Thirsty for more

Here is the garden as it stands this week. We have composted the overgrown mixed green forest, which is too bitter to eat. That will probably not be returning next year. There is a new gardening rule, that 100% of the household has to like what is being planted in the garden or it has to be easily distributed to the work population to be in the garden. See ya Radicchio.

Any day now the one of many many tomatoes should be turning. These are the Roma's that we started from seed. Big Joe has been tending to the tomato plants when he comes over, mostly trimming down the stalks that don't have flowers or fruit, so all of the plant energy is redirected to the tomato. It appears to be working, really well.

What's up Doc? Bugs would love our garden, we have carrots. Garden helper Nathan was over again and helped thin out some of the carrots and took some home for his snack. He loves the garden, mostly for looking for slimy things.

As part of our eco-friendly household, the rain barrel has finally made it's way to the garden, instead of sitting in the driveway making the neighbor ask what the big white thing is for. We are using a recycled Mt. Dew syrup container.

Here is a picture of our compost bin, which has a giant potato plant growing from it. That plant started from some composted potato parts and has a life of it's own now. So we have some good soil already at the bottom of the composter. The rain barrel is connected to the gutter which drains half of the garage roof. Connected by a Burple (for those of you who can remember the drink mix/container from the 80's). It is 55 gallons of rain water. Today it rained and now it is completely full and ready to water the thirsty garden under the summer sun.

Mt. Dew sponsors the 810 Garden and the House Manager.

This is a picture of our compost in the bin. As I was turning the compost, I happened upon this guy, The Leopard Slug. He was no less than 8" long and fat and slimy and gross. I was going to catch him and send him home to House Manager, but he dug himself back in before I could make the proper transport device. He apparently is happy making my compost and I am happy for him. He just needs to stay in the bin and out of the garden, then we will all be happy and not have to introduce him to Mr. Salty.

We also learned this week that Broccoli is a cool weather and early spring crop. Our broccoli's are big and leafy, but apparently there will be a slim chance that we will see any veggies from that plant. Starting the garden before May seems like a daunting task, but will be revisited over the long winter lull.

Week 5

The walls are still exposed to the world, but they are slowly getting covered up. This week by insulation hopefully next week by drywall. This will mark the second room in the house to receive insulation, which makes the Northeast corner of the house the most efficient part of the house, while the other three-quarters remains a little chilly in the winter. Which may explain why we have three cats, to keep us warm at night in the winter. Obviously.

See you on the other side.........

Or will we? It is too early to tell. We installed the new door this weekend which was an unexpected time suck. We decided on a white door, which will dictate painting all of the upstairs trim over, which needs it anyhow, what's another side project at this point? Not only is it white to match the new bathroom, but it is a full lite opaque glass door. This will allow for a lot of light to come in the bathroom to offset the future navy tile and dark wood vanity. The silhouette test has not been verified, but we are looking for volunteers.

A small triumph, the plumbing is mostly complete, at least in the floor it is. After some field modifications, which in the end should make everyone sleep a little better at night, the plumbing passed the water test, which consisted of neon dyed water through the pipes. With the help of some helpful suggestions of using "Shark Bites" copper plumbing connections, the supply lines were little trouble. The only plumbing remaining is the connections of sink, shower and toilet. This story may not be finished, yet.

So it's celebration time. Happy Birthday to Sachiko. There are exactly the same number of candles on the cake as is her age. Thanks to Baker Amy for making another awesome Strawberry cake!

Week 4

Bathroom progress has been slow this week due to a jam packed work week and long hours for deadlines. The modified plumbing has made it from the floor of Lowe's to the floor of the bathroom and that is about it. With some help from Best Man Steve, a couple of sheets of drywall were hung in the closet area and above the tub. Plumbing is still in progress and that will be left at that. Luckily, there is plenty of content on the garden to supplement the inactivity with the bathroom.

Edamame's are coming in, for those of you who are from Ohio and not Asian, that is soy beans. The squirrels ate the rest of the soy bean plants and we are left with 4, which should provide one dinner's worth of edamame.

The first harvest of non-herbs are the banana peppers which were made into pizza. We have 3 pepper plants that are going yield far more than we can consume, so small batches are making their way to work for distribution.

Diesel is over the remodel already, which is similar to the face he showed on the kitchen remodel. He found shelter in the shopping bag on the bed and was hoping that his dad would stop hammer-drilling the bathroom floor and just finish the plumbing already.

Week 3 - Parts and Pieces Weekend

Field Modification #1-b

Upon further review of last week's blog post, there were several comments and concerns about the plumbing connections, specifically the 2" drain into the 4" sanitary elbow that warranted a second look. With the review and recommendations of a Professional Engineer, a new modified plumbing layout has been started using all stock plumbing connections. Currently the new layout is laying on the old layout ready for installation this weekend.

Pieces Part 1

The quest for a vanity has finally come to rest with the arrival of the new Crate and Barrel catalogue. With some minor modifications made to the sideboard piece illustrated above, a new vanity will emerge. We made a mock up bathroom setting with a bowl for the future vessel sink and a candlestick for the future faucet. In the end, this option will still be cheaper than the stock cabinet and countertop at the big box home improvement warehouses.

