Phalaenopsis

My Ikea orchid, in bloom again (3rd year).

The Steam Machine

For our current project of screening in a porch to be my temporary studio space, David built a machine to steam wood.

Here's the machine! The body of it is a piece of (6 inch?) PVC pipe.

The steam is produced by a kettle on a Coleman camp stove. (The second kettle is just backup, which we ended up not needing and is being used as a prop for the steam pipe).

Here's the joint where the steam enters the pipe. The original version had a smaller pipe, but the larger diameter pipe made a huge difference in the effectiveness of the machine.

Here's the connection to the kettle. The piece that enters the kettle was shaved to fit.

This is the end where the wood fits into the pipe. The screw cap controls how much steam can escape. The whole cap comes off for quick access.

The machine worked flawlessly-- except when we let the kettle run dry and the plastic handle on the lid of the kettle melted. It now has a wooden handle.

Path Lighting- Before and After

Before...

After!!

The view up the path... it's really hard to see in picture. It's not usually quite this dark... depends on how well adjusted your eyes are the the darkness.

And here it is with the lights... it's really pretty, and much less of a guessing game to find the steps.

Installing Path/Deck lighting

After researching various kits online and in stores, I ended up choosing this kit by Lowe's store brand for lighting: Portfolio. It was a pretty cost effective kit-- $60 for 6 lights, including the transformer. I ended up using two 6-light kits and a one stand alone bollard for the one place where there wasn't anything to attach a light to. The photo above is the contents of one of the 6 light kits.

The lights were pretty easy to install... just mark where you want them, level, and screw them into place.

The lights attach to the main power cable from the transformer. They pierce the cable with little prongs. Here you can see the wire guide, and I'm about to screw on the cap that will clamp the wire down onto the sharp prongs.

On the deck, I installed the lights onto posts, and ran the main cable under the deck. I secured everything with nail-in cable guides and zip ties. On the path, I installed the lights on the ends of the railroad ties that line the path, and buried the cable in the dirt alongside the railroad ties.

The transformer has a photo-sensitive cell, so the lights come on when it gets dark and turn off when it gets light. They can also be set to turn off 4, 6, or 8 hours after dark.

A Forest in the Bedroom

This was my first ever stencil project, but it worked out beautifully. It sort of looks like wallpaper... but I can't afford the wallpapers I love, and I cringe a little at the thought of taking it down again when I get tired of it. It just seemed a lot simpler to paint what I wanted.

This Ansel Adams print of aspens has stuck in my mind since the first time I saw it. I think it would be incredibly calming to wake up to a forest every morning.

This is a doodle I did in my sketchpad during a long, drawn-out faculty meeting.

There are a couple readymade stencils out there. This is one by Cutting Edge Stencils has a bit too much detail for my taste... and it is only 48 inches high, so I was afraid there would be an obvious line in the middle of my wall. And, I wanted to paint the negative spaces between the trees, not the trees themselves. The Stencil Library has one that is larger and paints the negative spaces, but once again, it is too busy, I wanted a simpler design. And, the wall size size stencil... which is enormous... is 140 euros.

I decided to make my own. I found this plastic posterboard at the local craft store, and it is just the perfect material for making a stencil. Blank stencils only came in a tiny 10x10 sheet, but the plastic posterboard is 22x28 inches. I taped a couple sheets together with packing tape to make a 44x28 inch sheet.

I drew with a dry erase marker, so that I could just rub away a line and redraw it. I drew the lines freehand, without a ruler, so that they would have an organic character.

I cut out the space between the trees with a small boxcutter knife.

So there are my supplies... a 4 inch foam roller, a regular paint tray, paint stirrer and an opener for the paint can.

I decided to use Sherwin Williams Translucent Metallic Technique Finish. They're actually discontinuing this paint, so I got it on clearance for $5!! But they say they have a replacement metallic paint, so if they are out of this one they can probably still help you out. Lowes also carries a metallic paint, but they wouldn't give me a sample, and there is all this oddness about the fact that their metallics need to be paired with other colors... so I decided to pass on $20 for a little can that I wasn't sure would work.

