Our new house has two traditional wood burning fireplaces with masonry chimneys. We had them cleaned and inspected, which revealed significant damage to the mortar in the joints between the chimney tiles. Given the high cost to repair, the inefficiencies or traditional wood burning fireplaces, and that we have so much firewood on our property, I decided to install a wood burning insert instead.

Our new house had signs of mice living in the basement ceiling, so we went on a hunt to fix the problem and replace the drop ceiling, which had accumulated an odor.

Our house produces a huge volume of yard waste with tons of leaves and cleanup from perennials, and there is no pickup service option available. Only option is to make it go away with a compost pile.

We moved into a new house in July 2023. The house has a screened-in patio which was a perfect opportunity to build some furniture. I set out looking for inspiration on the internet and stumbled across this video from John Builds It. Set out to build a set of my own.

I made an end table to match my standing desk. Designed something with black powder coated steel legs and multiple levels of simple shelves, taking design queues from the style of the desk.

I was manipulated into making a cat tower for a couple of cats who are apathetic towards virtually everyone, but especially me. They plotted and leveraged my relationship with my mother-in-law to get me to do their bidding. I’m out here playing checkers and the cats are playing chess…

There’s been a really strong burning oil odor in the cabin of my 2004 e46 330xi. Opened the hood and saw oil leaking out from the valve cover gasket. This car’s problems just keep coming.

The scrap pile in my workshop was getting really out of hand so I made a scrap storage cart to organize things. Rather than reinventing the wheel, I deferred to this nice set of plans provided by Jackman Works. YouTube video available here.