Last October, a friend asked if I’d be interested in joining her friendly shoebox diorama competition amongst her acquainted artists, filmmakers, musicians, scientists, engineers, etc. Of course, this came at a particularly crazy time in my life — the aforementioned garage construction, the new startup business, and, ya know, the whole “baby thing” — so it didn’t seem likely. But in the end, I was too intrigued to pass up an opportunity to flex the creative muscle!
Continue reading
In keeping with my inconsolable paranoia of child safety and resulting over-engineering, what was originally planned to be a lightweight 20-pound free-standing bassinet, I have built a solid 60-pound “sidecar” for my baby. And I can say with confidence that, if and when the “big one” hits, I will be safe in one of two earthquake-proof places: inside my “bunker-like” garage or underneath this baby sidecar. 
Continue reading
Almost 5 years in the making, from the first garage design to throw-downs with ass-hatted District Board of Variance to the resulting garage re-design to the ground-breaking, 50 yards of concrete and over 400 sticks later, I, at last, have the Woodworking Stronghold I so longed for years and years ago.
Continue reading
This was the fourth and final pour for this project, finishing with the last retaining wall and the floating stairs. All said and done, it was approximately 50 yards of concrete, 2500 feet of rebar and 1 MILLION pounds of stress.
Continue reading
Whoa! I’m way behind on my garage posts, so I’ll make this a quick one. The next stage was to pour the slab and (east) retaining wall. Gold star for those who have been counting and knew this was the THIRD concrete pour.
It’s best to think of this post like an apologetic hint to a certain friend that may or may not be expecting a certain “project” to be done in 14 days time…that I may or may not be able to realistically finish. But, say I was still pushing to complete said “project”, I thought I’d share some of my ambiguous progress.
Once the wall forms were up, it actually started to look like the beginnings of a plywood-sheathed structure. The sad part was that, despite the immense amount of work it took just to setup the forms, everything you saw was to be removed in its entirety the day after the concrete was poured. But in the end, that’s when the excitement began. It’s like Christmas morning and you’re about to unwrap the biggest plywood-wrapped present you’ve ever seen!
Left to cure over the weekend, the footing forms were ready to come off first thing Monday morning! And with the delivery of the wall form rentals the following morning, it was time to establish the perimeter for Fort Mike.
Continue reading
As of Tuesday, I was officially unemployed and, with that, completely devoid of any responsibility for the coming days, leaving me undistracted for the next phase of garage construction. Watching concrete dry has never been so satisfying.
As my neighbours and passersby can attest, I came home to find a 40′x40′ hole carved out of my backyard, with walls as tall as 15′, in what can only be described as my own personal open pit mine. I am, of course, using construction-grade snow fencing to detour the jewel thieves from stealing my diamonds.