Tom

Kitchen Cook Stove

2009-09-24T07:09:37Z

We have a wood burning Kitchen Cook Stove! We are the proud new owners of a 1932 Kalamazoo Kitchen Cook Stove.

Slashing the Bills, Part I

2009-06-18T12:06:48Z

We visited friends of ours last night. They are completely off the grid and self-sufficient. Pretty awesome setup. It got me re-thinking my plan of action here, and got me to juggling some goals. All that aside, I have devised a way to get virtually free hot water, using sunshine and/or our woodstove. I'm hoping to land a side project or 2 which will enable me to purchase a kitchen cookstove and the stove pipe needed for it and our woodstove. Here's how that all fits together...

Currently we have a tankless propane water heater which provides us with our hot water. It is nice, but it costs money to use. With a clothesline up, and the plan to use the kitchen cookstove for most of our winter-time cooking, and grilling outdoors for summer, the next big expense is our hot water. So - commense thermosiphoning...what is that you ask? Here is a diagram of the plan:

Relying on the simple fact that heat rises, I will be making water go from a tank to the roof - as water gets hot on the roof, pump it down into a holding tank. As water cools and sinks in the tank, take the cold water on the bottom, and push it to the roof.

First, I plan on building the Collectors - probably 2 to start. I am going to buy the solar heaters used in pools - they look like 3x5 black sheets of tubing. They cost around five dollars a piece. They have 1/2" tubing at top and bottom, and 1/8" tubing running vertically. I will sit the collectors in a framed box covered with glass which will be fastened to the roof. As the water sits in the 1/8" tubing, it heats up. The glass is so the water will continue to heat up in the winter time when temperatures are cold outside. As the water reaches 140 degrees, it will kick the controller off to send a signal to the pump which will push the hot water to the water heater....I'll need to get a conventional water heater. The water heater will basically be an insulated storage tank for the heated water - it won't be 'on'. The water tank will have a cold supply from the house. The hot water supplying the house will come off the top of the water heater.

A secondary measure for heating the water in winter time will be used. Again relying on the simple fact that heat rises, I will be making water go from the tank to the pipe on the woodstove - as water gets hot on the stove pipe, the hot water will rise up to the holding tank. As water cools and sinks in the tank, the cold water will fall to the basement where the woodstove is located.

I know these last few entries have been backward - the DIY before I do-it-myself. I'll be building this sometime this fall...hopefully.

We Finished the Same Way We Started

2009-06-15T11:06:06Z

So we've come to the final chapter in this saga. On June 29, 2005, we closed on this building lot which had a foundation. We started the process by sitting at the closing table and being utterly shocked by some hidden fees, then "losing" a huge chunk of cash because we had to use part of our equity to pay down our lot loan - totally unexpected!

After nearly four long years, we've closed out on our lot loan and wrapped all the crap into a 30 year loan. But, it came at a price. With the housing market in the absolute toilet, the only comps the appraiser could use was 4 foreclosures from the last year. Nothing has sold in our area that has 3+ acres or 3000+ sq ft in over a year. Fabulous! As a result, our appraisal came in much lower than expected, and resulted in us having to pay a bunch of money in points to close. $7500 to be exact. Throughout this whole process, it has felt like I had a huge, gaping whole in my pocket, and if anyone walked behind me close enough, eventually they'd pick up some of the thousands of dollars that continually fell out. Why should the final step be any different? And so it goes...

I was told, "At least you have a happy ending" - meaning we get to live in our house and not face foreclosure. But for the most part, people facing foreclosure, or at least that are upside-down on their mortgage, are those who bought at the peak, and simply moved in. I'm faced with the grim reality that I worked for 4 years, sold at the peak, scoured the ends of the earth for the greatest deals on materials, performed probably 80% of the labor, and came out in a hole. Huh? This wasn't the "happy ending" I looked forward to....

Deck Project

2009-06-11T07:06:45Z

So about a year ago, as part of the house I built a 44'x16' structure resembling a deck. I say resembling because there are no railings on the deck, and with money so tight with building the house, the sole purpose of the structure was make "permanent scaffolding." The deck was to get us 10' off the ground so ladders would suffice for getting the siding up.

