Digging a trench around existing foundation - Building a bathroom from scratch - part 4

29 August, 2016 | Home Remodeling | 12 seen

Here comes another update on building a bathroom from scratch series in project home remodeling. The thing is - the house we got didn't pamper us a lot, and so for example I had to install new supporting beams, not to speak about changing a roof, prior to before ever dreaming about having a bathroom. OK, I had a vision about a bathroom once we replaced roof last year, but to actually feature bathroom, we have to build many new things, among them - completely replace old and rotten wood beams with AAC blocks.

Sealing old foundation is one of the top priorities before building new AAC walls. Today I took the shovel and started digging:

Searching for a basement

Another reason I wanted to dig today - we still haven't find the old basement (as I believe old houses like this, must feature a basement). I had a vision a basement could be at the place you can see I have dug off the soil. It turned out there is just a lot old bricks and nothing else. Still strange about those old bricks.

Trench around old foundation and electricity cable

I will ask to the best electrician I know - my dad to re-install this cable about a meter to the left side (it interferes with upcoming wall replacement works)

Missing foundation

It turned out that at the end of house, there is no foundation at all, for about 2,5 meters. Well that makes things a little bit complicated, as I need to lay down the foundation at this part of the house from a scratch - I will need to dig deeper and more wider here. Should I mention I was really pissed of after such discovery? 

Concreting Foundation For a Garden Pizza Oven - Part 2

28 August, 2016 | Home Remodeling | 6 seen

This Summer I excelled in concreting works, the major concreting works involves concreting stone wall inside our rural country house and concreting house foundation (more on that in upcoming posts from home remodeling series)

In spare time from major home reconstruction works this Summer we decided to build a cool and fancy garden pizza oven, connected with a water supply (sink) and electricity - making a cool outdoor kitchen with a lot of space for not only baking pizzas but doing some other exciting things.

Some time ago I built a foundation form using old clay bricks from chimney we took down inside house. It took me some 2 weeks before I continued works on garden pizza oven, and today I had a free time and will to concrete foundation using ready made mortar (mixing it together with water). Tools I used - a bucket, hand drill with a mixer.

We had decided to extend a little bit our garden oven, to have some space to store firewood (under) and a place for a sink. I took the shovel and dug off about a meter of soil.

Extending garden oven

I will use the same old clay bricks to fill up the empty space.

A bucket for mixing a mortar

I will need to mix a lot of mortar in this 10 liter bucket to finish concreting works for garden oven's foundation. 

Pouring mortar

I poured about 5 or 6 buckets of mortar today when the drill burned down. No more concreting works for today and some next couple of days - as I get it, using a ready made mortar is way too expensive, and using a hand drill for mixing a mortar is way too complex. As I will need to concrete foundations for house, I have already planned to purchase a huge mortar mixer (about 140 liters). So that's all for today.

Views toward house

We are planing to feature here a lovely outdoor area with benches, outdoor patio and more with Garden Pizza oven as a center piece of this area. See how we celebrated Summer Solstice 2016 here a few weeks ago.

Forest Mushrooms - Penny Bun & Red-Capped Scaber Stalk

27 August, 2016 | | 27 seen

A few days ago I reported a photo story with a harvest of mushrooms from our backyard, then we gathered fungus called Slippery Jack, in today's Piece of Life series - a harvest from deepest woods of Courland (Latvia), meet Penny Bun & Red-Capped Scaber Stalk.

And again, those mushrooms were actually gathered by my better part and not me. I was actually drilling holes in a stone wall meanwhile:

Penny Buns and Red-Capped Scaber Stalk

Red Capped scaber stalk or Leccinum aurantiacum, is a species of fungus in the genus Leccinum. It is found in forests of Europe, North America and Asia and has a large, characteristically red-capped fruiting body. In North America, it is sometimes referred to by the common name red-capped scaber stalk. There are some uncertainties regarding the taxonomic classification of this species in Europe as well as in North America. This is a favorite species for eating and can be prepared as other edible boletes. Its flesh turns very dark on cooking.

Penny Bun - Boletus edulis, cep, porcino or porcini is a basidiomycete fungus, and the type species of the genus Boletus. Widely distributed in the Northern Hemisphere across Europe, Asia, and North America, it does not occur naturally in the Southern Hemisphere, although it has been introduced to southern Africa, Australia, and New Zealand.

