Matching Door Lintels

Craftsman homes always have a handful of special details that make them stand out. On our house, each door, window and porch is decorated with a custom lintel. We like to refer to them as the door/window eyebrows. We've added a couple different sets of custom doors, and we have a lot more custom work to do. It's important to us to preserve the original details of the house, and to do so, we first had to find matching trim stock. After paging through catalogs of trim stock at McClendons, we identified identical trim. That's good news, because if we didn't find it, we were going to have to custom build it ourselves, or have someone else match it and cut it for us.

The top lintel looks like this:

From The Making of a Craftsman Home

Pictured on the right is an example of the original. The is made up of three pieces: the flat stock, the trim, and the top cap that is beveled to shed water away from the house. The one of the left is the replica built to surround the french doors we added in the kitchen earlier this year.

The finished product after installation:

From The Making of a Craftsman Home

It makes such a huge difference having these details carried on throughout the house. Eventually, we'll be adding these details to the workshop windows and the other set of french doors we installed off the library. Now that this proof on concept is complete, we're confident we can build these and make them match the house exactly!

Pond progress

This weekend I completed joining the two ponds together into one larger pond.

From 2010 Landscape

To join the ponds, I dug a section between the two, laid a new piece of liner, and fused the pieces together using an EPDM pond liner joining kit.

From 2010 Landscape

Shown here is one section of the two EPDM pond liners, with one piece braced to a 2x6 ready to be joined together.

From 2010 Landscape

Right after the sections were joined, and the water level was brought up. The connector section will be covered with a plank style bridge, so the two sections won't look so obviously joined together once complete.

From 2010 Landscape

Once the plank bridge and landscape rock is in place, I'll upload the final pictures.

Remembering the Luzon

It was one year ago today that Tacoma lost a significant piece of its architectural past, the Luzon building, designed by Daniel Burnham and John Root. The building fell into disrepair, and became a public hazard. Despite efforts to save it, the building was demolished.

Let's remember the significant pieces of our architectural heritage , and the important work that preservationists do here in Tacoma to keep them with us.

More pond progress

Made more progress on the pond this weekend. Got the skimmer attached to the liner, so that part of the project is now complete.

From 2010 Landscape

Started to drain our original pond into the new pond to bring the water-level down enough to allow me to fuse the liners together.

From 2010 Landscape

Next, we have to fuse the liner pieces together, install the bridge over the channel connecting the two ponds, and then trim the liner, fix the edging, and fill the remainder with water. Once all that is complete I can move the pump from the old pond into the new pond, and connect it to the new water lines running to the waterfall that I installed earlier in the year.

Pond 2.0 continued...

I started out this year with great expectations. I think I got a little carried away because here I am at the end of the season with a bunch of projects to try and finish. I made some progress getting the second pond installed, which I'm hoping to partially complete before the end of the season. I originally wrote about this project a few months back.

I got the rest of the pond dug, the skimmer installed and the underlayment laid down. Next up is the install the liner and to begin building the inside walls of the pond using landscaping basalt rock. We already have a lot of rock for the project, but I suspect I may need to bring more in.

Here are some photos of the progress:

From 2010 Landscape

Pond is approx. 16" deep at the deepest point. This pond is intentionally more shallow than our original pond so that we'll be able to see the fish easier.

From 2010 Landscape

Underlayment installed. Next up, install EPDM liner.

From 2010 Landscape

Installed skimmer. This will house the pump, and will help to remove debris off the surface of the water.

Rose Hip harvest

From Drop Box

Rose Hips we harvested from our Nootka Rose plants in an effort to make tea.

Out with the season

Summer is quickly slipping out of our fingers. From the look of things, this fall is going to be a cool wet one in the Pacific Northwest. Sometimes we can skate through till late October without much rain, but that's not likely to happen this year. We're frantically trying to finish up the many projects we started this summer.

House Painting

We're determined to finish painting the house event if it means taking a couple of shortcuts. It just doesn't seem right to let this project stretch into its third year.

From The Making of a Craftsman Home

We still have a bit of work to do on the front of the house, namely the eves and the very top peak.

From The Making of a Craftsman Home

We're near complete on the second peak on the South side of the house. This side of the house was in the worst condition, and therefore has received the most attention.

From The Making of a Craftsman Home

Finishing up the window trim on the south side. Tomorrow, I'll paint the inner window frames to finish up the job.

Potager

We're making progress on the Potager. Finished the fence trim, and have hauled dirt in to level it out.

From 2010 Landscape

Next up is to build the first raised bed. I'd really like to get at least one of the beds in this season, but we're really fighting against the clock on this project.

Mulching and Prepping Beds for Spring

Brought in a half yard of mulch to cover some of the beds I put in this year. I topped this bed with out 3-4" of mulch, covered with newspaper, and then topped with straw. Hopefully this bed will be more fertile come next year.

From 2010 Landscape

Soon we'll be moving indoors where we've really got our work cut out this year. We're going to try very hard to finish the kitchen within reason. That means installing the remaining walls, tiling, installing upper cabinets, and installing counter tops.