Since this is the first time I've ever stenciled, I decided to try it out on a piece of brown craft paper.

When you're stenciling with a foam roller, you want to load it up so that the entire roller gets an even coating, then squeeze most of the paint out of the roller by rolling it back and forth along the ridges of the paint tray. You roller should be almost dry.

Peel the stencil away, and there it is! Perfect!

I'm glad I did a test, because I ended up changing a few things. My initial idea was to stencil the bottom of the wall, then the top. But I decided there was no way that was going to look seamless. So I made my stencil twice as large. I used 4 sheets of plastic posterboard, and my finished stencil was 88 inches tall and 28 inches wide. The wall is actually about 102 inches high.

But it actually worked out that the stencil was smaller than the wall for two reasons. First, there was a radiator in the way along part of the wall. And more importantly, the extra room at the top of the wall gave me space to use lots of painters tape to hold the stencil in place. I had planned to use Scotch Repositionable Adhesive, but my stencil was just to large and heavy for that to work. Instead, I used lots of painter's tape, and the tape actually became extensions of the trees at the top and bottom of the stencil. Sometimes I even made an extra branch with tape.

BTW, I painted the wall a few days ago with two coats of Behr Premium Plus Ultra, in a gray-blue color ("Windsurf"), in Eggshell finish.

Here is the finished wall. I even went over the doorframe.

Okay, so it is a little frivolous to stencil a closet... but isn't it romantic to have a forest behind your clothes? It reminds me of the C.S. Lewis's wardobe that lead to Narnia. And I was on a roll, it only took another 45 minutes to complete.

Filing the First Time Homebuyer's Credit

I've been procrastinating on this one, big time. I hate even thinking about taxes-- even when I know I'm getting money back. I even thought about paying someone to do this for me, but I figured it can't be that hard, and I want my full $8,000! But I just did it, and it's not that bad, really. Here's how I did it, step by step. By the way, I'm clearly a first time homebuyer, and I was in contract before April 30, 2010, and closed in May, 2010. I decided to file the credit as an amendment to my 2009 return.

1) I dug up a copy of my 2009 tax return. That was pretty easy-- I efiled with Turbotax, so the PDF was right on my computer.

2) I found the envelope with all of my closing documents, that my lawyer handed to me after the closing. I know this is totally negligent-- it's been floating around on the backseat of my car since my closing, almost a month ago! I'm going to file it away properly right after I finish this, I promise. The form you'll need is the HUD-1 form-- which, thankfully, was clearly titled and happily sandwiched away among all sorts of other incomprehensible documents.

3) I needed two forms from the IRS website: the 5405 and the 1040x. I printed out the forms, and downloaded the PDF instructions (i1040x) and (i5405), just in case.

4) Filling out the 5405 was really easy. Answer the questions, find your purchase price (it's on the HUD-1), enter your "modified adjusted gross income" from your 2009 return, make some calculations, which happily add up to an $8000 credit!

5) Next, fill out the 1040x. A little more complicated, but not so bad, if you have your 2009 return in front of you. Basically, it asks you to re-enter a bunch of the number from your 2009 return. Then on line 14, you get to check the box next to 5405 (which you just filled out) and enter your $8000 credit. And if you got all the numbers right, it all adds up to an $8000 credit in the end.

6) So in reading the directions, I discovered there is one more document you want to include-- your original contract, which shows you were under contract before April 30th.

7) Then, you just put everything in an envelope-- the 1040x, the 5405, a copy of your HUD-1 and a copy of your contract (if you closed after April 30, 2010) and mail it to the IRS. The mailing address is on page 5 of the 1040x instructions. Why they can't put it on the form, or at the end of the instructions, I have no idea...

Hopefully I'll get a check in awhile... the directions say 8-12 weeks, but I've heard that it can take up to 4 months.

My disclaimer: I'm definitely not an expert on taxes-- I'm just sharing my own experiences!