Edward Terry

In preparation of the birthday party Linda is going to throw for my 30th, and by the advice of my buddy Abraham who always knows what’s cool, I built a drink rail on the deck. It uses 4 4×4 posts sunk about 2 feet into the ground and “quickcreted” in the holes. The posts are then connected to the decks main supports with 4×4-4×4 joist hangers. 2 2×6 runners attach to these posts the full length of the rail, and then the main plank itself rests on top of these. The plank is notched to fit around the two main posts.

The light supports are 3/16’’ coated cable with eye hooks in the posts and turnbuckles to tighten them up. The light strings themselves are attached to the cable with UV resistant zip ties.

We decided that this opened up the deck because folks would not stand in the back corner for fear of falling off. The light runners really cleaned up the hodgepodge of lights that were in the tree next to the deck. I can’t decide if the whole thing looks like a beach bar, or a Mexican boxing ring.

Thanks to Abraham for being the voice of reason during this build, and to Linda for the donation of the lights themselves. A couple of imported beers and a very old circular saw met their end during the construction of this drink rail.

Hello everybody! Sorry so long between posts its been pretty crazy around here. So I wanted to show off our garage apartment progress. The slabs been poured, then the frame was put up, and sided. what you see here is about 2/3rds of the way done now.

Framing:

West Side:

East Side

Phil is having a good time wiring the structure for networking and I am installing speaker wire this weekend. Here is the floor-plan again for reference:

The upstairs bathroom has a nice 19” deep bathtub so far. We thought about where TVs and other appliances should go and made a few requests that should prove to be pretty pimp looking when completed. Getting close to being done and I will keep you posted.

“Of course I do..” – Dr. Emmet Brown , Back to the Future

My brother and I have been trying for a quite a while to get a garage apartment built behind the house and we just completed a major step which was pulling the permit from the city. It was like pulling teeth. The city had enacted the “McMansion” ordinance which is very strict on size limitations within city limits among other things and we were the first applicants to apply for a residential permit under the full ordinance. What’s interesting about the whole permit thing is that its very subjective, its how people FEEL about one thing or another, mixing that with numbers and multiple trips to the permit office makes for an emotional reaction at the whole process itself. Think Jack Nicholson in “The Shining” emotional.

So take a gander at the floorplan.

My brother has been the lead on this project and when someone tells him he can’t do something , well that’s exactly what he does. GG Phil! Beer Pong will be played, hot rod engines will fire up, and good times will be had within this structure soon.

A coworker had a 1966 Plymouth Fury III sitting in her backyard for quite some time. I saw the car and remembered my Dad telling stories of my Granddad driving one of these things when he started our family’s ranch. So i did some website work for her boyfriend who owned the car and bought it for 500 bucks. My brother and I towed it back to the house about half a mile and parked it in front of the house for all too see. The next day my stepmoms sent a kid form the ranch down in Seguin, TX to come put the car on a flat bed and set it in the barn down there until i come for it. While the car is cool to look at i hope i have not bitten off more than i can chew with this thing. The car is form Illinois and it has major salt/rust damage on the underside of the body panels. Hopefully i can replace those with parts form a company called “Year One” which often has new replacement parts for old cars like this.
From watching a show called “Overhaulin’” on TLC i hope i can get this thing back together using the formula they seem to rely on. It goes some thing like this:

• Disassemble car – All the way down to last nut and bolt.
• Take body off of frame.
• Rebuild frame components for a new rolling chassis. This includes, frame, rear end, brakes, suspension and other parts. The majority of this might be just cleaning and checking existing parts for damage. If they can be used, they will get painted and re-used. If not , the needed components will be ordered and installed.
  
• Put body on casters – Send to Body Shop for body work and paint.
• Receive Body from Body and Paint – Put back on Frame
• Take to Interior shop – To have interior installed.
• Reassemble Car

Local businesses will have to utilized for things like body and paint, interior,glass, and exhaust. Some of the more difficult parts that we are going to have to do ourselves will include plumbing lines and wiring. I’m looking forward to doing this project with my brother. I think it will be fun. (as long as we send everything out and try not to destroy stuff)
Ill be posting updates on this project here at edward.sensite.net. Looking forward to your comments.