It's the soil

One raised bed was the site of my experimental Phacelia tenacetifolia cover crop / layered mulching trial. The other raised bed is much sandier and has had mulch added and dug in with no cover crop. The cover crop area is naturally much more clay-like. Water has been on the same soaker hose, though the sandier soil gets the far end of the hose and the clay soil gets the near end, if there's a difference. But look at the difference in productivity! These pumpkins were planted at around the same time with seeds from the same package.

Clay soil with cover crop wins by a huge margin!

House update III

Here's a photo-journal of my kitchen odyssey to date




Juli and Martha helped me pick colors last week. I'm not trying to make any particularly bold statements here.

Bathroom walls: MS162 Waning Moon semi-gloss

Bathroom Trim: MS043 Gray Harewood semi-gloss

Master BR walls: MS312 Diving Board eggshell (a pale blue)

Master BR trim: MS064 Chamois Cloth

Kitchen Trim and Cabinets: MS197 Cocoon semi-gloss (the nice sage green that I wanted from the get go instead of the after dinner mint green I have now)

Kitchen walls: MS138 White Calla semi-gloss. I still need one more gallon of this in a eggshell or more matte finish for use in the adjoining room.


I also purchased a sink, tile for the bathroom floor from Cal Tile in Torrance along with matched grout for the tub/shower and a sanded natural color grout for the bath floor.

Alex will be done with the bathroom and give it a final seal on Saturday.

Kevin may have primer on the walls by Saturday, so the dusty part of the job will wrap up soon.

House update III

Things are moving along at the house. I've been taking photos regularly in order to show the transformation. However, my computer access is limited since the whole house is sheeted in plastic. Kevin's doing things that I would never imagine doing and getting them done quickly.

I selected a sheet flooring for the kitchen and asked Lowes to send an estimator over. That will happen early next week. There's some help Lowes can give me with procuring the flooring without the regular 21 day lead time. At this point they could be in to install late next week or early the following week.

I need
baseboard and molding
paint
a sink (I'll go with a ss sink with integral deck mount faucet)
counter top (inexpensive but perfectly serviceable laminate for $100)
flooring for bathroom (tile?)

Alex the tile guy is ready to go on Monday.

Oh, and I'm working 65 hours this week at my regular job and my car is in the shop until next week to the tune of ~$1600. Life isn't slow.

House update II

Kevin was on the job about 7:45 this am

I have a sheet flooring selection from Lowes and will get them to install. Something like $2.50 for the sheet and $1.67 to install per square foot.

Rough electrical will complete after Kevin has framed in some of the new parts. He says Wednesday.

Alex the tile guy gave me a great price of $900 for the tub / shower. I may want to put in floor tile as well, but my preferred floor tile is rough. I'm concerned about trapping dirt in the tiles. Check Cal Tile Center, 5108 W. 190th Street Torrance, CA 90503 Tel. 310-698-4586 Fax. 310-698-4587 for better selection.

Recent pending home sale of a 3+2 bath house + 2 car detached garage a couple blocks away is not encouraging: $328k. It was advertised as needing TLC, however. Still the second bath ought to be good for a lot of extra $$ that I'm not seeing in the $328k price.

New color on cabinets will be a cream color.

Laminate countertop for $100 from Lowes. I can screw up several times installing it myself for the minimum cost of the install. Will ask Kevin to do it.

Drop in sinks w/o faucet holes not available at Lowes off the shelf. It may be more cost effective to re-route the plumbing to standard undersink style given the special order cost of some of the sinks. Plus will do away with need to run special dish washer water line. Need decision soon on this.

Need to pick wall / ceiling color for bath and kitch.

Beautiful Long Beach Landscapes

An article at the LA Times home blog shows how the City of Long Beach is addressing water use concerns - with free landscape makeovers to much drier gardens. link and link

There's a BLBL demonstration garden, some example projects, and other helpful links.

House update

Plumbing is done. PeterClarkePlumbing.com completed this job on time and on budget. I did not put in water lines for a dish washer. I think I will do that, but leave them dry so that there's room for expansion later. For hard to find plumbing parts, I have to recommend Reback's Plumbing N' Things, 14617 S. Western Ave, Gardena, CA, 90248. 310-324-4877. Peter referred me to Reback's. If you ever want to know where the good stores are, ask someone in the trade.

Rough electrical is done. Gene from local firm 1-Stop Electrical is doing this work. Gene is timely, reliable, and honest.

Monday the real demolition starts - both kitchen and bath. Kevin Janek will do the heavy lifting. Kevin and I seem to have a good rapport.

