first, a to-do list:
* wednesday: have to go get new bench seat and doors for truck
* deal with the garage & acquiring that new work bench/cabinet (have the tub moved into the kitchen? what about the new sink? where can that hang out until we're ready to use it?---is it possible to stand it up on end so it takes up a lot less room?---maybe i can build a little makeshift wooden retaining thingy to keep it from falling over?)
* return the modem to time warner
* call AAA and get the right motorbike listed on my insurance (go get the license plate # first, b/c i'm sure they'll ask for it)
* try to find out what to do about the bike i sold, since its registration renewal is due soon
* get vitamins from target
* pick up the tile samples
* contact andrea about bathroom project time frames
* measure the bathroom so i know the surface area of the ceiling
* make some specific plans for what to do with the ceiling in the bathroom (look at some more imagery of old timey skylights/light wells in older buildings for inspiration as to how to redeem that element in the bathroom)
* WINDOW SCREENS: STILL NEED TO ACQUIRE:
*** bronze screening: four 2x2 screens, one 3x3 screen, and one ?x? screen (measure that other window in the office, the one that faces the side of the house)
*** 2 additional 6-ft lengths of 1x1 (the depot) + enough additional length of 1x2 to make final screen for that other window in the office + another 2-ft length of 1/4" dowel
* finish painting stool
* cut & put up lath in office
* re-plaster in both the office and bedroom (possibly acquire some more expanded metal lath if what i've got now isn't enough to cover all the surfaces still in need of plaster); also patch the ceiling in the hallway & by the front door (actually, spackle will probably suffice in the living room)
* finish the doghouse!: probably need a bit more luan---get more, cut the roof pieces, and mastic them in place, adhere the final trim on the roof, and the scalloping on the "gable", then get the whole thing fully painted & make sure the floor surface is appropriate to allow water to pass beneath the doghouse, as opposed to getting inside (perhaps raise up on cinder blocks?
and aside from the to-do list i have kicking around in need of lots of effort and energy still, i have a bunch of new ideas that aren't fully formed enough yet to even have definitive items i can add to a to-do list... so i'll just start rattling off some of these things...
PALLETS:
super glad i have potentially found a reliable source. now i need to start going and getting them, and hopefully taking them apart as quickly as i acquire them---do i maybe need to create a storage location for the boards i pull off of them? maybe right beside the porch over by where the hose connection is? maybe create the storage spot for the pallet wood out of a couple of pallets? that seems like a sensible plan.
i am wondering if it would be a good idea to create an additional flat work surface extending out beyond the edge of the garage? if not actually useful as a work surface, maybe i can at least create a slightly extended area to stack some stuff, for at least giving myself the ability to pull stuff out of the garage while i figure out how to utilize the space in there in a clever way? there seems to be so much wasted space in that little area just to the right of the porch and at the top of the driveway. maybe do something about that. also maybe do something about the total lack of a useful set of stairs onto the yard area, by crafting some steps out of a combination of cinder blocks and concrete pavers and pallet wood? something that doesn't require me to drill into, or bolt down onto, the driveway concrete
what about all the other things the pallets could be useful for?
backyard fence: i think it seems like a really fairly easy project to make a fence in the backyard. hauling the materials up there won't exactly be cake, or fun, but once i get the materials up there, and lug the tools i need up there, the actual building of the fence won't be complicated. i want to just throw up some uprights (i think i'll actually just use 2x4s, not even bothering with 4x4s, since the whole fence will be solid-wood-clad, which will make it stronger, in the end, than even a 2x4-built interior wall in a house. i'll utilize the same basic idea, and the pallet wood will be like lath. something like that. it would be cool if, on the side that faces the apartment building, i put additional wood, making the fence not see-through, at all. i really want to eliminate M's barking at the folks climbing those steps. also on the part that is currently chain-link, with those plastic slats woven in, she can obviously still see through that stuff pretty easily... i need to come up with some clever way to put some additional pieces of wood over that fence area, so that she can't see through anymore. and it would be easy to come up with a solution for this portion if there weren't all that ivy & foliage & dying cacti and probably a huge spider population, but since there is all this scary stuff, i need something that allows me to stand in that area the least possible, like drilling holes at a 45-degree angle to the edge (through the back side) of the wood and passing zip ties through the holes (which fit snugly, so they don't fall out while i'm clambering over to the spot where they are to be installed) then quickly cinching them around the chain link stuff where it needs to be attached for the wood to hang out in the place where i want it to be.