We also have found and purchased the faucet to go with the vanity. We are still on the hunt for the vessel sink and lighting. We have a mirror picked out until something better comes along.

Not much progress was made on the bathroom because we headed to Toledo for a few side tasks. Helping Amy move into her new apartment on Saturday and celebrating Lexi's 8th birthday on Sunday. Lexi loved her birthday presents of Mt. Dew and Hello Kitty bag filled with goodies.

We returned home to inspect the garden which was subject to a monsoon on Saturday afternoon and found that the garden loved the rain. Too bad that the rain barrel has yet to be connected to the downspout to collect the rain this time. The sweet banana peppers will be the first vegetable harvest made from the garden besides the lettuce. They went from little nubbins to actual peppers over the course of a week.

What does your garden grow??

810 House and Garden, you may have been wondering where the garden portion has been to date. Here is living proof that the 810 Garden is alive and kicking. We decided this year to start a vegetable garden in the backyard as part of our sustainable lifestyle. Joe recently joined the wife and passed his LEED AP test, which is the sustainable building professional accreditation program run by the US Green Building Council. This officially makes the Berardi household the greenest house in Bexley. We have a plat of yard that has full sun most of the day which makes it a prime spot for a garden. The garden is approx. 275 s.f. of space to bring us bounty throughout the summer. We have chosen to plant and maintain an organic garden that includes no use of pesticides or chemicals and was started with organic seeds free of any genetic alterations. Most of the plants were started from seed, which the exception of the herb portion of the garden.

To date the most challenging aspect is to remember to water the garden (or in some cases to turn off the water to avoid a 10 hr watering spree) and the untold woodland creatures that have eaten the stalks of the beans, but not consume the sprouts. We have employed some anti-creature methods which include but not limited to: wind chimes, garlic and pepper spread at the base of the plants, lasers, magic and marigolds.

In addition to the garden, we have also started a compost bin for all of our yard waste, garden trimmings and house scraps that include but not limited to: fruit, veggies, egg shells, tea bags, cat hair, egg cartons, coffee grinds, dryer lint. The compost does not smell one bit. It is amazingly supporting a plant life all to itself, as identified by Sachiko as a potato plant. So there appears to be fertile soil already at the base of the compost bin.

The next garden project is to assemble the rain barrel to capture the rainwater off of the garage roof to water our garden with. This weekend there is a rain barrel seminar at a local sustainable building product showroom, Greenovate. We have procured the rain barrel, which is a recycled Mt. Dew syrup container from Cincinnati. Eventually we intend to implement a drip irrigation system from the rain barrel to water the garden.

Week 2 - 4th of July Weekend

Field Modification #1
The first field modification came early on in the weekend, before the foreman even arrived in Columbus, a phone call that changed the destiny of the floorplan. As you may remember from the kitchen remodel, the architectural element of the abandoned chimney was used in the corner of the kitchen. This same chimney in the bathoom was taking up valuable real estate, so upon a little site investigation, the chimney came down via human chain of rubble removal.

Floor Plan Rev. 1 07-03-09
Removing the chimney now allows for a bigger vanity, not 24" like the existing, bigger mirror, modified lighting, more storage etc. etc. The floor plan now looks a little like the sketch below, not to scale.

Much of the remainder of the layout revolves around the location of the sanitary stack and the flange for the toliet. The new customized flange and plumbing is illustrated below. All of the existing plumbing was located within the concrete subfloor, which with the return of the hammer-drill, help of Best Man Steve and Mt. Dew, came out with little incident.

While plumbing was reworked, there was time to rough in some new lighting above the shower. Joe laid out the lighting plan on the ceiling, along with a Plan B layout, just in case the joists in the ceiling didn't want to coordinate with our renovation below.

The cats are not amused by the noise, dust and general inconvience to their routine. For the most part they have stayed away from the disaster zone. They will occasionally snoop around where they are not supposed to, but the shaft is now closed up and fear of a cat in the hole has passed. Shrimpy illustrates some of the accent tile that will be used.

Color samples were made to try and decide on a color, and while paint was on sale for the holiday weekend. We have decided on the Sherwin Williams "Mountain Air" in the Duration line, which is no VOC paint. Mountain Air is on the left of the color swatches below. The floor tile is also in view, better pics will come along, as soon as the tile arrives from the boat from Italy. In celebration of the 4th, Nathan came over for the Bexley parade and then chilled and helped with some odds and ends around the house. He helped dust the steps, pick up pine cones in the back yard, torment the cats, and throw construction debris down the chimney stack, which we will call demolition debris removal methods.

Injuries
This weekend was short of a miracle with only minor scrapes and bruises to report. The total number of painkillers consumed is around the 12 per worker ratio.

Trips to Home Improvement Warehouses: 5

Pictured below is the bribe to get Jenny to demolish the bathroom and become House Manager for a week. They are worth every penny.

Part of the House Manger duties is meal prepartion, below is a delicious meal prepared with fresh cilantro from the garden. More pictures of the garden portion of the blog will be coming soon.