Porch looks great.

Ha, I know exactly what you did. I think it took me about 10 years to learn how to stop doing that.

Very nice!

Now you need to have a party with 50 people on your patio so that you can put that foundation to good use!

Thanks guys

Porch passed inspection. It is now completely finished!

So, my front yard is a complete disaster now. I'm tossing around different ideas. Possibly putting in a sprinkler system. Different ideas for walkways and planter areas. No firm thoughts yet.

While Wes was inspecting I asked him about running a walkway from my porch to the curb. He said I needed approval but not from the development group. It's some right of way stuff.

So, I looked online and there was a vague reference to this and a number to call. So, I called it. It turned out to be the 311 number which is a catchall for anything you could possibly think of that has to do with the city. The person was pretty clueless but transferred me to..................the development group. Which I know is wrong. After a bit of a wait I went to voicemail. I gave up there.

I'm not sure how much WIM I have to pursue this. I may just hire a pro that does this a lot knows where to get approval.

A sidewalk or paving stones?

Not that I would be shocked if the city wanted a permit for paving stones.

Don't forget about getting a permit for your lawn and then again the permit required each time you mow it.

What's the worst case scenario for just doing the walkway without a permit? Seems like something that's unlikely to ever come up?

FYI - I have a rec' if you don't want to do this yourself...

Thanks. I'll PM you when I decide what I want to do.

Didn't have a lot of time to work today so I thought I'd try to get the cabinet face off of my wine rack. I'm going to replace it with a trash can slidey cabinet.

I googled replacing a cabinet face and some guy suggested I try to hammer it off. It actually worked. It came out pretty easily and I didn't tear up the frame too much.

I'm not sure exactly how to attach the new face. The old one had these little triangle metal thingies that I guess are some sort of fasteners. I've never seen anything like them. Obviously I'll need glue but I'm not sure what else. I'll just go to Lowe's and browse around.

In the mean time I thought I'd install my over the oven microwave. After looking at the hardware and instructions I think this will be much more difficult than I thought. It is probably a 2 person job since you have to sort of mount the back then hold up the microwave while you bolt in bolts from the top. I doubt seriously I can do this by myself.

Anyways, here's the before and after wine rack face removal.

I had 3 tasks scheduled for today.

The main one was to get the face of the cabinet on. I did a bit of googling and there were all sorts of suggestions. Most of them were pocket screws, biscuits, and dado. Pocket screws were pretty much out of the question since the frame is crappy particle board that got a bit buggered when I took the old frame out. I really wasn't going to fool with biscuits. The frame was already dadoed. I'm not sure how I lucked out but it fit perfectly.

Pretty much every thread I went to someone said "just glue it, clamp it, and it will hold just fine". So, I tried that.

I got some wood glue but it sure was liquidy. It just ran everywhere. Made me a little nervous that I got some bad glue or something. Then I went to look for clamps. They were really expensive and I probably will never use a clamp that size again so I went with plan B = see pic (the white part is a piece of 3/4" plywood I used to protect the frame).

Crossing my fingers this holds. Like I said, the frame fit on perfectly so maybe it works.



My second chore was to fix my front door. It's jamming now. I'm assuming because of the ledger board I attached to the front underneath the door. All I did was to trim some of the door trim. It still isn't closing perfectly but I had other things to do.

Number 3 was to hang the microwave. It was apparent early that it will be a 2 man job putting it up. But I got the brace in and the top screws in. There was some tricky measuring to do. Especially underneath the cabinet. It's hard (for me at least) to measure things when I'm doing it upside down. But I got everything where I think I need it. Just need another person to help me lift it up and in.

Oh yeah, sliced the tip of my knuckle off on that stupid brace.

A friend came over to help me with the microwave. Had one hole that was off (I blame bad design) but other than that it slipped right in perfectly.

Looks awesome!





Since I was already working I thought I'd check out the cabinet face I glued on yesterday. Seemed pretty firm so I went ahead and put the door on and the trash can slidey thingy.

All went well.






Pretty happy with the whole thing. Both are things that have been on my todo list for years.

I have a similar set up in my house, except my door pulls straight out along with the trash cans. Did you ever think about doing that as opposed to a traditional door? From that picture it looks like you would have to stick your hand in the first trash can to pull it out.


When we moved into my house I had to replace the drawer slides since they were gunked up with years of trash goo. It was a pain in the ass laying on the ground and making sure they were straight while screwing them in. I hope it was easier for you.

Yeah, that was the setup I really wanted. I talked to the Lowe's person about that and tbh I'm not sure how it got from there to what I have now. But, this isn't horrible. The main thing is I got my trash can and recycle bin off of the floor of my kitchen. If I get tired of it I can always try to do it the way you have it.

Yeah, measuring and leveling anything in a tight hard to get to space is a pain.

Hard to believe it took me this long to realize I don't like the trash can out on the floor of our kitchen. Hmmm, maybe I'll eventually find time for a little boondoggle.

I called a landscaper to give me a bid on a sprinkler system and a stone walkway. This guy got rave reviews on Angie's list and his prices were below most of the others I looked at.

On Angie's list, if you haven't seen it, you give feedback which includes the work they did and how much it costs. It's pretty easy to see who's expensive and who isn't.

Anyways, this guy was really reasonable and got great reviews. The price he gave me for the sprinkler system was pretty much what I had anticipated. Actually, it isn't a sprinkler system, it's a drip irrigation system.

The price he gave me for the walkways seemed pretty steep to me. After doing some reading I think I can tackle the walkways myself with some day labor.

The porch put a pretty decent dent in my budget so I'll get this guy to go ahead and do the irrigation next month.

I may try to do my rock planters around the bamboo next. I think I'll give it a shot myself and see what happens. Can't mess it up too bad I don't think.

Today I went into Lowe's and didn't buy anything. I think this is a first.

Today I noticed 2 cracks in my new sheetrock in the living room.

I thought I'd give masonry a try today. I started on the little limestone wall around the bamboo. I thought I would mix one bag, put some stone down in the hardest to get to and see place. Sort of a test run to see if I want to do the rest myself.

I'm not good at this and I really don't like doing it at all. But, 1 bag got me through about 1/3 of one bamboo area. I guess if it holds up OK, I can sort of do this piecemeal and it won't be to horrible.

It's pretty ugly but it is in the back where nobody will ever see it. If I keep going hopefully I'll get somewhat better at it.

I'm planning on trying to build some dry stone wall in the autumn. I've got a lifetime supply of stone, so the worst that can happens is it falls over and I start again.

I've seen these. I don't know how they do it. I mean, I don't see how they do it and it doesn't all fall down.

Gravity, and skillful construction. At least I'll have one out of two on my side.

I would imagine that they try to flatten the adjoining surfaces to make them more block-like.

Based on my understanding of cutting-edge archeological and scientific examinations of prehistoric stone buildings, it has something to do with ancient aliens.

Confirmed.

Hey zikzak.

So, I've been reading about how to do a stone walkway. Sand base enough? There's this stuff I read about that you can pour between the stones and you just wet it and it hardens like concrete. Gator dust. Legit?

Never heard of it. The benefit of sand is that it lets the stones float, and when the walk inevitably gets a bit wavy over the years, you just pop up some stones and re-level the sand. Something that hardens seems counterproductive to me.