Well, now we're in the house and using this deck probably more than we should since it doesn't have railings. I managed to return roughly $300 worth of materials to Lowe's and received a merchandise credit card. With our number of munchkins running around, I'm sure we could fill that deck if we just put railings on it and was done with it, but I can't just do something easy...

So thinking back to the many pages of timber frame magazines, a particular house came to mind - inspiration! Here's the plan:

Taken from: http://www.hearthstonehomes.com/new/barkley/index.html

My plan is to put a roof over a 15'x16' area. With the merchandise credit, I have a pile of lumber sitting on the deck, just waiting to be put together. Hopefully over the 4 weeks I'll be able to at least finish the rails and make the deck kid-safe and ready for lazy evenings, sitting, watching the grass grow...and watching that soon-to-be-built outdoor fireplace...

Father's Day Project Plan

2009-06-10T06:06:14Z

Every year for father's day, my one request is to have hard, grueling labor given to me by my children. Usually it amounts to 3-4 hours of hard work, and me announcing, "It's too hot - let's do something cooler and more fun," and the work ends. But this father's day, I have my eye set on a "grand" project.

With the departure of our trailer, we're left with, among other things, roughly 60 concrete blocks from the footers which supported the trailer. I'm planning on taking these blocks, and a bit of mortar I have left over from deck projects and masonry work, and throw it together and create something like this:

Taken from: http://www.wayraycontracting.com/images/upload/1159500921Fireplace%20outdoor%205.jpg

We have stone from an old stone wall which I plan on dismantling and re-purposing. This will be my first project embarking on stone masonry work. I'm still looking for plans to validate what I have drawn. Google, sadly, was not the great resource it normally is - most search results amounted to stuff like "Step 1, hire a mason", or "You can go to Lowe's or Home Depot to buy a book on blah, blah, blah" - You mean no one has ever tried something like this who isn't a professional? Maybe I'll find out why....but if it is a success, hopefully anyone searching on "stone outdoor fireplace plan" will get my subsequent post and be able to do this in their own backyard...

More to come...

Coldfusion Development, waning RAD, and it's slide to over complexity

2009-06-04T06:06:56Z

I used to be of a mindset where I would say "It is easy to develop web pages in Coldfusion, but it is hard to be skilled at writing software in ColdFusion." I also used to feel like "real programmers and software engineers" didn't do ColdFusion...but didn't see the point in over-complicating things for the sake of saying look-what-I-can-do. Recently I read a post by Marc Funaro (http://www.advantexllc.com/blog/post.cfm/how-oo-almost-destroyed-my-business) entitled, "How OO Almost Destroyed My Business".

It was actually quite liberating. I, too, was a self employed sole proprietor for 10 years, developing web applications for clients in ColdFusion. About 2 years ago, I found myself wondering if I belonged in the industry anymore and if I was smart enough to keep up with all of the latest and greatest enhancements to frameworks, ORMs and Object Oriented designs. I've worked the last 6 months on a project that, from a programmatic standpoint, is challenging, cutting-edge, and following Object Oriented programming more than most CF work I've done in the past. That being said, I've started to feel like projects today using coding work circa 2002 would be finished in 50% of the time and would perform better. I don't quite buy into the whole standpoint that maintenance is made easier. Don't get me wrong - in large teams in a corporate environment, OO, encapsulation, and code re-use is paramount for productivity and maintainability since requirements change and designs evolve over time. But for the small shops where there are 1-3 person teams and projects that get enhanced only every few years, I don't see the reasoning for overcomplicating applications...Rapid Application Development seems to take a backseat to elegant design that solves problems that don't exist more times than not...

Maybe I'm getting more and more opposed to change as I get older. Maybe I'm a minimalist - I still love my Fusebox 3 framework with all the time and work invested in my own enhancements, API, and design. Maybe I'm realizing that the code isn't where I get my kicks, but rather solving problems in business. Software should solve problems, not make them.

Closet Systems

2009-06-02T07:06:13Z

My wife wanted some nice closet systems in order to avoid the use of dressers and save on space in our bedrooms. After going to Lowes, I quickly realized that we could either spend a lot of money on particle board, get some metal racks and shelves that I wasn't particularly fond of, or spend the least of the above options and get to work building. Of course I chose the latter - purchasing (2) 4x8 sheets of sanded pine plywood 3/4" thick cut into 15 7/8" widths, thanks to the helpful guys in the lumber department at the local Lowe's store.