Prized as an ingredient in various foods, B. edulis is an edible mushroom held in high regard in many cuisines, and is commonly prepared and eaten in soups, pasta, or risotto. The mushroom is low in fat and digestible carbohydrates, and high in protein,vitamins, minerals and dietary fibre.

Penny bun

Beam Strengthening on Stone Wall - Building Bathroom from Scratch - Part 3

26 August, 2016 | Home Remodeling | 35 seen

The never ending story with my adventures on home remodeling and building a bathroom continues. In todays part 3 I will tell you a brief photo story how I strengthened a beam on the stone wall.

See part 1 and learn more how I actually concreted this stone wall, while in part 2 see how we actually installed first bearing beams above bathroom ceiling. I'm of course talking not only about bathroom, but about a stronger and stable house as well (as bathroom will be built later into this space)

Tonight I didn't sleep, I was thinking all night along on how should I will replace outer wood walls with AAC blocks. Previous day I had bought masonry drill and special glue for concreting bolts (left from previous year's roof works)

I was eager to start drilling that huge stone wall at 4:00 AM, thus I waited until 7:00, and the I striated. Should I mention - my partner was not very pleased about my morning activities?

Drilling holes for bolts

I had to use two types of drills - wood drill and masonry drill. I drilled for about 6-7 cm each and later with help of a special masonry glue concreted bolts in the stone wall. This is a very important integral part of houses backbone - correctly installed and strengthened beam can save a house's roof from a strong wind, for example, by keeping it a top on the house.

Concreting below beam

More concreting to make it rock solid.

View to the upcoming bathroom from second floor

Do you see a bathroom there? Nope? Me neither. Hopefully by the Spring of 2017 it will be finished.

Mushrooms in backyard

25 August, 2016 | | 2 seen

The other day my aunt visited us at our country house, we spent some lovely time together, and while somewhere in the woods near Akmenrags lighthouse we hunted for chanterelle fungi, should I mention we found just enough to make a barely pan of sauce? 

The day my aunt left, my better part went for mushrooms again, this time at our backyard:

Our backyard

Yes, the veggie garden in the boxes and skew barn as well. Wait, there is a rock garden also.

Here is the catch from nearby pine coppice:

Suillus luteus

Commonly referred to as slippery jack or sticky bun in English-speaking countries, its names refer to the brown cap, which is characteristically slimy in wet conditions. 

Yep, that's our catch for today... Piece of Life after all!

Akmenrags Lighthouse

24 August, 2016 | Tourism objects | 11 seen

Akmenrags Lighthouse (Latvian: Akmeņraga bāka) - a lighthouse on the Latvian coast of the Baltic Sea, located to the south of the resort town of Pāvilosta.

I first visited Akmensrags Lighthouse in the mid Summer of 2016 together with my aunt - we made a lovely excursion with her around Courland. Akmensrags lighthouse is located some 11 km south of the Pāvilosta, the road is not in the best shape (Breakstone road)

There is a small museum/kiosk/ information center located in front of the lighthouse. When we approached lighthouse some people from kiosk asked what are we doing here. It seemed they enjoyed their loneliness and forgot that Akmensrags lighthouse is actually a tourism spot (right, it's main purpose is naval, but you got the point). I asked about opportunities to climb up to the lighthouse. The lady asked am I from some governmental organization something? I felt confused, replied that I'm just a visitor willing to make some photography here, she told me to buy a ticket for 0.70 EUR what I actually did and started my way up one hundred and twenty six steps reaching up to the viewing gallery.

Some info about lighthouse's history

The current tower was constructed in 1921, as the previous lighthouse was destroyed during World War I. Currently the lighthouse is open to the public.

Steps in lighthouse

Oh, sigh...

Steps in HDR

Right, I had a chance to apply a HDR photography knowledge - lighthouse steps in HDR (I had red a tutorial on that some few months ago, when I was at Akmensrags lighthouse I had chance to excel). Looks cool. right?

beacon light a top at the Akmensrags Lighthouse viewing platform

I did find a small spot to get a better shots of nearby vicinity and leaned toward outer viewing platform

Panoramic views toward Baltic Sea

Another - panoramic photography technique applied here. 

