Our New Open Floor Plan

...cast to gently defend open floor plans. Naturally, I’m spending this month making our house, gasp, more open. Let me explain. When I installed the floor in the living room in the aughts I discovered an opening that used to exist between our living room and what we use as our bedroom. Back in 1920 this house was a one bedroom with a kind of sitting room open to the living room. I’ve also long know that the closet used to have a window in it that wa...

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How to Make a Hexagonal Raised Bed

...ine that supplied the clay for our adobe oven. Our landscaper has proposed making this part of our yard a rain garden. More on that project later in the year. One disadvantage of beds with this odd shape is that they are harder to critter-proof. I don’t consider this a deal killer, but it’s something to think about if you have the hoards of marauding mammals that nightly assault our backyard even in this very urban part of Los Angeles. You can see...

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Saturday Tweets: Too Many Tweets!

...it’s not an Uber or a self-driving car… it’s the bus! Our latest episode, “Making the Bus Sexy Again,” is here. https://t.co/Qn6WT81cQU pic.twitter.com/xxdXriepKI — The War on Cars (@TheWarOnCars) March 7, 2019 I quit as a math teacher in the public schools in America when I realized I had to choose between doing the BS to prove I was doing my job, or actually doing my job. Complying with the BS made real teaching impossible. My wife's last da...

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Counterintelligence

...ing down on that cheese. Few things in nature are as deliberative as a cat making a call on jumping. The assault on our kitchen counters actually came in two parts, somewhat like finding an alternate route up Mt. Everest. The first step came two weeks ago when the cats figured out they could jump on the counter adjacent to the stove. From there they must have spotted the other counter and a week later made the dinner party assault on cheese summit...

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Unflipping the Gentrifence

...n essential resource for anyone interested in historical preservation. I recycled all of the old gentrifence, but had to buy some more lumber to complete the project. To make the oddly shaped pickets, I used a combo of table saw cuts along with a jig for my jigsaw. Making jigs increases speed and safety. I’m not entirely happy with the metal handrail but, since I had it already, I didn’t want to let it go to waste. It’s functional and I don’t have...

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