1) Since we’ve seen a few wild rabbits and some squirrels we decided to put some fence. This is a flexible, plastic  fencing that was Tenax 3ft x 25ft Green Plastic Poultry Fence from the big box home improvement center.

2.) Adding a perimeter of marigolds for some pest protection.

3.) Also, some great performance of both the plants and seeded vegetables

4.) We also added some support for the tomato plants. The Mrs. found this Ultimato Tomato Cage at Wallyworld. Excellent product.

Check out the squarefoot garden! We are amazed and happy.

My How Our Garden Grows: Update On Our (Almost) Squarefoot Garden Rob Ainbinder - Digital Dad - Chronicling my adventures in DIY, Home Improvement, Barbeque and Fatherhood

Look at the photo below. Starting at the reflection of the light fixture and working down you will see lots of finer scratches going from right to left (actually from the front of the car to the rear of the car).

The problems in the paint... "tunnel scratches"

These are what I call “tunnel scratches”. Why? It’s what happens when you repeatedly go through those auto car washes. The scratches could be anything from overhead brushes to drying cloths that hang vertically to dry your car or, even recycled water that was improperly filtered.

I have been a Meguiar’s fan for few years. Participating in the forums I have learned a lot from the many skilled professionals and car crazy auto appearance fanatics on techniques to enhance and protect the finish of your car. If you want to learn a little about ways to protect and enhance your car’s finish follow along with me. You’ll also see some pictures of our newer car and what I did to improve the appearance.

Step 1: Washing is Not Cleaning and Cleaning is Not Washing

Maybe you are asking yourself if Rob has lost his mind but, the first thing that the Meguiar’s gang would love for you to know is that when you wash your car it’s only the beginning of getting your car/paint clean. And how you wash it will very much determine if you will remove dirt and not add additional scratches to your car’s paint. So, what do you do to prevent additional scratches to your paint? Wash your car with two buckets! Two buckets? Yes, two buckets.
Here’s a video with some highlights on washing

Step 2: To Clay or Not to Clay, That Is the Question

After you have washed and dried your car it’s time to find out if you need to clean it with a claybar. This is the real cleaning and what determines if you will get the car really ready (if needed) for polishing (correcting) and waxing (protecting)

I “clayed” the Nissan… this is one picture of some of the bonded contaminates that I removed. There’s a longer (video) explanation here.

This is stuff off the paint after washing.

Step 3: Polish Away, Polish Away Those Defects

So, we have washed, dried and clayed the car. Now, we will work on the defects in the paint. Now, if your car is parked in the driveway or, you don’t want an absolute show car shine this step might be one where you spend a little less effort. But, what is absolutely essential is that you match the correct polish to the type of paint and problem you are trying to correct. Don’t just assume that the one clearcoat safe polish you have will do the trick… especially if you have more than one car.  In fact, for this Nissan I tried a total of three products before deciding to use…

Meguiar's Ultimate Compound

After polishing with the compound I waxed it and we were done.

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Washing and Cleaning a Car Like a Pro (sort of). Rob Ainbinder - Digital Dad - Chronicling my adventures in DIY, Home Improvement, Barbeque and Fatherhood

Our Almost Square Foot Garden – Update Rob Ainbinder - Digital Dad - Chronicling my adventures in DIY, Home Improvement, Barbeque and Fatherhood

Read along as we plan, build and plant in just a few hours.

To see all the details of the plan click the picture above. Thanks to vegetable-gardening-online for the worksheet.

Our plan was not an exact squarefoot garden in the purest sense but, we did follow squarefoot gardening principles. In a true square foot garden it’s most often square (duh!). However, we did plant for efficiency and space optimization.

So, with plan in hand, plants/seeds purchased we headed out

Our family fitted with footwear and ready for gardening action.

Our raised bed garden is a kit from Sam’s Club was an 8″ Double Raised Bed from Greenland Gardener which makes a 42″ x 84″ garden ($39) and made in the USA ;-) . The great things about this kit from Sam’s Club is it’s heavier, uses no hardware and is less expensive than the kit from Big Blue which is a Frameitall/Bonnie Plant branded raised garden kit ($49) that uses corner hardware and screws.