View toward deep forests of Courland

The lighthouse of Akmenrags is a key navigation point, in one of the most dangerous spots on the Baltic Sea to navigate by - this is due to several factors: the lighthouse is located by a stony sand bank, which extends by a distance of 2 nautical miles (about 3,7 kilometres) to the north-west of the lighthouse; another point of danger is the depth of the sea - which is on average 2 metres in the lighthouse's vicinity. The location of the lighthouse has remained the same over the decade; however the coast has receded. The lighthouse has seen several shipwrecks during its existence - a notable one being the shipwreck of September 1923; when a famous Latvian steamer Saratow struck the ground.

Akmensrags lighthouse HDR

Another morning, another beatiful mist

23 August, 2016 | | 3 seen

It seems I have a new tradition - for the second year in the row I have captured beautiful morning mist in our country house backyard.

Alright, previous year my beloved did the shooting while I was dreaming about roof works. This time I couldn't sleep (as I was thinking of upcoming bathroom remodeling works), and I noticed - a mist. In our backyard. See it for yourself:

Mist over our pond and neighbors meadow

Few things have changed this year: we have freshly dug pond and neighbor have packed hay into plastic packages.

Mist in our backyard territory

Few things have changed in this scene as well - first we have a new roof, second constructions works still continues, but instead of roof laths this morning we had supporting beams, cool right?

Mist in the garden

Mist in rock garden

Yup, we built a rock garden few weeks before. Can't wait for next year's beautiful morning mist!

Cats on The Rocks

21 August, 2016 | | 9 seen

Recently I featured a post about how we built a rock garden in the front of our country house. I reported a lovely sunset just shortly. In today's Piece of Life series - little creatures who enjoys the most of our new rock garden. Meet our lovely cats Tiger and Richard.

Cat on the rock

A nice observation place for planing an attack on...birds? Or at least a try.

Cats on the rocks

Double attack?

Cat on the rock

Are you shooting me?

Red Sunset in our Rock Garden - Cool Evening Mood

17 August, 2016 | | 2 seen

This Summer spoiled us with a lovely sunsets, but one of the most empathic had been observed  in front of our house at rock garden. 

Red/Orange Sunset at Rock Garden

See how we built this rock garden a few days ago.

Country house during sunset

There is still a lot of to do, and it will require a huge investment to completely remodel/rebuild this house, but evenings like this breaks it even.

Sunset over pond

Yup, we dug this pond as well a few days ago.

Drupal 7.50 introduces User warning messages for incorectly removed modules

16 August, 2016 | Drupal Development | 11 seen

The other day I did perform a minor upgrade from Drupal 7.43 to Drupal 7.50, and was a bit scarred when noticed a huge warning page, at first I thought there are some problems with my files and folders or I have done something terribly wrong.

Thus I learnt that this is a new feature, implemented starting Drupal 7.50 version

Drupal user warning

User warning: The following module is missing from the file system:Module Name. In order to fix this, put the module back in its original location. For more information, see the documentation page.

I actually visited that documentation page and found following:

The warning was introduced in Drupal 7.50 and is displayed when Drupal is attempting to find a module or theme in the file system, but either cannot find it or does not find it in the expected place. Usually this indicates a problem with your site. It is not a major problem, but one which should ideally be fixed if possible

I found that my site has been missing following modules: addresfield, chr, drupalgap, fblikebutton, feeds, feeds_flickr, google_analytics_api, google_plusone, menu_views, statistics_filter, tinypng, tweetbutton, views_load_more.

Gosh, there were some modules I have experimented some 2 and more years ago, removed them and forgot about them. Now, thanks to the new user warning messages I was able to track them down, and improve overall performance of my Drupal site, by removing those modules from Drupal database.

Here is what I did to solve user warning messages and fix my Drupal site - at first I installed one by one each missing module, had to clear cache, and finally un-installed these modules from module un-install page, then deleted from modules folder (I like to keep it short as possible)

I was able to uninstall and remove all but google_analytics_api module, as it has been obsolete (moved to another project) and I didn't find a way to download previous module (I even tried wayback machine). Luckily there is a solution for a missing modules as well: Module Missing Message Fixer

This module displays a list of missing modules that appear after the Drupal 7.50 release and lets you fix the entries.

Here is what I got after all:

Nice and clean Drupal Update page

Hope it helps guys, if you have a comment, please don't be shy, leave it now!

