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 chimney myself.  I've only worked on it for two evenings now.  The first evening, I was able to take it down from just below the roof line in the attic to just below the ceiling of the first floor.  Last night, I got it taken all the way down to the floor level.

I still have to take it down in the basement, but I think that I'll come back to it at a later date since they're on a break right now on the house project anyway.  I have enough brick, at this point, to finish the patio which is super exciting.  I'll work on that when I get home this evening before Lyric's soccer practice.  There's a small chance that I could actually get all the brick laid tonight.

Saturday is a neighborhood cleanup day where I can throw out some garbage that no one would want.  I'm hoping to be all prepared for that so that Saturday morning I can get it all hauled off.

Then, through the weekend, I plan on completing the following tasks:

• Dismantling the old hot-tub-turned-sandbox for disposal
• Cutting up the old fascia boards for disposal
• Filling with sand in between the newly laid brick
• Pouring the concrete for the entrance at the garden door
• Cleaning up the backyard
• Cleaning up the driveway where the brick was stored for years

 The house is getting closer and closer to being done and I'm really looking forward to reaching that point.  It will be here before we know it at the rate in which we are working.  Stay tuned for a completed patio picture!

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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 had taken down and she asked for them to let her know if they run across any more.

With the bug in the owner's ear, he changed his mind and told Jodi that I could take the chimney all the way down to the basement if I wanted the brick.  Um... yes, please.  So, I started working on it yesterday when I got home from work and managed to get the chimney worked down to just below the ceiling of the first floor.

It should go faster now that I have it accessible from the first floor.  I was working in the attic which is not very fun to do in a gutted house.  Carrying two 5-gallon buckets full of bricks while balancing on 2x4 ceiling joists makes me feel more like a circus act than a home renovator.  But, the budget home renovator does what is necessary to get projects completed.

The best part about all this?  With this latest score of brick, it should be enough to complete the last leg of the patio.  AND, it means that I can say I didn't pay anything for any of the paver bricks that I have laid on our property.  Equity, sweet equity.

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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 their "why we left the church and why you should to" books.

That said, I do appreciate the defense.  I get tired of hearing about the "evils" of the church and how everyone is more like Jesus somehow when they refuse to step foot inside an official place of worship.  Those that write and speak about these things do touch on some truths.  I'll give them that.  Sure, there are issues with all churches.  But, the expectation of perfection in any organization is nothing short of completely unreasonable.  And, if these people who have left an organized church (noun) to "liberate" themselves with how church (verb) should be done applied those same requirements of their respective organized employers, they would most certainly find themselves needing to quit their jobs to take up some entrepreneurial enterprise.  I know I've never seen a perfect company.  Perhaps, applying those same requirements to their grocery stores would drive them to garden and farm themselves?  Banking?  Deciding what automobile manufacturer to purchase from?  It's a very deep rabbit hole.

To me, it appears to be an issue of grace.  Do people have any for others, for their church leaders, for their congregations?  Requiring perfection is lunacy.  God gives us grace since we aren't perfect and He's our example from which to refer.  It's only sensible to give grace to others.

To close, I enjoyed reading the book.  It needed to be written, I believe.  And, truthfully, I didn't need to read a full-length book listing and expounding on reasons why I love the church.  I'd love it anyway.  So, it's alright that the book was mostly dealing with people's reasoning for not loving it instead.  After all, you can't get past your stumbling block until you deal with it first.  You could hand someone a list of reasons for liking potatoes but if they have even just one thing that they don't like about potatoes and you don't address that one issue, the list will make no progress in changing their mind.  So, in that regard, perhaps the title wasn't as misleading as I originally thought.

The book is a good read.  Probably my favorite part is the following excerpt.  It shows the logical inconsistency with the arguments against organized churches.