Below is the pile of stuff I started with:

Taking the 15 7/8" strips, I cut 2 at 80". These would become the sides of the unit. Taking another full strip, I cut them into 15 7/8" lengths. I then trimmed them down to 15" deep. Taking the 2 remnants from the sides, cut these to 15 7/8" x 15" for additional shelves. I had 6 shelves, starting flush at the top, the every 15 3/4" down from the top. Taking some scrap, I cut a piece at 15 7/8" wide by 2 1/2" tall.

Now with all of the pieces cut, I put the sides of the unit on their sides and put the top and bottom shelves between the sides. I pre-drilled holes through the sides and screwed the top and bottom shelves into place. If you use a size like 1/2" or 1", you can purchase plugs at the local hardware store for a nicer finished look - I just used wood filler. After putting the top and bottom shelves in, I put on a 1/4" plywood back on - this was definitely overkill and made it look more like a bookcase. I nailed the 1/4" plywood on, then pre-drilled and screwed every 32" on the sides. Once that was finished, I stood the unit up, and begun to put the other shelves in. I started from the top, measuring 16" down and placing scrap 3/4" ply with my clamps to temporarily hold my shelves while I pre-drilled and screwed them in. After doing that 3 more times, I had the following:

After getting it up and all the shelves in, I was left with the unfinished, untamed ends of the plywood facing out. I purchases screen moulding from Lowe's which I cut to length and nailed with a finish nailer on all of the fronts of the shelves and sides. After that, I filled all the holes, nails, and screws with wood filler. In order to match the rest of the bedroom, I decided to stain:

Finally, I screwed the unit into place in my closet, finding studs in the wall to screw to:

Note the extra shelves and rods...didn't really get into that. The rods are just 1" round rods that Lowe's sells in 8' foot lengths which I finished with linseed oil - easier than staining and polyurethaning. I attached them with plastic rod holders which I spray painted silver.

The same process could be followed for a bookcase. More to come with that...

Cleary Crew 2.0 Unveiled

2009-06-02T07:06:36Z

So after a request from Jenn, and over analyzing blogging tools throughout the web, I finally settled on Mango Blog built on Coldfusion. Hopefully the two of us can stick with it. I plan on blogging about stuff related to work, web development, home building, DIY, and other personal interests.

In typical fashion for me as of late, I'm developing/designing by the seat of my pants. I guess I'm getting used to this whole no-requirements, no-design type web development.

For the ColdFusion programmers out there, this Mango Blog is totally awesome - very easy to install, setup, skin, and use. All in all, took about 10 minutes to download, unzip, upload, and setup. Amazing work! Sure beats me having to write something...

Mango Blog was created by Laura Arguello from AsFusion.

It's official - we're in!

2009-05-14T07:05:52Z

It is official! Today, I hold in my hands a little piece of paper known as "Use and Occupancy." Although this wasn't quite how I envisioned this great day unfolding, we're in and "legal."

Now the work begins. Although the house is "finished", there is still primer on the living room walls, nail pops throughout the house, unfinished floors upstairs, and ZERO closet systems. The plumbing remains an issue with water pressure issues and extremely hard water. First up - get these closet systems up and done in each bedroom. More on that shortly...

Cabinets Ordered!

2008-10-02T06:10:55Z

It has been a while, so I figured I'd post something to the zero people that read this thing. Through my searching through the ends of the internet, I have found what I think is the greatest deal in cabinets on the planet:

http://www.mkfusa.com/Cabinets.htm

Their discounts are amazing. Since I wanted to do something with some quality, I read through and settled on going with the StarMark Cabinetry.

http://www.starmarkcabinetry.com/

I searched locally, and there was 2 vendors in Maryland. Both didn't take me seriously in wanting to compare prices or actually show me much of anything. One of them told me, "Starmark is typically for our high-end customers, and I don't know that you would really be interested." Ha! I just wanted to look. :) The long and short of it is that I ended up getting all of our cabinets for the kitchen and 3 bathrooms, 35 cabinets in all, for $6,000 less than the 2 vendors could do the kitchen alone. I looked at some other companies/vendors - Lowe's was the closest, but with a much lower quality cabinet and finish. I ended up getting a Rustic Alder cabinet in a dark brown color with an ebony/black glaze with distressing. I'm really excited - our kitchen is coming together. With the hickory floors going in this week, and the crackled white ceilings finished, our home is starting to look 100+ years old! Exactly what I wanted!!!