Today I met with Alex the tile guy and he gave me a good price estimate for retiling the bathroom. He can start after Wednesday.
Alex Hernandez
MGC Granite
562.480.3673 (cell)

I've purchased a basic tile from Home Depot and some fancier trim band tiles. I hope that together it's the right choice - not too fancy and not too basic. Alex will put in an integral niche and shelf for soaps, etc.

In the past week I've purchased a new medicine cabinet, bathroom vent fan, and wall mount range vent, all online. Most of my purchases for stuff like that have been online, and it's been a good experience so far.

Still to do:

find trim that I like

find sheet flooring for bathroom

find adhesive tile or sheet flooring for kitchen

Pick countertop for kitchen. HD says 1-2 weeks after they measure they can deliver a laminate countertop that I can drop a sink into. It's more expensive that I thought, however.

Pick paint colors for all over

Surfrider Foundation’s Ocean Friendly Gardens (OFG) Program

Surfrider Foundation’s Ocean Friendly Gardens (OFG) Program
“Be a part of the solution, not the pollution”

1. The concept - Ocean Friendly Gardens (OFG) & parkways utilize CPR© for the garden to prevent wet & dry-weather runoff:

• Conservation of (a) water, (b) fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides (water pollutants), (c) energy (moving water around the state is the #1 user of electricity), (d) and gas-powered machinery (air pollutants) through use of native & and climate adapted plants.
• Permeability increased, utilizing materials for a driveway, walkway and patio that allow water to percolate into the soil.
• Retention devices like rain gardens, rain barrels and rain chains as well as bio-swales, creek beds and dry wells.

2. Attend a free public workshop:
You’ll learn essential info from landscape pros, receive free tools, get info on incentive programs and make good use of Surfrider’s OFG blog with do-it-yourself steps: www.oceanfriendlygardens.org! When you make changes to your landscape, we will post your before-and-after pictures.

Hawthorne Workshop
Hawthorne Library Meeting Room, 12700 Grevillea Ave., Hawthorne, CA
Sat., Oct. 17, 1pm-4pm, Refreshments Served
Registration starts a ½ hour ahead of time. Space is limited.
Register today: 310-371-7222, ext. 200 or www.sbesc.com (“workshops”)

Note: OFG workshops are offered to residents in the following cities (though Surfrider members and volunteers who don’t live there won’t be turned away): Carson, Culver City, El Segundo, Gardena, Hawthorne, Hermosa Beach, Inglewood, Lawndale, Lomita, Malibu, Manhattan Beach, Palos Verdes Estates, Rancho Palos Verdes, Redondo Beach, Rolling Hills, Rolling Hills Estates, West Hollywood, Torrance, and several unincorporated communities in LA County (Topanga, Baldwin Hills, Athens.)

3. Garden Assistance Program (GAP) – volunteer!
The GAP is a hands-on program, applying what you learn in the OFG workshop to people’s landscapes. We ask those we help to work with us to help others. See the blog for more details. Volunteer with a Surfrider Chapter OFG GAP by contacting OFG Program Coordinator Paul Herzog: pherzog@surfrider.org, 310-439-2500.

4. Tool donations
We’re looking for shovels, picks, rakes, spades, hand tools and more. We’ll pick them up from you.

Car cast

From my brother via email.

If you like NPR's car talk and Adam Carolla (formerly of Love Line, The Man Show, 97.1 FM talk, etc) you may like CarCast- Adam's relatively new podcast about cars, etc. Listened to the episode with Jay Leno and found it pretty interesting. More testosterone than NPR with Adam's brand of humor...
Good times!

link

The great Lair mushroom hunt

When I was at Lair of the Bear, I went mushrooming with Amy BeberVanzo. Here's a nice photo of her posing by road marker 5N67 - the farthest afield that we roamed (near 8000' elevation).




A year or two ago she found Porcini mushrooms just off a nearby access road. We didn't have luck finding any Porcini, or delectable mushrooms of any kind. The best we found was "edible but inconsequential" (Orange Peel mushroom) and "thought to be edible" (puffballs). We did have a great time walking and exploring and I came back with these amazing pictures. Thanks, Amy!











This is a marmot. We were somewhere around 7500' elevation.






















There were a couple of this golden hued mushroom that glowed like a leprechaun's pot of gold.













































I found a few of these slime molds too. They have a very short life span. VERY slimy!



















Orange Peel mushroom.



































Termites were swarming a fallen log and a dead tree
































Puffballs!


