 So, the first step was to locate a North facing site for the garden which gets 6+ hours of sun. This is no small order in our tree filled yard. My loving Wife scoped out several sites and with that research complete it would be on the perimeter of our backyard. We laid out the pieces to see what it would look like.

The next step I decided on was to remove the grass in the area so we could level the area. This is not mandatory if you have a level location. If you can avoid this step.. do it! We almost did. Removing this grass was the most labor intensive part of the project!

Lily approves of the layout. You can also see the corner blocks which accept the side panels for hardware free assembly (genius!).

See that tool with the green handle? … it’s a gem… removes weeds without backbreaking contortions and I used it to help remove the sod from the area. It’s an Ames TrueTemper Gardener 2-Prong Weeder If it’s possible to love a tool.. my Wife and I both do! Removes weeds from landscaping beds with ease! But, sod was another thing entirely… this “little” area took some muscle. But, when it was done…

garden goodness with landscaping fabric installed.

The gardening gods smiled down on us. Because when we went to return the raised garden bed to Big Blue the Miracle Gro Garden Soil was $2.50/1 cu. ft bag. Sweet! We also picked up a bag of Black Kow … can’t have too much organic material in your soil.

Miracle Gro Garden Soil ready to go in our square foot garden

So, the next step was to mark off the squares for our (almost) square foot garden. There are lots of ways to mark off the squares (wood, old blinds, vinyl) We used what we had… Painter’s tape…

Close up of the back (Northern) row of tomato plants. We planted three varieties of tomatoes (German Johnson, Roma, and Grape) all plants from Bonnie plants.

I decided to use the corner connectors of our raised garden bed kit to hold the plant markers from the Bonnie plants we planted. We’ll see how this works as the plants mature.

Here’s a look at the planted plan…

We decided to reuse the soaker hose and timer from another landscape project to keep the garden watered. This way we ensured the garden would get watered no matter what happened.

Want to see an update on our garden? Check here

Our (Almost) Square Foot Garden Rob Ainbinder - Digital Dad - Chronicling my adventures in DIY, Home Improvement, Barbeque and Fatherhood

In the second grade at Central Elementary School in Methuen, MA we had a Science Fair. Central Elementary was the former district High School and I recall details of my two years there with some vividness.

Central Elementary School (Via Google Maps)

The Science Fair in those days had no restrictions (unlike the rules we experienced with our little one which included: no water,animal or human subject unless supervised by a Scientist). So, what was my experiment/project?
A model replica of Robert Goddard’s liquid propelled rocket.

Robert H. Goddard on March 16, 1926

Besides, how bad could a guy be whose name was Robert? I remember my science fair model’s details with some foggy precision: constructed of plastic straws and a pencil then, taped to a piece of carboard. Simple and to the point.
At this science fair I didn’t win any prize (the same fate befell our kid recently). But, due in large part to my Mom we have remembered his successfull development and launch of a liquid fuel rocket on March 16, 1926 in Auburn, Mass. every year since that second grade science fair. That’s a gift far greater than a ribbon or certificate. If you want to read more about Dr. Goddard check out NASA’s info here.

Congrats to Robert Goddard, “Father of Modern Rocketry” Rob Ainbinder - Digital Dad - Chronicling my adventures in DIY, Home Improvement, Barbeque and Fatherhood

IKEA Framsta & Hoppen

We made a trip to our nearest IKEA recently… that means, more projects! We left IKEA with three new HOPPEN chests and FRAMSTA wall panel system. My Wife and I spent a few hours assembling the HOPPEN chests. Here’s what they look like.

Hoppen chests, assembled.

But…we weren’t done. No sir, there was still a Framsta wall unit to assemble and TV to hang. And another surprise my faithful readers… my first on camera appearance.

Video of the floppy Framsta “panels”

We never put this system together but, undeterred we pursued. The end result was motivation enough. But, what could you learn from us?

1.) The base unit is the TOP and the BOTTOM of one vertical run of panels. This wasn’t terribly clear in the pictograph instructions but, we muddied through it.

2.) Keep the “A” side of the frame facing up… we had to un-assemble and re-assemble several panels because we overlooked this in the instructions.