front porch: look at stickley drawings more thoroughly and get more inspiration, but hopefully pallet wood can provide most of the needed material for surfacing the porch and possibly even some of the railing elements
office shelving: the bookcases in the office need something between adjacent runs, to keep the books from falling over. maybe also construct some bookends for places where there is empty space. how about that idea i saw online of the box that you can put whatever in (but i like the idea of storing ugly-spine paperbacks in) where you glue a series of attractive old leather (& pressed paper) book spines to the edge of so that it looks like a bunch of old books even in the parts of the bookcase where you don't have a bunch of old books to put there? i could possibly use pallet wood to construct such a thing. also, what about the edges of the bookcases? they're wide open. i could use the pallet wood to fill in those areas. maybe use it in some other places, too, to give the bookcases a more finished look overall, and also to improve function in certain specialized areas.
bathroom ceiling: this is the idea i think i'll be using soonest, and which will (like the backyard fence idea) not require sanding or planing or any real prettying up of the boards to implement. i think that this is the most economical way to cover the ceiling in wood, and i would need only stain the boards, which i'm pretty sure i've got plenty of stain to be able to accomplish, or else i can just use diluted paint, as we've done for the office bookcases, since it's cheaper & quicker to apply. need to still take careful, detailed measurements, so that i can make sure i have enough wood for the whole thing.
chicken coop: if i want to build my own coop, and i want to make it rather big, it could add up to some pretty high costs pretty quickly if i'm using all brand new pieces of wood. maybe as i start to conceptualize the design, i can think of a way to design it so that i only need new wood (2x4s, most likely) for the skeleton/frame, but can use shorter lengths for everything else, so the pallet wood pieces can act in a capacity of not only cladding but also contribute structurally. i know it can be done, but i have to think of the project that way from the beginning to accomplish it. i think it would be really awesome if it was made mostly out of pallets!
raised beds: if we want to make some raised beds for planting fruits/veggies in various places, pallet wood seems like a good go-to material for that. even if it doesn't last forever b/c it's in direct contact with moist soil, it will be fairly long-lasting, enough so that it will be a good use of time and energy building them, since the raw material will be free (this is one project i think can be completed entirely out of the shorter pieces that are used in a pallet, without having to introduce any framing timbers from the store). also, depending how we do it, maybe they'll utilize black landscaping cloth such that there's actually a lot less moisture seeping into the wood on a regular basis? will have to research how folks are doing this, to see who's got good ideas and past experience with this.
backyard structures: can clad them in pallet wood! this is quite a ways down the line, but still, i can start to discover how feasible this is as i work with pallets for the other projects in the meantime. and maybe a first project in this vein will be the little side-of-porch storage areas i want to eventually build?
table & bench for outdoor gatherings: i could possibly use the tables we've already got, and just create wooden "skins" for them. a tabletop with a lip that will entirely hide the metal, and wood sheaths for the legs? it would allow it to be as strong, sturdy, and portable as the tables are now, while still allowing them to look all wood like i think would be cute, but without having to go full-on as rustic as a picnic table... i like the idea of the legs just being these upright square post-like members, which would be hard to replicate if i was trying to create a table from scratch that looked like this but was still as structurally sound. also, could create bench seats (like picnic bench seats) to pull up to them, and also maybe some little basic box-like one-person seats, that look a bit like old wooden crates we're simply using as seats, but made strong enough to be sat upon?
