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Barney Help

·1 min
Projects Hovel
Author
Lance Barker
Exploring my own creative expression and building things that help people.

Barney lends a hand!

New framing and some sheathing

My entry was in rough shape. Barney has been telling me he would stop by to give me a hand. He did last week and we decided that working on the entry would be a good project.  We quickly decided to peel off a layer to see what was going on underneath.  Before you know it, the whole thing was demolished.

Then came the shock.  There was a huge load of trash underneath the house.  The previous owner decided it would be cheaper and easier just to dump his trash under the house!  Within a few hours I had taken a pickup load of trash to the dump. Cost: $25.00.

Barney working on the bench

So, Barney started from the dirt and built up the structural frame. Then we sheathed it with a pile of 1x6 DF planks that I thankfully got for free through Greg. Over 3 days Barney rebuilt my entry with a little bench for shoe shedding.

My job was then to sand and stain.  Done as of yesterday. I’m happy!

Barney’s work is done

Ready for sanding and stain

Done, with a newly framed picture

Related

Color

·1 min
Hovel
Some people are afraid of color in their homes. Or maybe they just don’t care about color. I was one of those people. I thought that walls in a home should just disappear, that it’s what you hang on them that matters. Maybe color on walls can take away from whatever it is you want to hang on them. But life is too short to live in a beige world, I think. 

Getting Along?

·1 min
Hovel Family
While working on the house, I’ve been working on these two as well. It’s getting better. Spanky (the cat) want to snuggle, while Rou wants to herd. This is the compromise. A somewhat tenuous truce but the beginnings of a real truce nonetheless.

Year End Goals

·1 min
Hovel
Although I’ve had to scale back my expectations for the hovel as a livable space in the near term, I do have some goals. I want to be finished with the entry, media and living rooms as well as have one working toilet before 2011.