Piping [s]

The master bathroom fixtures: Moen mixer and three way diverter valve, Moen shower head, Kohler body sprays. The valves are pull-on push-off so you don't have to fiddle with the temperature. I went with flush mount body sprays.



Pops taught me how to sweat pipe this weekend. Left to right: flux, solder, pipe abrasives, sparker, tape, propane.

1. Clean the pipes with a wire brush.
2. Goop some flux on.
3. Connect.
4. Heat them with the propane torch.
5. Add solder when the pipe is hot enough to melt it, the flux will magically suck it inside the joint.
   

The piping is installed, supported, and pressure tested.



The potted items on the deck now have drippers controlled by a single valve.



I still need to buy a lawnmower, but the grass and vines are growing plenty.



Sweet coincidence of Port au Prince!

Garage doors [s]

Fed up with the garage door that opened into the dryer (pictured below), I bought a replacement that would open into the side room. I went with a steel exterior type.



I bought a second for the garage-to-outside door, this one will be a challenge because it requires a dog door.

Then caulking and trimming on both.



The sod is still alive. The black bamboo should eventually grow alongside the railing in the left part of the image. In the same planter, under the deck, I put the large jade bush I got from SFS nursery.


Thanks to Jon, I have plywood up in the master bathroom so it's time to think about fixtures.



Shower head, body sprays, done. Price Pfister had a nice diagram illustrating the closed loop plumbing necessary for body sprays.

My first F [p]

I had always coveted the F100, but until now I've languished in the N series (or, properly 10-99). With many miles on my D70, the time has come to move up to the D700 (image source), derived from the F100. I'm looking forward to the full frame, cmos, and five fps. Perhaps a Saturday morning at Palomar might be in order.



Barely related, I came upon a circular polarizer for my 105mm. It's amazing what eliminating reflections will do for color - I easily maxed out what jpgs can represent (check out the obvious stepping). Of course, the above image is straight off the camera.

This piece will be clutch when I get back out to autocross since it's always quite sunny and reflecty.



The house has gotten plenty of attention too. I swapped out the crusty old exterior fixtures for shiny new ones.



The new valves throw much easier and, naturally, don't leak.

The irrigation is coming along. I ran a half inch line to the front yard with drip inserts in the necessary places. I'll be good to go should I decide to plant anything under the front windows.

I wanted to run a dripper to the fern next to the steps, but there was no easy way to go across or under the path. So I used overhanging branches to go above the path, where just a few inches of dripper can be seen. With the newfound supply of water, I don't imagine the trees will take too long to span the remaining gap.

The poly pipes were not handling the water pressure very well at the fixture, they leaked out the twist-couplings. To remedy this I epoxied some parts together and added a splitter to the faucet so the other branch could relieve some of the pressure. Tomorrow will be the first test.

The pile of trimmings, sauna pieces, and random junk leftover from the previous owner has been divided between the trash and a nicely stacked woodpile in a useless corner of the side yard. That was most of a Saturday, but I now have an empty area in the front yard and a decent stash of firewood.

And on a final programming note, I'm slowly updating all the tags from my previous posts. E.g. "renovation" will give you all of the home improvement material.