“The church-is-lame crowd hates Constantine and notions of Christendom, but they want the church to be a patron of the arts, and run after-school programs, and bring the world together in peace and love. They bemoan the over-programmed church, but then think of a hundred complex, resource-hungry things the church should be doing. They don’t like the church because it is too hierarchical, but then hate it when it has poor leadership. They wish the church could be more diverse, but then leave to meet in a coffee shop with other well-educated thirty-somethings who are into film festivals, NPR, and carbon offsets. They want more of a family spirit, but too much family and they’ll complain that the church is “inbred.” They want the church to know that its reputation with outsiders is terrible, but then are critical when the church is too concerned with appearances. They chide the church for not doing more to address social problems, but then complain when the church gets too political. They want church unity and decry all our denominations, but fail to see the irony in the fact that they have left to do their own thing because they can’t find a single church that can satisfy them. They are critical of the lack of community in the church, but then want services that allow for individualized worship experiences. They want leaders with vision, but don’t want anyone to tell them what to do or how to think. They want a church where the people really know each other and care for each other, but then they complain the church today is an isolated country club, only interested in catering to its own members. They want to be connected with history, but are sick of the same prayers and same style every week. They call for not judging “the spiritual path of other believers who are dedicated to pleasing God and blessing people,” and then they blast the traditional church in the harshest, most unflattering terms.”

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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.  So, this may be a little difficult to know what you're looking at.  For that, I apologize.)

What bothers me about running out is that just a week or so ago, I started wondering if we would run out of good complete bricks before I was done.  I hopped on Craigslist to find this ad.  I even screenshot-ed it because I considered that I might wind up needing some.

But, alas, now that I know I need some, the ad has been taken down.  The product is sold, no doubt.

So, I'm reaching out here.  No, I don't expect that of my humble readership, I will have someone with exactly what I am looking for.  However, maybe my expectations are wrong.  So, if you happen to have any quantity of red clay solid paver bricks lying around, please comment here and let me know how to get a hold of you.

With four days of rain starting tonight in the forecast, I might not have done much to it anyway.  I'm very eager to get it done so that I can quit blogging about a partial patio, among other obvious reasons.

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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 about the right amount to get the remainder done.

While I was laying bricks, Jodi was spreading the brown sand over the top of the bricks that have been down for a while.  We have been waiting on a good rain to come and cement down the lime sand that I have been using as a base.  The lime sand is especially good for this because it gets pretty hard and compacted rather easily.  We didn't really want their to be white sand in between the bricks, but we knew that the first good rain would compact everything that had already been laid and allow new room for a surface layer.

I can't help but just stand and stare at it.  One of the downsides of performing a home improvement project is that since you're in the thick of it throughout every step, you kind of miss the "wow" factor.  It's like not really noticing how fast your children are growing because you see them everyday.

But, as you can see from this photo, we are dangerously close to being done.  The perspective doesn't really show it, but it is probably more than 3/4 of the way complete.

It cracks me up how long we have been planning all of this outdoor space.  It was December of 2008 when I uploaded this Google Sketchup 3D rendering of our plans.  And, even before I made this Sketchup drawing, we had discussed, planned, and drawn out a rough layout of what you basically see here.  So, for at least 6 years, we've had this pictured in our mind's eye.  In that regard, it's nothing short of amazing to see that we have actually done it and accomplished what we dreampt up so long ago.

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Diamond In The Rough

Sometimes, I get to looking through pictures of mine and I see one that makes me realize that I have a great story that I need to write down before it's forgotten.  This photo is one of those.

It was a couple years ago.  I was about ready to start laying whatever flooring that we were going to do in the newly finished attic.  I started looking around Craigslist and found one ad that looked a little promising.  The ad didn't have any pictures (which is a great way NOT to sell something on Craigslist).  It also had very little information (again, NOT conducive to a buyer's market).  I don't remember the exact content but it basically said "pile of hardwood flooring from old farmhouse, south of Nixa - $30".

I called the number and asked the young woman who answered if she knew about how many square feet of flooring she had.  She didn't know.  She went on to tell me that there had been an old farmhouse on their property and someone, about 20 years ago she was told, had pulled up the hardwood flooring and put it in the barn before tearing the house down.  They lived in a trailer on the property next to the barn.  I asked if there was any way to send a photo of it.  She quickly texted me two photos.  It was hard to tell how much there was, but I knew it was a fair amount.