Beam Replacement for Old house - Building Bathroom from Scratch - Part 2

15 August, 2016 | Home Remodeling | 10 seen

Here comes another update on home remodeling works - building a bathroom from scratch. After I successfully concreted stone wall it was time to install new beams. For this side of house we did not had any beams installed (ok, they were, but they were rotted, as the roof was leaky, see how we changed a roof)

A while ago I ordered beams at local sawmill (beams are 20cm X 20cm) and about 4 meter long. Today I called to the father and son (these guys are helping me out this year), and it was the matter of chainsaw, chisel and a little bit of math. Some stamina was required as well to lift those beams up.

Installing beams

I didn't experimented with light paint photography today, so please forgive bad quality of photography. Want to see light painted loft photography with the same scene (same guys), see how we took old chimney down.

Father working with a chisel

Beams installed

I will need to strengthen them soon, as it's planed remove those walls and put the weight of roof on those beams using support beams attached from ground. More on that in future home remodeling posts.

Our neighbor - Fox baby

14 August, 2016 | | 4 seen

For the second year in the row we have one small and lovely neighbor - baby fox. Once we met him at the bus stop, looked amazing - fox going to the city, the other morning bad farmers had mowed crop fields and baby fox seemed very disappointed.

Today we met our friend, just wandering on the road.

baby fox on the road

I wish I had a telephoto lens attached, to capture a lovely portrait, as the fox didn't seemed scared or so, just wandered.

road and the fox

Piece of Life after all!

Making Rhubarb Wine

13 August, 2016 | DIY | 13 seen

In our garden we have a lot of rhubarbs, one thing you can make out of them is a rhubarb cake, but turns out there is at least one more thing you can do with rhubarbs - you can try to make a wine. 

In today's Do It yourself series - my (our )attempt of making a rhubarb wine - I'm calling this an attempt - because we actually didn't make any wine this year. But if you are looking for a receipt on how to make a rhubarb wine, here is one: How to Make Rhubarb Wine at Home

Rhubarbs

Above is our rhubarb harvest from our garden. First thing you will want to do - to remove leaves.

Cleared rhubarbs

A Swiss army knife is a great tool to help you to clear rhubarbs.

Rhubarbs in the basket

Next thing to do - to squeeze a juice from rhubarbs, we used a regular juice extractor and learnt that rhubarb is pretty hard to squeeze, we had to cut rhubarbs in small pieces before putting in the extractor. 

Rhubarb juice

Well... that's all we got today. If you want to make a rhubarb wine you will need to have a lot of rhubarbs. Probably will try to make a rhubarb wine next year again.

Gravel for road surface and rock garden

12 August, 2016 | Home Remodeling | 4 seen

The other day I first met with one of our closet neighbors, he approached me and told me, that in couple of days he will cover road (we are sharing together) with a gravel. I already mentioned it in my previous post about pond works. 

I asked what kind of gravel does he is using for road surface, and decided it would be a good idea to have a little bit gravel for upcoming home foundation works (concreting). We agreed that he will give me a little bit gravel (I asked for about 1m3, but got some 3m3).

Pile of gravel

Just later I learnt, this gravel won't be suitable for concreting as it contains particles of clay.So we decided to use it later in shaping our upcoming rock garden.

Piles of gravel on the road

Neighbor will use some heavy vehicle to even out gravel later tonight. Cool you can  have such neighbors, right? 

Building a Rock Garden

11 August, 2016 | Home Remodeling | 4 seen

Today we made a rock garden from scratch, well almost. The thing is - idea to have a rock garden have always been in our minds, but we hadn't yet figured out how to solve the biggest question - rocks.

We had already idea of place were rock garden will be situated (in front of house, were use to had been a dump - see: The Big Spring Territory Cleanup )

Luckily after pond works were done, pond guy told he could help us with his New Holland excavator to do something else, and we agreed to take down that collapsed cowshed in front of house, it turned out there are huge rocks laid for the foundation. It was time to shape our rock garden using those huge rocks.

Excavator taking down collapsed cowshed

We will build something cool at the place in former cowshed, but for now we are taking rocks from it's foundation and forming our rock garden

Rocks in the place

Wow, they are huge ones, the same will be our rock garden

Rock garden in front of house

Former cow shed