The time capsule is now under reinforced concrete at the top of our new front steps. Embedded in the gravel fill, so as to not weaken the concrete, it is unlikely to be disturbed unless a 747 crashes directly on the house.
In the time capsule (stainless steel 3.5″x12″ cylender) we put pictures of ourselves, the house before and during the renovation, and also of us and my brother Greg sitting on motorcycles in front of the house. They might think us a little crazy given our pose, but what the hey, we’ll be long gone and difficult to embarrass anyway.
Also included are:
-a letter from us “hello from 2010″
-a spreadsheet of the renovation cost
-several of our new years letters from the past few years for historical context
-a silly gift coupon we did for my parents, again we’ll be dead anyway…
All of this we put in archival film covers, that I had anyway for another photo project. The pics I had done at a lab, so they’re probably good for 200 years or so. Particularly given that they’re in the dark with a dehumidifier packet and sealed with silicone and wax.
Things that didn’t make it in:
-Wire sculpture (couldn’t find my wire in time, since we moved to the cottage this has been a recurring theme)
-electronics of the 21st century (too likely to decompose in a nasty way)
-oxygen absorber(ordered it, didn’t show up, no time to get more, oh well)
-Jimmy Hoffa (redundant)
Having to run around and get things done for the time capsule. Have pictures printed, hope that they last the several centuries that we expect the capsule to be embedded in the stairs. The concrete pour is Friday, so we gotta get everything assembled and ready to go before then.
We’re putting in a letter, some pictures, and I’m trying to think of other cool non-perishable items to include as well. We’ll put in a newspaper section I suspect, if we can fit it in. The can isn’t that big, it’s stainless steel though, and is rated to last a really long time. I also got a dehumidifying packet and an oxygen absorber, so things should be in good shape for about 200 years at least.
I’m thinking I might put in a wire sculpture, that should last. Staples don’t apparently, nor rubberbands or such. So no plastic stuff either. I’m using archival film envelopes for the pictures and other documents, hopefully they will withstand the test of time, as severe as it may be.
Today we got the first of two concrete pours done, for the house foundation. The guys who have been working this job have been great, they really went to town on this job, getting it done faster than we thought possible.
Lois is baking them pies and brownies, which may have helped. It sure helps me.
I have video of the pour, but stupidly forgot my still camera. Oh well, the video is good enough. I’ll edit and post it next week.
This is getting pretty exciting, stuff is finally happening! Now we just have to bust our buns for 6 more months doing what we can and deciding on things as rapidly as possible. Kind of playing catchup on that, as we ran behind with the packing and moving stuff, and consequently the demo. We finally had to hire a few guys to accelerate that process.
Fun fun fun, we’re looking at concrete products for the bathroom floor. Hoping to do something elegant/tasteful, and yet unique and artful.
It’s also complicated by the radiant heating we’re putting in the bathroom, but as soon as we have the slab math worked out we’ll be okay.
Hopefully we’ll get a lot of demo done this weekend, but I suspect we’ll have to hire somebody again to finish it. We can do it, but we can’t hold things up or we just end up costing ourselves more. Lots of dependencies involved, more so that I originally thought.
But things are going well so far, very exciting indeed!
Such as simple phrase, it doesn’t really signify what Lois and I did last weekend. It’s been a week now, and I’m still feeling it.
We removed the chimney. From the Top of the old TV antenna to under the house in the ground, we took it completely apart and hefted the bricks out to the front of the house. (If you need any bricks, they’re cheap!). I suspect that we hauled about 5 tons of bricks out to the front. God bless Craigslist for finding us folks who bought them and more importantly took them.
Still have about 100 left, plus the broken ones.
Chimney Removed. Kind of like “Tiger Soup” Step one: obtain Tiger…
Okay, I will admit it, I was the termite. I was a six-one termite armed with a Milwaukee 15Amp corded Super Sawzall. Which, by the way, Rocks.
2×4′s were no match for me. Wainscoting put up laughable resistance. 4×4′s with sistered 2×4′s fell to my reciprocal wrath. Well, actually it was orbital wrath, as that is more aggressive and what you use for wood demo apparently.
I even made a cartoonish video of cutting a me-shaped hole through the wood wall. Unfortunately it was wainscotting again and kinda flew apart mid-way. But you still get the idea. Sawzall
Slideshow of my rather sudden progress to follow.
Well, after seeing some really nicely formatted blogs out there, I’ve decided to go ahead and start using the catagory function. Initially when I started this silly little blog I just felt it was a solution without a problem, and a needless complication. But now I think I’ve got so many projects going on right now that it will be possibly useful.
So far I’ve got categories for:
Dronewing Project (Large RC plane with autopilot and camera essentially)
Haus Remodel (our House remodel, obviously, all our time-lapse stuff etc)
Airplane Build (future, mostly, although I will be doing a class this weekend).
And I’ll add ones for other projects, but I think I’ll use the “actually doing it” metric before creating a category so I don’t end up with empty page syndrome. In fact, I won’t create the above categories until I do the first real post for each.
Almost there…. Almost there… just a few more minutes….
And then the TIE Fighters blow me up. Except it’s more frustrating waiting for the glass place to finish installing the freaking glass into the transom window frames so they can be installed.
The studio just needs those last windows put in and some wood trim. Then some paint (whenever). Then it’s going to be weather tight and usable for phase 1- Storage.
After the renovation is complete then I’ll be finishing out the inside with insulation, drywall, electrical etc. And an uber-workshop will be born! Taking over the world shortly to follow I’m sure.
Well, I’ve got about 7 shingles to go to complete the shingling. These are somewhat difficult, as each is a custom cut job, but that’s why I have a circular saw and rulers.
Anyway, here’s the movie we made, from groundbreaking to so-close-to-finished-that-you-can’t-tell-at-this-resolution.
Been a while since I posted, mostly due to shed/workshop/studio/secret laboratory construction. It’s getting there, more exciting as we go along and we can almost see it done! World conquering robots can’t be too far behind!
I did do one thing that I think will be interesting to see the results of: I finally built an intervalometer for my Nikon.
This is basically a box that tells the camera to take a picture at intervals (hence the name). I used an Arduino and a IR LED in a cardboard box and a power adapter, so I don’t have to worry about batteries. I plan to put it within sight of the camera (or possibly in the tree I’m mounting the camera to) to take progress pictures of the shingling that we’re in progress on. I then set the camera to watch for the remote trigger which is sent by the Arduino (mimicking the Nikon IR remote).
I was using a 10 minute timer on my iPhone and then using the handheld IR remote I have, but this was less than satisfactory for a few reasons. One, it interrupted me while I was working. Also, I had to move over to “right field” so the camera would trigger. Annoying. Anyway, I’m hoping that also with putting the camera on a manual exposure/aperture setting it’s battery will last long enough to do the job tomorrow (today it lasted about half the day). Eventually I’ll put all the pictures together into a fast-motion movie along with the progress pictures to date. I’ll be sure to post it all when I’m done.
But later, now I have to sleep, then shingle, then sleep, then shingle…
