Would my life be simpler without ALL the bikes, 4 snowboards, a book press, 2 TVs, and a competition pellet gun??  Yes, it would, but that life wouldn’t be half the fun.  For me and for us, I think the trick to not falling into the pit of conspicuous ownership is to be careful with what we spend our money on, and whether it is a need or a toy we should buy the best quality available so that we get years of use and enjoyment out of whatever it may be that our hard earned greenbacks are being traded for.

Being Good and Bad in the Garden

/ Matt Talley / 6 Comments

Our yard (front and back) is in bloom and we have all sorts of flowers, herbs, and veggies coming up.  The grass is thick and green and the couple of bare spots where the overgrown bushes used to be have now been reseeded and they are now sprouting tiny green slivers of Kelly green cover.  The vine maple is in full leaf and is a pleasure to both look at and to lay under in an afternoon hammock snooze

I woke up early Saturday morning and took some pictures of the rhododendrons in the front and various sprouty things in the back just to document the current state of affairs for some friends and family who have been asking.  Progress in the yard redo is slower than we had wanted – mostly due to us being overly ambitious for the first year in the new house, my own inaction, a screwed up shoulder, and our convoluted schedule.  We had planned to have the garden boxes in, but it doesn’t look like they are going to make it this season as I am just running out of time and more projects inside the house have appeared.  For now we are growing our kitchen herbs, garlic, and tomatoes in planters/containers and will expand that little by little for the next month to include peppers, three additional tomatoes, two more blueberries, and some yellow squash.  I had hoped to have the apple, lemon, and cherry trees taken care of, but as yet the Lapin cherry is the only thing that is growing roots.  The raspberries and thorn-less-blackberries are chugging along and I have started tying the canes to galvanized wire on the fence.  Someone is going to have cool fresh raspberries in his cereal come June J

The plan for our front yard is currently going through a bit of a shift, mostly because of the neighbors to the north of us:  It is a rent house with two 20-something guys (referred to by some of the other neighbors as Bevis and Butthead) who are in a metal band,  work(-ish) in construction, and are living what could be called an extended adolescence.  Loud band practice at 1:30 AM, wafting pot smoke, firecrackers in the middle of the night, beer bottles on the sidewalk, grass two feet high, trash all over the front stoop, trucks occasionally parked in the yard, etc…  They are nice enough guys to talk to, but we don’t want to look at that every day.   So, we have left the two 10’ tall rhodies on the north fence until either they move or accidentally burn their house down in the middle of the night while lighting the bong.  The Belgium fence of heirloom apples and roses is on hold until then.  Additionally, I had wanted to rip out the two rhododendron bushes in the front and replace them with red and white azaleas – Laurel made me wait until they bloomed and she was right, they are beautiful and they get to stay.  We are going to thin them some after they are finished blooming and will plant just two white azaleas on each front corner of the house.

I have been watering and potting and weeding in the back a little when I get home in the afternoons and this is exactly the bliss that I had imagined and wanted when we put the offer in on Casa d’ Talley in June of last year.  Gathering sticks and string for our nest…

The Magic Book Press

/ Matt Talley / 3 Comments

As a constant list maker and recorder I go through Moleskine’s like a fat kid tears into Halloween candy.  It gets pricy at $15 each and I had long thought about just making my own notebooks, but book binding/making is not a skill found on every corner.  A few years ago, while on a train through the Czech countryside a dear friend and book nerd started my binding education with a list of materials needed (I had just picked up a bone folder at an estate sale and it started the book making itch anew…) for my first notebook and a few sketches to get me started.  She stayed with us some weeks later and by the time she left for the airport I was the proud maker/owner of a monastery-bound 6” plain cotton paper notebook.  I had to improvise a bit during the construction because I lacked the one serious tool required to make books – a book press.  I used a combination of cement blocks and carpenters clamps to get the job done, but it wasn’t pretty or particularly easy.  I have been on the hunt for a simple iron press since then and while I have found a few online or in antique stores, they have been REAL pricey or in terrible shape.

I stopped by one of my favorite recycled building material places the other day and as I walked in the door, this sleek and sexy press appeared in my line of vision.  I was drawn to it and I got all fuzzy inside.  It was amazing!  Steel & brass, in perfect shape, not a spec of rust, it had not been refurbished, was the right size, and instead of the ubiquitous gear wheel on the top it had thick bar ended with globes of steel so that one might be able to exert serous pressure.   Laurel couldn’t look at it.  She felt that if she acknowledged its beauty that I would plop down the credit card right then and there.  She knew that I wanted it, that I NEEDED it.  I placed a hold on the magic press until I could find out a little of the piece’s history and negotiate the price the next Monday.