3.) The entire vertical run of panels is hung on the wall by two fastening points. See those two brackets in the picture below? Those are the only anchor point for a vertical run of Framsta. It was a little freaky….

So what do you do?

Measure carefully, find the wall stud locations and mark them… we also marked the top of each panel location so we could get a visual for the height of the four panels. We used painter’s tape to mark everything.

What do you anchor to the wall with? Well, I really, really like SPAX screws . And why? No pre-drilling  and very good shear strength (350 lbs for our application would be plenty.

350lbs. of load… the wall system was going nowhere once anchored to the 16″ on center wall studs. And my loving Wife was there with me every step of the way. Here she is attaching the mounting clips to the Framsta frame.

This is a picture of the Framsta panels hung and the cables run. It was a little awkward getting the system fastened to the wall but, we got it done with a little muscle.

Tip: The cables must be run BEFORE you mount the TV and BEFORE you install the side caps.

Actually there is a small notch cut out of the end of each rail. And when you stack several panels togther a chase forms  running down the side of each panel end that has room for cables. But, getting the cables around the vertical posts connecting the panels together was a bit trickier. The directions actually show cables being run in a small space between the end of the vertical post and rail of the next panel. No way would a TV power cable fit under there!

I cut a hole for our cables for TV. All I had was a power cable and coax TV cable. The panel material cut pretty easily with a hand saw. I just cut a small upside down V shaped notch at the bottom of the panel. One tip I’ll pass along. Remember that the panel slips into a channel to hold it so you might need your hole a 1/8″ – 1/4″ taller.

Another Tip: When installing the side panel caps you are very close to wall. So, I used a scrap piece of cardboard to slip just behind the panel to give me an area to use my rubber mallet to coax the side caps on without leaving a mark on the wall.

The next step was to mount the TV. This was the moment of truth… would the wall system hold our modest 20″ LCD TV?

Why, yes it did!

And here’s a picture of the finished project? What do you think?

Installing IKEA Framsta Above Hoppen Dressers Rob Ainbinder - Digital Dad - Chronicling my adventures in DIY, Home Improvement, Barbeque and Fatherhood

6/10/2011 from the archives…

What we learned from previous homes was that if you wanted to enjoy the landscape in future years and not shell out thousands you must plan and plant very early on. So, that’s what we did.

The landscape we inherited when taking over ownership and care of this house was overgrown and in my opinion ill suited for the southern facing side of the house. My Wife completely agreed. You can take a look at the photo below.

The Fortis Homes installed shrubs had all but, taken over the front windows of the house (to the left of the front door) hiding much of one of the home’s better points… the brickwork. Also, the shrubs along the driveway made for a very inhospitable welcome for guests exiting their cars. The driveway grade is not flat but, it was something we were willing to sacrifice in exchange for other factors (proximity to shopping, movie theater, preferred school district). In addition, this choice of shrub and it’s lack of pruning led the plant material to become very woody. The downside of this is that on the right side of the door air circulation was in adequate and causing some sidingand drainage issues.  What did we do and and how did we get those 20 year old hollies out of the ground? Good questions.

Removing the Old Landscaping

How do you remove 20yr holly bushes and not break your back, or resort to calling a professional? I was very surprised to find the answer was quite simple: Old fashioned hand tools. In fact, a very simple yet effective tool. My first attempt with a shovel and lopers was pointless. So, I searched for some answers and found this webpage.

Now, I readily admit to being more “city” than “country” but, I am also not above good advice (regardless of the source) and it turns out that Michael was right. So, where did I find this mystical tool with powers to remove 20 yr old shrubs? At Big Blue.

 Installing the New Landscaping

We referred to our favorite local nursery for some planting advice/foundation materials and between them and Big Blue we completed the front planting bed.

Landscape Replanted 6/10/2011

That’s one BIG project off the list!

Holy Hollies Batman! A Landscape Inherited and Transformed Rob Ainbinder - Digital Dad - Chronicling my adventures in DIY, Home Improvement, Barbeque and Fatherhood

During the 2.5 days we started to feel like hostages/hoarders with everthing pushed into weird areas including the master bathroom, attic and garage.

