salvaged redwood bench

 This is a bench I made last summer from some salvaged redwood I bought for $1 per foot (for 2x6's) at the rebuild center.  It was the only time I saw redwood there, but I'd love to find some more.  The bench is made for Rachael's tiny front porch.  As you can see I built the top sitting-surface sloping back at about a 30 degree angle.

chicken-proof pea apse

Here is a chicken-proof pea apse I made using bamboo that Rachael grew and dried.  The problem is that the chickens run around and eat all the vegetables, so we needed to fence them out.  But you also want to be able to get in there to weed.   You can see the trellis is a tripod of bamboo (Rachael made that) with twine running up two faces.  The third face (the south face) is open making an apse shape.  This allows us to plant inside the apse.

 We dug some post holes in the rich dirt (thanks to the chicken shit) to set the bamboo posts.  I then filled the holes with some clay we dug out of one of the other beds.

 I tied chicken wire to the post with twine and installed two doors to allow for weeding.

 The peas are about one foot high right now.  This picture is with the door open.

Here is the finished chicken-proof pea apse.  In front of it you can see a cold frame Rachael and I made from salvaged floor joists and and salvaged picture window

Here are some seeds we are sprouting in the cold frame.

New Roof

Here is the completed roof I built for my landlord.  Including my a leap of faith. And look the roof didn't fall down.

lamp

Here's a cool chandelier I found at the Rebuilding Center.  I took it apart and re-wired to the light socket with a wall plug (it had a wire to tie directly into a house's wiring).  Also ran the cord down the side between two of the panes of glass.  I also bought a wall dimmer switch at the Rebuilding Center that I plan to make a little box for and the splice into the cord.  The cord came from the Rebuilding Center too - I think it was a nickel.

bringing down the roof

ripping down the roof - Rachael helping too.

BELL

.

This is a bell I made when I worked in the Arcosanti Bronze Foundry.  It's a 104 to be exact.  The form is standard pattern, but the reliefs on the outside are unique to each bell - pressed free form into to the sand molds before casting as in these pics from 2005 below of a mold.  Also me pouring bronze.  (I also made those patchwork curtains in the background.)

Day Bag

This is day bag I'm making for the trip Rachael and I are planning through Turkey and Syria.  I'm using the core of a bag I started making in Boston, but never finished. Mostly I plan to use this to carry around my sketch book, pencils and daily essentials.  It's cut to the format sketch book I plan to make for the trip.  You can see I quilted a divider that runs down the center of the inside of the bag (foam between canvass).  This will serve to give shape and also allow to whole bag to become a cushion to sit on while drawing. In the past I've sat for hours (sometimes days) or cold or wet or very hot stone working on a drawing (see older post of Sultanahmet Camii in Istanbul - very painful to sit there doing that.).

 The core is made from canvass. Most of it salvaged from the cushions from an Ikea couch that belonged to my bother that were given to me by my Mother who pulled them off a curb in Chicago - my brother was going to toss them.  She brought them to me in Boston when she visited. It all double thick and double stitched.

I've going to sew the checked cotton into a shell over the core.  The leather straps come from my highschool back pack that my mother bought for me second-hand from a army surplus store in MPLS when I was 16 - that bag lasted about ten years of repairs and patches and died in Boston.

One last feature - you'll see the core has flared sides.  I plan to put a button on each side to allow the side to be folded in to make to bag smaller when needed.