I headed down to get it straight away.  The barn was a total mess.  They had been using it for storage and from the looks of it, so had the previous tenants.  She showed me the stack poking out from underneath piles of stuff, I confirmed I wanted it, paid her the $30, and commenced to unburying it.  It turned out to be a whole truckload!

I spent a few days going through it and removing all the nails.  With that done, I started laying it in the attic.  A couple days into it and about halfway done, I noticed that I had eaten through about half the load.  I started to wonder if I had enough to finish the 330 square foot room.  I started praying about it as I was working.  "God, please let it be enough."  Days later, I nailed down the last board.  With the room completely floored with beautiful antique hardwood flooring, I had 6 pieces left totaling less than a square foot of flooring to spare.  It was the perfect amount.  Thank you, Lord!

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Motorized Camera Slider

I'm a bit of a nerd.  I know it and I'm not ashamed.

Recently, I watched a video on YouTube that was a compilation of time lapse videos.  The video was gorgeous from beginning to end.  It wasn't something that you could just stop half way through.  The most amazing thing about time lapse videos is seeing a lot in a small span of time.  No one wants to watch grass grow but when someone figures out how to cram 3 weeks worth of growth into one smooth 5-second video no one can look away.  So many cool things are happening around us all the time but at a snail's pace.  Time lapse shows us a new way to look at things.  It reawakens our sense of wonder.

One thing that made this time lapse video stand out above the others that I've seen was camera motion.  About 30 seconds into the video, it hit me.  "How do they do that?!"  I quickly answered my own question as I realized that in order to add smooth camera motion (pan, tilt, or slide), one would need a motor to control the motion.

My mind started running, but before I inadvertently reinvented the wheel I jumped on YouTube once again and found a video of an inexpensive DIY motorized time lapse camera slider.  Thanks to this fellow nerd and his willingness to share his design, I feel both empowered to build my own motorized time lapse slider as well as find and proudly wear a winter coat with a large fur-lined hood.

First, there was a trip to Lowe's to pick up the angled aluminum for the main rails, the all-thread for the dive shaft, and a bunch of various pieces of hardware for the legs and connections.  I already had some leftover flat bar aluminum from another project.  I built my wheeled camera platform completely from random materials that I already had.  I did have to buy a universal ball joint camera mount, low-speed electric motor, and AA battery pack from Amazon.com.

I also still need the gearing.  Unlike this guy, I'm not going to connect my electric motor directly to my drive shaft.  I'm going to gear mine down.  In the video he says that his motor turns at 24 revolutions per minute (rpm).  Mine turns pretty close to 28 rpm.  The all-thread I'm using is 5/16" so it has 18 threads per inch.  My slider is 4' long, but will only have a camera travel distance of about 3.5' or 42".  That means I have 756 threads of camera travel.  At 28 rpm, it would take exactly 27 minutes (00:27) to complete the camera motion.  That's not enough time to get the kind of time lapses I want to get.

This video is full of examples of the duration of time I would like to cover with my time lapse videos.  I'm looking to cover about 2 hours.  That would allow me to capture sunrises, sunsets, celestial movement, substantial work being performed, etc.  27 minutes just couldn't quite get that.  This guy's slider is shorter than mine and so he has even less capture time than that.  I think that I am going to buy a 16-tooth pinion gear and a 72-tooth spur gear.  These are used on hobby remote control cars so they're durable, readily available, and cheap.  By fastening the spur gear to the drive shaft and turning it with the pinion gear on the motor's output shaft, I am able to slow the drive shaft down to 6.22 rpm.  At 756 threads of available camera travel. it will take 2 hours and 1.5 minutes to get from one end to the other.

Another difference in our designs will be that I will have two tripod mounts, one on each end of my slider.  It will allow me to mount it in a wide range of different positions to capture motion going up, down, sideways, etc.  It will have legs just like the one pictured here so that it can be used on any flat surface, but with the added tripod mounts I can set it up anywhere.

I'm looking forward to the finished product.  I've got other things going on, so it's not a "front burner" project or anything.  But, I'm sure I will get it all put together soon so that I start setting it up and capturing some cool video.  Of course, you'll know when I have some because I'll be posting some stuff on here.

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