Laminate Floor Installed by Carpets by Direct

The Columbia laminate flooring was installed by Carpets by Direct. We were extremely pleased with the entire process. The sales person we visited at their showroom was knowledgable and friendly. The 3 man installation crew were excellent. They even returned days after the flooring was installed to install some thresholds at the doorways leading to tiled floors and at our newly installed front door. The crew worked for 2.5 days and always worked without a break (except for lunch). They worked until 6:30 pm each of the first two days and without a complaint. What they accomplished in the time was far more than what we could have done. I don’t regret the decision to let someone else undercut all the door jambs, install a sound/moisture barrier, install the flooring, all transitions and all the base shoe moulding. They even installed new curved base shoe around our stair in the entry (something Big Blue wouldn’t even do).

Pictures from the laminate floor installation in progress…

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Pictures from the completed laminate floor project

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So, would you install 1500 sq feet of laminate yourself? Or,would you hire some professional help? Let me know in the comments below.

The Laminate Floors are Installed (Hostages in Our Own House) Rob Ainbinder - Digital Dad - Chronicling my adventures in DIY, Home Improvement, Barbeque and Fatherhood

Our research and other projects indicated that the flooring we had in the house was original. The original flooring choices were:

• Carpet: in the family room, dining room and formal living room, upstairs bedrooms and hallway
• Engineered Wood: in the kitchen, downstairs half bath and hallway
• Vinyl: in the laundry room, and up stairs bathrooms.

All the floors were well past their prime with stains, cracks and other signs of aging.

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Dust Bunnies

We aren’t hoarders and we aren’t extreme neatnicks…probably somewhere in between. But, since we moved in we noticed an absurd amount of DUST in the house. Dust on the furniture, dust on the mouldings, picture frames, dust on furniture and dust on dust…dust just about everywhere! It was driving my Wife crazy…she would dust and by the next week it was back… and them some!
So, where was all this dust coming from and can we do something about it?

There was some evidence to support HVAC duct sealing as I learned from the Fed’s Energy Star website that unsealed HVAC ducts could pull in unfiltered air bringing dust/dirt along for the ride with the conditioned (e.g. heated or cooled) air. I also found a Reader’s Digest article “8 Smart Strategies to Make Your House Dustproof” of some help. What was interesting to me in this article is what the RD article stated about carpet:

“carpet is by far the biggest dust reservoir. It’s a huge source of fibers and absorbs dust like a giant sponge. Even the padding underneath holds dust, which goes airborne with each footstep.”

So, would the carpet go? Maybe….

Tile, Carpet, Hardwood, Laminate and What About Bamboo?

We debated the merit (style, longevity, wearability, and seasonal underfoot feel) of different flooring… wavering between hardwood, bamboo, vinyl planks, carpet, tile and laminate.

I can’t tell you how many trips we made to flooring retailers both on and offline.  It was a lot! They included:

• Big Blue
• Big Orange
• LL
• Bamboo Importers.com
• Fastfloors.com
• Armstrong
• Pergo
• Carpets by Direct
• Carpet Supermart

Tile

Tile was a longwearing choice but, was only a partial solution to our flooring needs. We intially envisioned tile in the kitchen, laundry room and guest 1/2 bath. We wavered on running it throughout the entire 1st floor but, shelved that idea because when winter comes to North Carolina, although mild compared to elsewhere, the floor would be cold. So, we opted for tile in bathrooms and laundry room as a future project replacing vinyl “tiles”.
Which tile?

StonePeak Ceramics TrueLife Tarvertine in Noce

The tile is StonePeak Ceramics Travertine in Noce available at Big Blue.

Why we like this floor?

• Made in USA (Production facility is in nearby Tennessee.)
• Accurate color rendition of travertine without the maintenance.

Carpet

Carpet was inexpensive, soft underfoot and would probably be the easiest to replace. But, we had several reasons for ultimately NOT selecting carpet. For us the reasons were:

1. Our cat would without warning expel furballs and food onto the well worn carpet at odd hours (often in the middle of the night). These stains were (despite the use of the latest chemical cleaners) permanent and an attractant to our dog who found these “treats” irressitable .
2. Necessity of another replacement in a relatively short time.