garage accommodations: first off, if all of the drywall is gross, ripped, rotty, etc., why not just resort to putting a bunch of pieces of pallet wood on the walls wherever i need to mount things, so that i have solid material to adhere shelving and hanging things to? like, if i want to put up pegboard, i can attach the pallet wood pieces to the studs (just right over top of the useless drywall) and then attach the pegboard to the pallet wood pieces. i could also use it to create quick and simple shelving for general items, as well as making shelving to put our big plastic bins on. i could also use it to make upright bins/cubbies for organizing certain tools, like making wooden-handled garden tools upright storage areas (like the idea where someone used large-diameter PVC pipe to put said tools, but create something just a smidgen classier by making the divisions out of the pallet wood pieces. i wouldn't have to truly create cubbies, i could just do a series of perpendicular rows, where every other row, coming up from the ground, is in the opposite direction: one set of rows running front-to-back, and then set atop of that, another set of rows running side-to-side, and then another front-to-back, and so on, about 3 in each direction, so, the total height is the sum of 6 pallet board widths, and the tools are standing up in the square or rectangular divisions created where they intersect at 90-degree angles... hopefully when i read this again, i understand what i meant, b/c i can see it clearly in my head at the moment, but i may not have explained it very well...
window-unit ACs: i can use the pallet wood boards if necessary in creating reinforcement for holding up a window unit on the exterior of the house, and for framing in the unit on the interior of the window (on windows, at least, that don't have windows where i can pull the lower pane down to the top edge of the AC unit
kitty perches: the cats love to sit in the windows, so maybe i can choose a window in the house that is meant for them to sit in, and create appropriate-width shelf, more or less, for them to sit on, so they're not putting their claws into the wood of the window all the time, and not falling down or marking up the wall beneath the window (maybe help that part by making an intermediate-height spot for ascending and descending, so they don't just climb with paws along the vertical surface of wall beneath the window)
kitchen cabinetry: what about using the pallet boards to frame out the lower part of the kitchen cabinetry? is that a feasible option? not really sure. i can figure this out in the time that i spend working with the pallet wood boards in the other things i work on.
bike ramp: what about figuring out a way to have a ramp leading up onto our property so i can park the bike up on our property instead of on the street? that would be awesome!
trash can storage: how about creating a little boxed-in area in which to house the three trash bins, to keep them in one place, and also looking a lot tidier? we could just make it so that the lids are exposed, allowing us to open and access the bins without removing them from their spot, but we would have to roll them out of their little spots on trash day, making it look a little more officially like the trash has an away-spot to go to, instead of appearing to be sitting out on the street all the time, all ugly-like?
parkway: maybe create a little one- or two-board-high edge around the parkway out of pallet boards, to make it a little more formal and tidy? if we did that, we could even put down something to block the weeds (like a bunch of those coffee bags) and pour on a bunch of compost from the city, to improve the quality of the dirt over there, and hopefully therefore improve the abundance of blooms of some of the flowers we put there?
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CONCRETE (removal) / PACING OF TASKS:
now, with the truck having a lift gate and all, the idea of renting heavy machinery doesn't seem so daunting! how about renting a jackhammer? not only will it be a lot easier to rent and use the equipment if we can raise and lower it using the lift gate, but it will be easier to load up hunks of concrete onto the back of the truck, for subsequent removal from our property. just need to figure out where a bunch of apartment buildings with dumpsters are so that we can toss the pieces into a series of different dumpsters! maybe even break the work of removing the concrete pieces up into a series of subsequent days & weeks, to make it so that there's not a whole lot of work needing to be done on any single given day. that seems like a fairly reasonable plan, in theory. just not sure how inconvenient it might become if there are pieces still just hanging out on the back of the truck, that need to be unloaded, when it comes time to grab anything else with the truck.
maybe try to make the loading/unloading of the truck be a project that consumes two weeks, but no more. like, spend two weeks where every day, that is my sole task to accomplish, and as long as i've gotten it done within two weeks' time, then i am going to be pleased with the pace of my work... sometimes i need to remember that a job that seems too big for me might only seem too big because of the kind of unchallenged assumptions of how long it might take to do something. like, for instance, if i'm just assuming that the concrete pieces can all be loaded onto the truck in a single day, but that is too strenuous for me to do, but doing it over a three-day period is totally doable. if i think i can't do it b/c i can't do it in a single day, it never gets done at all, whereas doing it over a three-day period, it's done in three days, instead of never at all, and that is a huge improvement! and i get exercise all three days. i need to remember to break tasks up like this if necessary, to keep sane, and also to make sure i am continuously getting *something* done, even small amounts, slowly, over a long, slow period of time, as opposed to not doing anything because it all seems too big and daunting
OK, GOING TO SLEEP NOW. SHOULD WORK ON THIS MORE LATER!!!
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