urban homesteading

I'm still not 100% done with the stairs to the carport, but they're fully functional and passed the elderly mother-in-law test. I still need to add more spindles to the railings, and some more lighting, but the stairs and railings are there.

Once that's done, I probably won't have as many DIY projects to blog about, so I plan to blog more about urban homesteading. I was inspired in part by Novella Carpenter here in Oakland, who wrote Farm City: the education of an urban farmer and runs Ghost Town Farm. I've also found inspiration from City Homestead here in Oakland. They don't have much in the way of an urban or city homestead yet, but they both feel strongly about local food and are taking steps in that direction. Quite a bit further along are my friends at Casa Decrepit in Alameda. They grow all sorts of fruits and vegetables, and have kept chickens for eggs for a number of years.

But the real inspiration of where to head is from Root Simple (formerly known as Homegrown Evolution) and authors of The Urban Homestead: Your Guide to Self-sufficient Living in the Heart of the City. Back when I was first reading Farm City and started following various urban homesteading blogs, Root Simple was one of the first and best I came across. K didn't know I was following their blog at that point, but came home from a business trip with a book for me -- The Urban Homestead.

For me, it's not about saving money (though that's a bonus), it's about knowing where your food comes from. That's a large part of why I became a vegetarian over a decade ago -- the idea of factory farms and having no idea what's going into your food, and a process that's damaging the environment -- it's clearly not sustainable in the long run and not very healthy in the short run.

Steps Toward Steps

the old carport stairs

I haven't posted in a while, but I have been doing work on the house, the steps in particular. But I've been slowed by frequent rains (those of you who are getting buried under snowstorms have no sympathy for me, I know -- but avoiding that kind of weather is one of the reasons I moved here in the first place).

I tore the old steps down pretty quickly. Once I got one board loose, I could use leverage to loosen others. The fact parts were rotted helped a lot, too. Note to those building exterior structures from wood: water will find its way in, so be sure to treat all sides of the wood, not just the parts you can see after assembly. That goes double for any place with a horizontal surface where water can sit. The rotted ledger also lead to some rot and termites in one of the joists of the carport, so it took me a while to get a clean slate to start from.

After a lot of thinking, measuring, re-thinking, re-measuring, and consulting various stair stringer calculators, I laid out the stringers for the stairs. I managed to screw up somewhere, so one stringer was re-purposed for other uses. After more measuring, thinking and consulting stair stringer calculators, I tried again. This time I was successful, so I spent a couple days cutting the 3 stringers. The bottoms of rest on concrete and/or the ground, and it's a generally wet area (under trees that catch the fog in summer, north of the

new stairs rising

house), so I used pressure-treated 2x12s for them. The added density of the wood from the PT process almost burned out my little skilsaw, even with a fresh blade part way through the process.

I don't have a picture of the current status, but I cut, stained and installed boards up to the landing, as well as the rectangular part of it, so with the addition of a temporary piece of plywood, and the top railing on one side, we now have functional stairs. They're a long ways from finished, as I still have to do the trickier triangular part of the landing, and the rest of the railings, but given all the rain we've been having, it's nice to have functioning steps. That way we can avoid using our neighbor's steps, and tromping through the mud around the corner of the house.

One other note: I said in my original post that "I'm sore, stiff, and with bruises aplenty, but no broken bones." So about that... I've been having some minor but lingering pains here and there after almost two months, so yesterday I went to the doctor. He said if I was 80, he'd worry I had compression fractures of my vertebrae, but at 44, I was probably OK. But he ordered up some x-rays to be sure. I heard from him a little while ago: the x-ray tech failed to do any useful x-rays of my lower back, but my mid back looked OK. However, the odd pain in my ribs in my side is because I have...a broken rib, with a mild displacement. There's nothing to do (except stop doing anything that makes it hurt), but I can expect some pain from it for the next 2-3 months. Sigh. At least it isn't too painful, but 2-3 months more?

rotted post where landing was

Watch That First Step...

gaping hole...

I've been planning for some time to rebuild the steps to the carport, at least since January. When I had concrete delivered, I put in the footings for the new stairs, but mentally the task has been on the "nice to have" list, not the "do sooner rather than later" or "do immediately" lists.

Last night, it took a big leap forward in priority. K and I took a walk around the block after dinner, and when we returned I stepped on to the landing at the top of the stairs...and kept going. I knew some parts were starting to get a little rotten, but it seems that was considerably further along than I thought. The ledger board that holds up one end of the boards for the landing was completely rotted. I dropped the 7 or 8 feet to the ground and landed on my back.

Today I'm sore, stiff, and with bruises aplenty, but no broken bones. Once I'm feeling a little more limber (and I'm past the current work deadline), I'll build a new set of stairs. Fortunately we have our neighbor's steps to use, but I have to admit I was a bit nervous walking on them at first after last night's excitement.

Remodeling Really Fast

Imeant to post this a while back (say, back when I'd actually finished the work in early September), but didn't get around to unloading the pictures from the camera until today. In any event, here's a sped up version of process of renovating K's office. We tore out the drywall in the outer walls; ran new electrical, phone and Cat-5; straightened out the door; installed an exterior light outside the door; and insulated the walls. And of course repainted everything when we were done.

While the walls are open, you can see why blown in insulation as a retrofit would be more difficult. Not only are there diagonal braces between the studs, but there are some horizontal braces here and there, too. So it would mean at least 3 holes in some stud bays.

World Habitat Day

Today is World Habitat Day. Millions of people live in substandard housing, and in particular children are more likely to develop diseases and less likely to graduate from school when they live in poor housing conditions. But this isn't just in developing countries in Africa or Asia, it's here in the United States, too.

There are lots of way to support Habitat for Humanity. Check for your local affiliate to get involved, either by volunteering or donating or both.