The press was built in the 1920s, imported from London, and used by a lady that had a part-time bindery in her home here in Seattle.  I bargained lightly (I didn’t want to lose the item) and got them to come off the asking price by 15% – it was worth every penny.  The final price included some serious bargaining with my better-half and I had to finally agree to give up my part of discretionary funds from our household budget until September: no eating out for lunch, no book buying at B&N, no new tools from Woodcraft, or Starbucks Coffee at break-time…  It’s going to hurt some…

book press

Progress in the back yard

/ Matt Talley

We spent some serious time in the yard this past weekend. I was “asked” by my lovely wife to move the compost bins for the third time… Then, I spent an hour with a chainsaw cutting stumps off below ground level in the spot where we plan to install our raised beds.  The last stump gave the saw fits and I ended up having to attack it with a double bit axe, splitting maul, and pry bar.  Holy crap! – it was work. It has been a long time since I swung an axe at something other than ice and snow.  Following the defeat of the stumps, I mowed, raked moss from the grass, cut vines from the back fence, planted some shade-loving grass in a bare spot, removed three ferns, sweep the garage roof (don’t ask), watered the kitchen herbs and took care of the normal weeding/edging/mowing in the front.

My better half, helped me clean up the mess from the stumps, level the ground were they were removed from, move some of the cedar rounds left from cutting a tree, water the herbs, and she planted some begonias in a stone planter near the one fern that gets to keep living.

After all that, I took a nap in the hammock under our vine maple and had a dream about garden gnomes while laurel cranked up the grill.  We had a pic-i-nic on the grass just before dark.  As a note: I slept like a stone that night and woke up feeling 114 years old.

Laurel in Garden

the smell of fresh cut grass

/ Matt Talley

The smell of fresh clipped grass is one of those scents that transports you back in time to a summer making extra coin cutting the neighbors lawn or slaving away on your dad’s golf course green of a yard.  It can either bring a smile to one’s face or twist the mouth into an outward sign for an inner loathing.  I have a touch of the OCD when it comes to lawn care and have left every yard in every rental house I have ever lived in exponentially better shape than when I moved in.  Today, I got to cut the grass for the very first time in my very own new home.  It was magical for so many reasons:  My house, my yard, my grass – not a rental and not my parents.  The yard has so much potential to become a small, well-kept carpet of medium length green, shaded by a fruit tree, edged with flowers and lavender, and fenced with wrought-iron.  Edging and mowing our own little patch of Heaven made my dark little soul happy, well that and I got to spend some time murdering dandelions.  That weed has no place in my universe.  They are a hateful green grass-cancer that has to be pulled up by the root.  I even have an assortment of special tools that make their demise faster, easier, and thorough.

Along with the house came an electric lawn mower and I have been itching to give it a try all winter.  As I lived most of my lawn cutting years in the heat of the South where the grass is thick and the yards can be expansive, I am most familiar with 2 or 4-stroke, blue smoke belching push mowers.  They all seem to conch out either just as you start when you have a tiny patch left in the very middle.  Our yard now is small and the electric is the way to go!  It was quiet, light, height adjustment was a cinch, and I didn’t have to suck in exhaust fumes for an hour.  I also have an electric edger that I paid $5 for at a garage sale.  I used it once at our rental place and now here, so I think that it has now paid for its self.  I figure that every time I use it from this point on is just gravy.  I have a heavy-duty weed eater/trimmer that I picked up cheap and it ran for almost all of last summer, but it has a carburetor issue.  After experiencing the sweetness of electric yard maintenance, I will put $10 bucks into the gas unit and sell it, applying the funds to an electric model.

Nesting with power tools

/ Matt Talley

I have found that my nomad life over the last 6 years has recently left me with a need to nest and for a man that means I need to build stuff. I need more tools, some projects, and a shop! Right after we moved into our place I started laying out a garage shop plan that would allow me to take care of some home projects, refinish and build some furniture, do some bike building/repair, a little painting, and do some welding. I need a place to store wood, hang bikes, work on projects, and park the car. It has to be modular as we are only leasing and I want to take it all with me when we buy a place later this year. The design is done and so far it is about ¼ of the plan is in place. I am doing it little by little as I have time and funds. So far though I have rebuilt a 1949 table saw/joiner, a 1932 lathe, built a bike work stand, a squirrel feeder for Laurel, assorted shop jigs, and a nice semi-built-in book shelf on our stairway. I currently have a refinishing project going, a bike rebuild (the Penny Farthing), and a rock maple/purple heart topped kitchen-island for Laurel.

Next, I want to build a jig for wooden bike fenders, a honey oak art-deco hall tree, a couple of matching picture frames for some oils we own, customize my table saw further, and build a miter saw cabinet.