Landscaping?

We would love to have a yard and better area for Roland, but do we want to spend the time and money? It's a lot of work, but then again we know we're capable. Last year we put in a treated wood 70 foot retaining-wall raised garden, and a brick retaining wall path in just one weekend. I've sketched out some rough plans from an overhead view. The things that don't currently exist are:

• footpath
• boardwalk
  
• brick steps
• lawn
• fence

The fence is about 500 feet long. That alone could be a lot of work!

Click for a closer look (updated with dog house and split rail fence):



Below is a cross section of the dirt work plan to flatten an area. Essentially I'd be cutting out a triangle from the top and placing it on the bottom.

Update:
I've made an updated version as an option. This moves the yard higher, more accessable from the house. It should work as long as there is a row of natural trees between the steep slopes below the parking area and above the lawn to prevent any erosion

The darker shaded grass represents the steep slopes, and the lighter shade is the usable lawn area

Blinds

I just installed some wooden blinds to help control some light, and warm up the living room some. I lucked out, a couple custom cut returns were the right size so I got them half off. Only needed a little shim, which will get hidden behind the top trim.

winter pictures, future plans

This blog doesn't have many pictures from the outside of the house, so here are a few new ones I took this morning.



This summer we're debating whether we should flatten out a spot below our house for a lawn.

Original land. It's fairly steep, though it doesn't really appear so.


I photoshopped a flat area to the right, with the spruce tree in the middle of it.

It's easier said than done. Since our lot is steep, we'd need to make a switchback path, stairs, or both just to access the lawn. We'd have to remove some trees, but there is a natural clearing, and we will still have great privacy. If we cleared an 80x150 foot area, we could flatten about 40-50x150 foot area. The rest gets used up on the inslope and outslope needed to create the flat area. Basically above and below the flat area become steeper. Still, this is about the size of a city lot, and it would be nice for summer get togethers, playing with the dog, etc.

Hindsite is 20/20, but had we anticipated this, and our budget, we might have built the house with a daylight basement, wich could have walked out onto a lawn without the steep slope.

Last fire of the season

Today we had what is probably the last fire of the winter. When it's above zero, the house gets too hot with just a small fire going, especially this time of yyear when the afternoon sun helps heat the place. I didn't want to end the season with small fires, which can build up creosote, so I had one last hot fire. We also rearranged the living room a little, and I like it a lot, it makes the stove more of a centerpiece and seems more open. Roland, as usual, likes his rug and the fire.

Irksome detail finally finished

While we've finished 99% of our house, a few tiny details remain. One that has bothered me is the baseboard trim. It's not that it wasn't installed, it just wasn't completely done. We painted it and installed it last year, and then caulked the seam . The caulk remains flexible, and as a side effect is slightly sticky. Because of this, it attracted dust like a magnet. Or something, magnets don't attract dust. And our house has plenty of dust, dog hair etc, thanks to Roland. But anyway... We finally took the time to move furniture, thoroughly vacuum, then clean the baseboard, caulk the nail holes, and then paint it. I had to get some paint matched since the store we originally bought paint from went out of business.

updates coming!

I know our blog has been really dead lately. The house and garage are basically done, and we've been hunkered down for the winter and enjoying our nice place!

However, I'm getting the itch to start some new projects. Some might be small like paint touch-up, some might be fun like building an entry-way storage bench and adding storage to the entry closet, and some might be big (overkill?) like tackling some major landscaping. Check back to see progress and help with ideas.

Updates soon to come...

Aaaaand now it's 40 above!

Another year of odd weather. It's now above freezing and everything is melting. We'll enjoy it while it lasts!

Cold snap!

Fairbanks is one week into a major cold snap, and the week-long forecast shows no end. Lower elevations have seen -50 or colder. We often are 30 or more degrees warmer at 950 feet elevation, but lately it's only been about 10. We saw a new low for the house of -37 degrees!

I've had the fire going constantly but amazingly enough it still heats 90% of the house to 70-75 degrees on low, with 2-3 armloads of birch per day. The spare room needs a little heat to keep warm when the door is closed, but it does get some heat from the rest of the house still.

I carefully keep track of our fuel usage to see how much benefit we get from the wood stove. In the last 4 weeks we burned about 40 gallons of fuel for heating. 3 weeks were around 0 degrees and the last week dropped to -30 or colder. That's less than 3 gallons a day on the coldest days, and most of that is for the garage which has no wood heat (yet). Compare that to about 10 gallons per -30 degree day to heat the house and garage normally, and we're saving $15 a day, which could double quickly if fuel costs go back up.

The best thing of course is having a cozy fire to read by, and our house it much warmer than we might keep it without the wood stove.

Wood burning

I've always liked heating with wood, having a place to warm up or sit and read by, so I'm really enjoying our wood stove. I'm actually looking forward to a cold snap of 30 below or colder. Our house is so efficient, I can hardly keep the stove cold enough when it's not below zero out.

So far the Jotul F400 stove seems like a good choice. It's very simple, with no damper, just a + /- control for air. It's also the easiest stove I've used to light. It's efficient, with a secondary burn chamber. Not quite as efficient as a catalytic converter model, but less finicky. It burns about 6 hours with 3 ~5" logs, so I can run it on about 2 easy arm loads of wood a day. I'm trying to burn whenever it's 10 degrees or colder to offset heating costs, though fuel oil is almost down to half the cost it was when it peaked this summer.

The big glass door is nice for viewing the fire, though it cleans itself best when running above minimum temp, which is why colder weather will actually be welcome.

garage completed

I've been working away on the garage, mostly on weekends, and it's now basically done. Outside is fully sided, lights and outlets are installed, and my dad came up do help wire the place inside, which went smoothly.

Then he actually came up again for a weekend because the lake was freezing early so he needed a place to stay, so I had help building the workbench, which turned out really nice. It spans the full 24 feet of the garage. There is abundant storage in the garage as well, big shelves up high on each side, and one full wall of shelves, plus another couple metal shelf units. There's a lot of space under the workbench too. All this, and both cars still fit fine, with room to work at the workbench.

With all the shelves done, this weekend we spent moving boxes of camping gear, garden stuff, sports gear, luggage, and all the crap we seem to have out into the garage. This included the tools that were still in our living room, so now our house is more like a house!

In the process of organizing stuff, we found the little bed Roland used to sleep in. It was on the floor, and he climbed right in. He actually managed to fit, it seems like he can make his body just slightly larger than his head.