Today was a beautiful day in Capitol Hill. The flowers have bloomed and spring is at its best. This week, we did a complete makeover on a yard by adding three garden beds and over 25 shrubs, perennial grasses, and flowers. We also added eco-friendly drip irrigation and re-routed storm drainage to provide irrigation to planting beds.
Some of my pictures from a walk around the neighborhood follow, showing the best aspects of the neighborhood we live in.
The answer is NO!
If you go and ask a bunch of pro painters and pro paint vendors this question, you will get a wide variety of answers.
The real/true answer is “no.” Don’t store your paint outside in the winter, in a shed, or anywhere where it is an untempered environment. When paint freezes, it messes up the molecular composition of the paint.
See the picture of a can of paint in our workshop that we bought in November of 2013. I thought I got all the sensitive materials out, but this can was missed and left in a lock box. It is a good quality paint (not cheap either), and it is not old, so it is definitely the cold temps that ruined it!
A lot of good carpenters and most DIY’ers don’t think about this question very much, but when building decks and outdoor construction projects using treated wood, they should!
The article at the following link is a good guide, (click the image below):
The granite stone walls with beaded grapevine joinery, also know by some as toothpaste joints, are probably the most common single style of retaining wall in Capitol Hill. Interestingly, some sources say they are not original to many of the houses and were in fact added in the 1920s. As a contractor and craftsman, I pay attention to the details of the neighborhood, especially when it comes to things with historic character.
Often, we will see the wall has deteriorated over time. Most were built without deadmen or weeps. And, often we will see that where they have been repaired by other contractors, the beaded joints have been haphazardly replicated. Sometimes we see that the lines have actually been painted onto the mortar joints like Pepé Le Pew’s girlfriend. The true joint is original in its style and was constructed by tooling the joint while wet.
It isn’t easy to do it right, but it can be done. Look out for a future blog where I will show how to re-create an accurate historic grapevine joint.
Take a look at the map from the Office of Planning. This is helpful info to have when making decisions on the rules around remodeling.
I found a test that I like online for testing your knowledge on carpentry tools. There are a few obscure questions and answers, but I got most of them right the first time!
When designing and installing a fence for your yard, there are a lot of options. Iron fences are common in the front yards here in Capitol Hill. However, in the backyards, privacy fences are much more common.
The following images include options for wood fences, but options are not limited to the ones presented here. In fact, fences can be designed and customized in many different ways. We specifically show a lot of options that are more modern with horizontal elements and hybrid iron and wood options. These fences can be built in both cedar and pine options.
Bare block and Seamed Iron Gate
Horizontal 2×4 with 1-inch space
Horizontal 6-4-2-2-2 with Half-inch space
Horizontal 1×4 with 3-inch space
Horizontal 1×4 with no space
Horizontal 1×6 shadow box & 1×3 with Half-inch Space
Horizontal 1×6 shadow box
Horizontal 1×6 with 1-inch space
Horizontal 1×6 with Half inch space
Horizontal 1×6 with Quarter inch space With stone Posts
Horizontal 1×8 with 1-inch space
Horizontal 2×4 with 1-inch space
Horizontal 6-4-2-2-2 with Half-inch space
Horizontal 4-6-4-6 with 1-inch space
Horizontal 6-6-4-4 with 3/4″ space with steel posts
Horizontal Single Concave with 1×6 and 2-inch space
Picture Frame with 4-inch galvanized Cattle Fence
Vertical 6-inch w no space – Good neighbor style- w cap board
Vertical Thicket Style
3 Different Styles of Iron and Wood Horizontal Fences and gate
GL Barnhart Construction ...The Blog 