Hardwood Flooring

Image via Wikipedia

Hardwood (engineered and solid) were expensive and based on previous installations not the best wearing. In fact, we were opposed to wood flooring on that basis alone.

Aside from that, the original engineered wood floor in the house was also wearing very poorly, cracking and the adhesive used to adhere to the slab was failing.

Although we really liked Jatoba/Brazilian Cherry for it’s excellent Janka rating.

Bamboo

There are two camps in the Bamboo battle. Those that love it and those that don’t. We experienced biases in both directions during our shopping trips. Some salespeople proclaimed it’s strength. Others panned it with statements about potential warping. We decided against bamboo on a cost per sq basis. We also have a small bias against imported products. In the case of bamboo flooring we weren’t entirely confident that the resin used for strain woven bamboo flooring wouldn’t be something we found out later about like we did with the Chinese Drywall and Melamine Dogfood issues.

Vinyl Planks/Sheet Vinyl

Armstrong has some impressive vinyl flooring,particularly the planks. But, we knocked this off our list due to another consideration. An entire home in vinyl (in our minds) just looked too cheap.

Laminate

We surved a variety of laminate choices and decided that our key factors were:

• Wear rating (expressed as n AC rating)
• Realistic look compared to hardwood (e.g. low luster, no phelonic click when stepping, reasonable grain pattern)
• No eased edges which are notorious for dirt and call for additional square footage to install correctly.
• Total installed cost
• Warranty

We looked at the Pergo Lifetime finish lines at both Big Orange (Pergo XP) and Big Blue (Pergo Max). And laminates at other retailers.

The Big Blue estimate was $9,000 to install Pergo Max and remove hardwood, carpet and base shoe moulding (excluding curved base shoe for the stair). If we had done some of the work (remove the carpet, tack strip and guled down engineered wood floor) we would get the price down to $7,000. But, Big Blue could not supply the curved base shoe moulding for our staircase.

Our Final Laminate Flooring Choice

Columbia Flooring Traditional Clickette in Oregon Walnut Fog 2-Strip

We picked Columbia Floor’s Traditional Clickette in Oregon Walnut Fog. We liked that this floor was

• Made in the USA (nearby Virginia, actually)
• Finished to an AC rating of 4 (AC hardness ratings are a standardized measure adopted by The Association of European Producers of Laminate Flooring (ELPF) . Very tough.
• 20 year warranty
• Sold and installed by Carpets by Direct

Next up the installation.

Of Floors & Dust Bunnies Rob Ainbinder - Digital Dad - Chronicling my adventures in DIY, Home Improvement, Barbeque and Fatherhood

Our house as of January 2012

So, over at our “nest” there’s been a flurry of activity recently. But, I suppose a little explanation and backstory might be in order. Our current abode is a 20 yr. old Fortis home (now, K Hovnanian)… that we purchased a few short years ago. The truth is we knew very little about her history (no thanks to the feckless home inspector).  Make no mistake,  we had some well founded suspicions based on our experience buying and improving other homes but, the reality has been slowly settling in.

Some stats on the house: 3 bedroom, 2.5 Baths,2 car garage, and a 10′ x 12′ shed.

Heated square feet:1,860

Exterior: Brick and Masonite

Windows: Double glazed, wood.

Year built: 1992

The Home Site

View from above

Our home faces South and is on a corner. We have a fenced off portion of the backyard. There is a fairly steep grade roll off at the front at on the street side at the top of the picture.

Our projects so far:

1. Uninstall an overgrown front landscape.
2. Plan and plant a new landscape
3. Replace an improperly specified and installed gas hot water heater.
4. Paint and repair rotting wood sills on the exterior first floor windows.
5. Install a new fiberglass front door slab in the exisiting jamb.
6. Repair failed drywall tape joints at various joints and corners throughout the first floor.
7. Repaint the entire first floor walls and some trim.
8. Remove old, glue down wood floor and carpet*.
9. Install new laminate floor*.
10. Install new tile
11. Install new water saving toilets
12. Repair, prime, and paint the home’s exterior*

(Projects listed above with * indicate work completed by contractors)

This Old (New to Us) House Rob Ainbinder - Digital Dad - Chronicling my adventures in DIY, Home Improvement, Barbeque and Fatherhood