I'm starting my wish list of stuff for after move in. I designed the house so we could add a cookstove later, and a wood burning furnace. I found the following: http://www.woodstoves.net/firechief/firechief.htm
http://www.woodstoves.net/bakersoven2.htm

I hope to get those within 5 years. I'm also investigating putting in a windmill or 2, and solar roof tiles to generate our own power. My goal is by 2011, we will be capable of being off the grid.

Moving Forward

2007-12-27T07:12:57Z

I have been sitting on Workflowsuite for what seems like forever. It has been a vision of mine to make available a suite of tools for small business for a low subscription price. Many of the tools I either use myself or would use as a small business owner if I could ever finish them up. I've finally resigned to the fact that I probably can't code everything myself and need to bring in an arsenal of developers to get this project finished. It has been in the making for over 5 years. Now, without the help of venture capital or any sort of funding or investors, I am going to have to get some sort of cheap labor. I can write code, but there are many out there who can probably do it for cheaper. So, anyone know any good outsourcing companies? I have been involved in too many overseas debacles, but the common thread to all of them was that the U.S. customer did very little as far as direction for the IT vendor. I have countless design documents, function/component diagrams, and HTML pages and screenshots to pass along. I'm hoping that by taking most of the architecting, graphic design, and User Interface design out of the equation, I can come away with at least a phase one release of tools.

Here is the plan for phase I:
Simple Email Client (Free)
Contact Lists (Free)
Email Newsletters/Marketing (Pay Service)
Survey Building (Pay Service)
Form building and processing (Free/Pay based on options)
Sales Pipeline (Pay Service)
Project Management (Pay Service)
Timesheets (Pay Service)
Invoicing (Pay service)
Expense Tracking (Pay Service)
Bug/Defect Tracking (Pay Service)

Phase II I hope to tackle some industry specific tools, including estimating tools for IT and construction. Some of the above may drop to phase II, depending on the depth of the Gloriel Technologies IT funds bucket. The goal is to create a single source for automating all aspects of a small to medium business from marketing, prospecting, leads, sales, engineering/manufacturing, tracking resources, shipping, and customer relations.

I hope to unveil phase I around 4/1/08, but I think I've said, "I'd like to unveil by (current date + 4 months)," many times before. Hopefully this time it is for real - I have heard countless stories of developer paid $X to get help on a site (typically less than $5k), or worked 6-18 months themselves, got some sales and marketing folks, and turned a solo, midnight oil, mountain dew/red bull operation into a 6-7 figure operation within 12-24 months. My goal isn't to have a big business, but more so to finally get this vision executed and see if it can be of service to others out there.

Of course, if there are any out there looking to plant some seed capital, please inquire!

More Paralysis of Analysis

2007-12-22T10:12:00Z

I stumbled across a great deal on Kitchen Cabinets while looking for wood doors for our house. We have finished the drywall and have the first coat of primer on. Anyway, these cabinets are ready-to-assemble (RTA), which I have had some mixed reviews from friends.

Cabinets from Pinnacle

After pricing everything out, it would cost around $3800 for all of our cabinets for our 15x20 kitchen. So the pondering begins - I have searched the ends of the internet-earth for the best deals in cabinetry to no avail. The big box stores have such ridiculous mark up, and the RTAs are the only thing I can find on-line. Lowe's came in around $7000 for a comparable kitchen...

For now, I am still progressing on the wood ceilings. I managed to work a good deal with my final drywall crew (took 3 tries), and they did all of the high work in the great room, the basement stairs, and the ceilings in the childrens' rooms for $1200! So I have the first floor to do the wood ceilings. We also have plenty of heat, as the gas furnace, wood fireplace, and heat pump have all been hooked up.

The latest plan is to press the county inspectors to let us in with either partial occupancy for just the first floor, or try to get in without flooring. We'll see...

Clearysoft's fate

2007-12-07T10:12:00Z

Not only has this lovely state hiked the sales tax to 6%, but now has decided to stick it to us IT-ers with a sales tax. Lovely. That ought to promote growth for the IT sector in Maryland. I'm sure everyone in the area will be fighting to get office space now in the already congested Rockville/Bethesda area...if the federal government wasn't here, we'd be just another midwest ghost town.

