Chris, homeowner and handyman, built this temporary railing out of (mostly) leftover furring strips and 2X4s. The final version will feature vertical balusters in a design based on railings at nearby Shaker buildings. Meanwhile, the balcony is safer and we rather like the corn-crib style of these horizontals.
Category Archives: DIY – Do It Yourself
Spar varnish marathon
Working at the workbench
More painting
Spool caddy for telephone cable
Several months ago the phone company, Verizon, dropped off a spool of cable weighing several hundred pounds. Chris built a spool caddy and waited. At long last, the nearest neighbor granted an easement to the nearest utility pole, a date was set for electrical service installation, Chris dug the trench with his father-in-law, National Grid installed the electric cables — and yesterday Chris unwound the cable the length of the trench.
Painting planks, night shift
Trenches inspected and approved
Relocating frogs from our utility trench
Digging the electric service trench
The completion of DIY road construction
Troy Sand & Gravel delivering a load of stone. Each load weighs about 23 tons, and can cover about 60′ of road length.
Pushing out the base stone on the highway fabric.
I rented a Caterpillar D-3 bulldozer from Mario’s hardware in Valatie. With a weight of 15,000 pounds, it is just heavy enough to scrape the top soil. It moves the stone into place easily.
The driveway is about a quarter of a mile long. We have finished the last 170′ of road leading up to the house site. We prepared the base by removing the topsoil and pulling the tree stumps. 12′ wide highway fabric is laid on the path followed by a layer of 3″ stone. A final layer of crusher run is laid on top. We’ve built a strong stable road on the wettest farm field in memory. Strong enough to carry the cement trucks and well-digging equipment to our building site.