biggerboat's building boondoggle blog

Yes! Show us some fishing pics!

this has a picture of an earthquake bolt in one of the houses.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1886_Charl...

Wow, did not know that.

Also didn't know until we took that tour that it was traditional for people to paint their porch ceilings light blue in order to keep ghosts away.

https://charlestoncandleco.com/blogs/new...

So, today I got an email from a lawyer representing the city of austin trying to collect an unpaid parking ticket from my mother who has been dead for over 5 years now.

You should send them the address of the site in which she's interred (if so), and wish them the best of luck in collecting.

Or, you know, falsify your address. Try 1060 West Addison, Chicago, Illinois.

I got a parking ticket when visiting friends some years ago in West Des Moines. Naturally, I ignored it; if you catch on my semi-decadal visit, good for you. Some time later, I got a notification from some collection company in Michigan.

Fortunately, whoever wrote the ticket miswrote my license plate number (dropped a character, IIRC). So, I responded with something like, "Don't know who you ticketed, but I know who you didn't." Never heard any more about it.

catching up quick by quoting old posts with next intentions of reading a chucktown trip report but your ruthless travails chasing electrical faults along a dock triggered more memory of this wonderfully acted and presented scene from Ozark

We finished the sprinkler lines and to our amazement, no leaks. The hardest part was we didn't make the trench angles 90 or 45. But thanks to Google we learned that you can make any angle with a couple of 45s. All good.

Our next project is to put fill dirt down to raise the yard to the new seawall height. 4 yards of dirt.

So, before I put that fill dirt in, I need to deal with the rocks/gravel. It's a mess. There are piles of dirt mixed in and if I'm going to do this I might as well take the time and make it look good.

My plan is to clean a 4 foot swath and lay down new fabric. Then I'll work on the next 4 ft, moving rock that I clean onto the new fabric. Then work my way across the yard.

I made a sifter thingy that I'm hoping will separate rock from dirt. I'll put it on the edge of the seawall where I'm going to put more fill dirt.

I probably should hire some labor to help. It's a lot.

all the major muscle groups will get a workout from that effort

Yeah.

I feel like I won't be able to get out of bed tomorrow morning after doing nothing more than just reading that.

coming down like saturday morning after a friday night spent under the lights

Well, it caught up with me. I was so exhausted I couldn't sleep. Then my back tightened up on me.

I will say, taking a break from it gave me an idea on a different approach. I still probably shouldn't do it all myself but I think I can at least make it look like I'm making progress a little quicker than it was going to. We'll see.

Back to work. I decided that instead of starting on one end and working my way across, I would get the sidewalk down in the middle and work my way out. Because of where rocks are piled up, this method will reduce shoveling somewhat. Plus the sidewalk being in gives us a nice path to the dock and makes the back yard not look like a total disaster.

It was hard. I had to raise it about 6 inches and the new seawall is weirdly further back so I had to make it longer as well. Somehow the old one was to the exact brick length. Not sure how they did that. But I had to cut pieces to fill in the gaps. Didn't have a tile saw so I did it with a grinder.

Then I poured some concrete to hold the pavers in.

Came out ok. There might be a bit of low spot but I think water wil drain off to the side.

looks pretty good to me bb. is all the brick in your pic new or some patched back after the seawall work?
modular material installation tends to turn out better when a full module is started from the more important places and left to have cuts in the shadows and odd corners

Yeah, I think it looks nice too. Always good to get a job done!

We saved the bricks when we removed them prior to the seawall. I had to scavenge a couple from the side of the house where nobody sees them.

Thanks! Yes of course.

got it, makes sense, thanks

Looks great!

Thanks.

Not only is our back yard a mess, the front yard is getting torn up almost daily.

We've had several internet providers putting lines in. One comes in and tears everything up, leaves, then another one shows up. It's been almost a year of our yard getting dug up. It's getting really old.

My wife gave them an earful when she saw this.

Is that green thing a trash can or an AC unit, or something else entirely?

It's either a junction box for internet cable or for electricity. We don't have lines running on poles in our neighborhood. Everything is underground. There are several types of those green boxes in almost every yard.

do you have some sort of easement on your property that allows them to be that invasive with the work?

I think it's just considered a utility and they have the right to do it.

I got started on the landscaping rocks. My little sifter thingy worked great but it's a very slow process. It should go a little faster now that I have areas cleared to just go.

I gave the dirt guy my best guesstimate on area and depth. He suggested 5 yards but I thought that was too much so I ordered 4. Looks like I might need twice that.