Whack Attack

The largest looming project at the third house from the left is the back yard (including reinstalling the deck etc). Until we begin that major campaign the yard must be defended from the formidable Baltimore weed invasion. Enter the weed whacker. My dad owned a corded whacker, and my memories of that tool suggested that it would handily clear our small backyard jungle. So I made my way to the hardware store and, my lord, I met an intimidating array of whackers from Gasoline powered trimmers to battery powered units with prices as high as $300:

I found my tool at the end of the aisle: a $30 corded unit, which looked like my dad's trimmer, fit the bill. Here is a photo of the whacker assembled at the house, ready to do battle.

I made two passes, with the second in a demolition mode bringing the line down to the ground and tearing out weeds to the root. Here is the before and after:

Shelves for the Basement

I've have made some progress taming our basement with shelving. Here are some cantilevered shelves that I use to store tools over the work bench.

I also added 30" deep storage shelves on either side of our basement fire place. Here is a before/after of the basement.

         

Where did all the junk go? On to these big shelves, of course

Here is how they were made: 2"x3"s hung from the rafters define the frame and then two shelves with 2"x3" cross-bracing hold the plywood tops.

Finally, I installed shelves inside the fireplace to hold our house paint. Here is a before/after set of pictures. The shelves were recycled from old 2"xWides" that the carpenters used to install the windows.