Anyway, I received a letter in the mail recently stating that my business would cease to be in existence because they never received my property tax forms. I would be responsible for a filing fee, reinstatement fee, and any applicable taxes, plus a $75 fee for filing...so there is a fee to run a business, then a tax, which is somehow different, then a fee for filing the fee, then a fee if you want proof of payment of the fee. Huh? On top of that, they lost two quarterly checks so I was assessed a penalty for not paying my taxes...after submitting more paperwork, I was told to wait 60+ days for my refund. So they can penalize you within 5 days, but can't pay out for 2 months...hmm...

So now I will re-organize the business and try to take an agressive approach to capitalize on the growing software-as-a-service (SaaS) business. More on that later...

More and more and more Drywall...

2007-10-11T06:10:00Z

Wow - I had no idea what I was in for! This is taking forever!!! We hope to finish up the 1st floor this week. I was at Lowe's talking to my buddy at the contractor's desk - he said I should get my 3 closest friends to just zip through it in 3-4 days. So I asked him when he was available. :) After running my yap with my buddy at Lowe's, and talking with our drywall finisher, I now have 2 helpers with the hanging of the drywall and for working on the siding! Very good stuff!!! Anyway, I've found some great resources for hanging and finishing drywall:

Hanging: http://www.easy2diy.com/cm/easy/diy_ht_index.asp?page_id=35720188
More hanging: http://www.hometime.com/Howto/projects/drywall/drwl_4.htm
Finishing: http://www.drywallinfo.com/

Also, now that we're getting to the finishing, here are some links of stuff that I've found for houses we're modeling after:

Lastly, I made a visit to my friends up in Hicksville, MD yesterday looking for wood for my beams, mantles, and floors. Unbelievable prices! Hickory for $2.40 per square feet!!! My fireplace mantle is going to run me about $20-25 in materials. If you plan on doing any woodworking, it is worth the trip: Hicksville Planing Mill
14464 Hicksville Rd
Clear Spring, MD , 21722-1240
Phone: 301-842-3474 That's it for now - next up, painting and some cabinetry.

We're rolling now!

2007-09-05T07:09:00Z

Amazingly enough, we are ahead of schedule on something! August 31st marked the begining of year 3 on the property, and we haven't had anything finish early until this week. I had ballparked the insulation to take 4-5 working days, meaning 2 weeks on the calendar. We were able to finish everything in 3 days, taking just one week.

In celebration of this monumental feat, we hung some drywall. I've been looking up at down for some good drywallers at a good rate, and came to the conclusion that in order to meet our budget (what little money remains), I should at least hang the drywall myself. After one week, we have 5 rooms about halfway done. I've encountered some issues with the framing in each room which must be corrected.

I also met with a drywall finisher today. He has become my new best friend! For $20 per hour, he is going to come and work 3-4 days per week, and he'll show me how to become an expert finisher. Since we're saving a bunch with him doing the finishing, he is going to help with the stone work on the fireplace as well. Previously, the best price I found for drywall was $10k+! He said about 2 weeks and we should be ready for paint! It pays off to do a little work, be patient, and shop around. I've seen some of his work, and it is top notch.

Here are some of the tips he shared with me:

Since the walls are 9'2", and the drywall is 4'6" tall, he said to hang the floor first 3/4" off the floor, then the ceiling butted flush (counter to popular belief) - this leaves a 1" strip between the pieces - he said to fill that between the larger pieces, then mud over all of it; the final coat of mud will have feathered out about 18" around the seam in the larger pieces
When hanging the drywall in the upstairs, which has 8'1" walls, hang the ceiling first, then the bottom sheet below with a 1/8" gap for the mud to take - this makes the first coat more effective and makes the taping and finishing better in the end
Use a roto-zip to save time, using the inside of the boxes, window frames, and door frames as a guide, but go slowly...I haven't learned this art - instead the roto-zip spins crazily and it looks like a drunk tried to make the cuts

I'm hoping to make this a little more informative in the future, instead of some ramblings about our misery at the compound...stay tune for some more useful (hopefully) tricks/tips as I learn them building our house...