The insides of the puffballs go from looking like a soft, ripe cheese to looking like this as they get progressively riper.



















































































Do you know what this is?



















Here it is again. Now do you know?






































Yes, I know it's not a mushroom. Later I'll have to post about all the flowers that I couldn't identify without help.

Viola Park

For the next house...

Henrybuilt is pleased to announce that Viola Park is open for business!

Thank you for your interest in Viola Park and for joining our e-mail list. Viola Park is open for business and is currently taking and producing orders.

Viola Park is an innovative new company, owned and operated by the Henrybuilt Corporation, offering well designed kitchen systems at an accessible price. Created as a collection of interchangeable components, Viola Park can be configured to meet a wide range of architectural styles.

The company will be launching a new website shortly that will offer online planning tools, including a decision matrix, to help customers create a Viola Park design uniquely suited to their home. Stay tuned!

Price lists and additional information are available upon request. We welcome your feedback and ideas.
www.violapark.com

We get letters

Dear Dr. XXX


Thank you for writing to express your support for the "Clean Water Restoration Act." I appreciate hearing your thoughts about this legislation and welcome the opportunity to respond.



As you know, Senator Russell D. Feingold (D-WI) introduced the "Clean Water Restoration Act" (S. 787), which would restore the scope of waters and activities subject to federal regulation under the Clean Water Act that existed prior to the Supreme Court's decisions Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Rapanos v. United States. On June 18, 2009, the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works approved the bill after incorporating a compromise authored by Senators Max Baucus (D-MT), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA) to meet the goal of restoring the environmental safeguards while maintaining protections for farmers, ranchers and wastewater systems under the Clean Water Act. Please know that I will keep your support in mind should S. 787 come before the Senate for a vote.



As a supporter of the Clean Water Act and of strong protections for our nation's remaining wetlands and waterways, I am committed to working to ensure that our water resources are preserved and protected for future generations. I believe that we must carefully consider whether any legislation to address the scope of federal jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act will work as intended. I will keep your thoughts in mind should the amended version of S.787 as reported by the Environment and Public Works Committee comes before the full Senate for a vote.



Again, thank you for writing. If you have additional comments or questions, please contact my Washington, D.C. office at (202) 224-3841. Best regards.

Sincerely yours, Dianne Feinstein
United States Senator

Further information about my position on issues of concern to California and the Nation are available at my website http://feinstein.senate.gov/public/. You can also receive electronic e-mail updates by subscribing to my e-mail list at http://feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ENewsletterSignup.Signup.

Electrical redo I

I've contacted Gene from 1-Stop (he did my electrical service entry and breaker box is 2006) for a bid on new circuits for the kitchen and bath. Might as well get them done when the access is good.

Bathroom redo II

See also Bathroom redo.

The Bathroom redo project wasn't just about the bathroom, since I planned to replumb the entire house in PEX and change my water heater as well. It's just that the most visible change would be in the bath.

However, I also wanted to go tankless with my water heater for two reasons: 1. My existing tank water heater was at the end of its service life and 2. I could recapture scarce interior space in my home by moving the new tankless heater up into the attic.

My new water heater is a Takagi T-K Jr tankless water heater. It was a bit more difficult to procure this heater than buying a Bosch from Lowes or a Rheem(?) from Home Depot. Nonetheless, I made the effort based on professional plumbers' inputs that extolled the virtues of Takagi over Bosch and Rheem, a refrain I heard over and over again - often enough to believe it. While the day to day benefits remain to be determined, from a do it yourself perspective it's exactly the opposite: Bosch has it over Takagi. Here's why:

1. For Bosch the required 3" double insulated stainless steel vent tubing is conveniently available at Lowes, the same place I'd purchase the heater. The 4" Cat 3 stainless vent tubing for the Takagi required a trip to a full service plumbing supply store - a marvelous place indeed, but not incredibly convenient.

2. The Bosch uses water flow to spark its ignition. Takagi requires a hard wired electrical connection (though for temporary testing purposees changed it to a plug).

3. Clearance issues. I discovered to my chagrin that the combustible materials clearance on the Takagi 4" vent pipe is and additional 4" from the pipe. It is only 1 inch for the Bosch double wall 3" vent pipe. This required that I widen and reinstall the roof vent from the old heater instead of just re-using it.

These issues combined made the Takagi more difficult to install from a do it yourself perspective than I think the Bosch would have been.

Bathroom redo

After a day of labor yesterday, my bathroom looked like this today. This week I expect to have a return to basic functionality. I don't have a plan with a schedule for finalizing the finish work.