A Proper Entry

One of the troubles we had concerning the entry to the backyard from the driveway was that there was a considerable downhill slope from the driveway.  The garden wall with its arched top door made for a nice entry point into our backyard but the slope made you feel uneasy particularly since it was mostly exposed dirt littered with gravel.  It certainly wasn't worthy of what should have been a grand entrance. So, to remedy the situation, we dug out the area and poured some concrete curbs which will double as a retaining wall holding back the higher ground of the driveway while also serving as a proper step. I like doing concrete...

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The Man Nobody Knows

I'm currently reading The Man Nobody Knows by Bruce Barton.  It's an interesting book, not just because of the content but also because of the history behind this particular copy of the book. I'm fairly sure that it's a first edition printing although I could be wrong.  The book was printed in 1925 which makes it 90 years old next year. I acquired the book just after Christmas of 2012.  I took some money that was gifted to me and bought several boxes of books from a book reseller in Ozark, MO.  I asked him where they came from and he said that he buys books in bulk from estate sales mainly but also from garage sales and...

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Brick Repurposing

One of the things that I wish I was more diligent about is taking before photos.  Jodi and I both are pretty bad about just jumping into a project without remembering to take that photo of what it looked like before our project.  So, I'm really glad that it happened to dawn on me while I was taking this chimney apart that I would like to have a photo of where it came from. To recap the last blog:  I ran out of bricks while I was laying our new brick patio.  Jodi successfully negotiated us some free brick from our neighbor's house that is under renovation.  I'm getting the brick for free, but I have to dismantle the...

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Scoring Some Much Needed Brick

Jodi scored some brick for us to finish our patio!  The house next door is getting fully renovated.  It's been gutted down to the studs already.  And, yesterday, they started tearing off the roof and redecking it.  Jodi spotted that the chimney was gone from sight so she went to ask about it. It turns out that they just dismantled it down below the roof line because they would no longer be using it as an exhaust vent and didn't want to have to roof around it if they didn't have to.  Jodi asked if they were taking it down any further to which the owner replied that they weren't.  They gave her the brick that they...

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Why We Love The Church? To Read Or Not To Read?

I recently read Why We Love The Church by Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck.  It's a pretty good book, I suppose.  It's not my favorite of theirs, but it's good.  I have read Why We're Not Emergent by the pair which I really liked, as well as one of Kevin DeYoung's solo works, Just Do Something, which was also a good little read. There were parts of the book that I really appreciated being talked about, but for the most part, I found that the title was a bit misleading.  The book wasn't about "why we love the church" so much as it was a lengthy constructed argument against authors who have sprung up seemingly everywhere with...

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Brick Patio (part three)

Well... I ran out of bricks.  I haven't counted yet, but I'm estimating that I'm in need of about 200.  And, to make matters worse, for the first time in quite a while, no one is selling any pavers on Craigslist.  So, unfortunately, it appears that our patio is just going to have to exist for an undetermined amount of time with a large hole on one side. (Sorry about the photo.  It doesn't do the patio justice.  There is a layer of brown sand over the back two-thirds, the initial lime sand layer on the section in the bottom-right has been compacted with water and the new section bottom-center hasn't been compacted yet. ...

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Brick Patio (part two)

The patio is coming along quite nicely.  Today, I finished going through all the used bricks that still had mortar on them.  It was quite a chore but I got all the mortar knocked off of all of them.  I wound up with a nicely sized stack when I was done.  I didn't figure that a lot of the bricks would be useable, but almost all of them were. I started laying some of them, but I knew that I would be limited in what I could do because I only had a very small pile of sand left with which to work.  I will go back to American Landscape and Quarry supply on Monday and get another half bucket of sand.  That should be...

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