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Planting Strawberry Plants In Fall
It was at the end of September (2016), when we planted 80 strawberry plants in a field which was prepared few days ago with a tiller. See: Ground Milling With A Tiller Earlier this Summer we planted about 15 strawberry plants in wooden boxes, but as we were of for a week long travels to Spain, corvine's ruined 90% of our harvest. This is the thing I worry most, probably some net should be added over plants in future. Strawberries…
Temporary Window For Bathroom
This year's (2016) home remodeling works are coming to the end, though one problem were left - a window for bathroom. As just outer constructions of walls were performed, and there are still a lot to do inside, before having actual working bathroom, I was left with two options, either purchase an used plastic window and install it or be more creative. I opted for the second variant. And as a temporary window I used old wooden doors.…
Carpe Diem Cafe Bar in Tbilisi
Carpe Diem is a cozy cafe bar in Tbilisi, located between Narikala fortress and Shardeni. Here at Carpe Diem you can try tasty home made burgers and have a herbal tea in pot. Because of this place been located in a steep uphill between Narikala fortress and Old Town, I have visited this place just twice so far, both of the times after climbing down from the fortress. The good news, this cafe bar have been in business for years, and it…
Ground Milling With A Tiller
During the Summer of 2016 we met some new faces, and so back in July we met with a neighbor (Ok, he is actually living some 10 km from our rural house) with a tractor with tiller - I started to ask about the device, would it be possible to mill ground at our place, as we are really into growing some veggies not only in a wooden boxes, but would love to grow something in the soil. It was at the end of the September, when I got a call from…
Former Archaeological Museum Building in Tbilisi
Former Archeological Museum Building in Tbilisi is a great example of the Soviet architecture in Georgia. I had a chance to discover this place and explore surrounding area, first time in February 2017, thanks to the Tbilisi Soviet Architecure tours organized by Brutal Tours: See: Brutal Tours - Explore Soviet Georgian Architecture in Tbilisi The museum was established in 1988 by the well-known Georgian archeologist, head of…
Brutal Tours - Explore Soviet Georgian Architecture in Tbilisi
A while ago with a friend of mine (another expat in Georgia) we started an online community on Facebook: Georgia Expat Photographer club. In matter of no time we gathered a critical member count and were looking to start offering some day trips in Tbilisi or Georgia, helping other photographers explore interesting and cool sites for a free or minimum charge. Like organizing these trips by ourselves between club members, kind of crowd…
Inner Wall From AAC Blocks For Pump Room
Last home remodeling works are carried out for this end, in today's article - final inner wall from aac blocks, for auxiliary room, where right now just pump is stored in the corner, but it's planned to install a boiler and washing machine at this part of house soon. See: Connecting The Dots - Water Pipe And Pump Installation Pump room I made foundation for inner wall few days ago, also see how we demolished old walls here: …
DIY - Bookshelf From Wooden Boards
Time after time I love to excel as a Do-it-yourself guy, for today's DIY article - how i built bookshelf for our rural house from wooden boards. Let's start that we have a complete mess in our master bedroom, as we don't have any storage to store stuff. A time ago I built a king size bed frame, again from boards, see: DIY - Bed Frame King Size Rural Style, now it was time to put in order that mess. Mess Can you find a cat there?…
Restaurant Kala in Tbilisi
Restaurant Kala in Tbilisi's Old Town actually is one of the first restaurant I've visited once set my foot on Georgian land back in April 2011. I have spent countless evenings here, enjoying Georgian red wine, listening to great live musicians and of course trying dishes. I would list Kala as a medium priced place, with pleasant atmosphere and great service. Interior at Kala restaurant in Tbilisi Salmon sandwich served with French…
Connecting The Dots - Water Pipe And Pump Installation
This day marks a huge milestone - for the very first day, since house was originally built in 1896 - house will have a fully automatic water supply. This day also marks the end of the planned major tasks for Summer 2016. Gosh, that was a mad ride - let me explain, in order to get water supply inside house, at start we had to drill a bore hole, see:Drilling Borehole , then we had to completely rebuild some walls for house and construct…
Darbnīca Cafe Liepāja
Centrally located on Lielā street in Liepāja, Darbnīca Cafe is another nice addition to my Liepāja restaurant reviews (they are few, I know). We travel to Liepāja once in a while, during our Summer's in Latvia, mostly for buying some construction materials for our home remodeling works or handling some financial tasks (banks and so on). It was on early September morning I had to handle something a bank, and we agreed to have some…
Demolishing Inner Walls To Build AAC Block Walls
In today's home remodeling series a story how I continued to build a bathroom and how we demolished an inner wall to later rebuild it from scratch, again with aac blocks. Let's start with what we got: Wall to be demolished All major tasks for this Summer (2016) have been done, what's left - to rebuild two inner walls, one for bathroom, second for pump room. In above picture - pump room. Demolishing guy Edgars helped a lot this Summer,…
Preparation Works For Bathroom - Breaking Ceiling, Demolish A Wall, Pouring Foundation
Ok, it took a long, but here I'm returning to the building bathroom from scratch works Here is what we are going to do today: At first we will need to break ceilings or floor at the loft, then we will remove existing inner wall and then we will pour in foundation. Following works were actually carried out during two days, but for the ease of this article works from both days are featured here in one article. Loft Here you can see loft for…
Reading Terminal Market Philadelphia
Reading Terminal Market is an enclosed public market found at 12th and Arch Streets in downtown Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Over one hundred merchants offer fresh produce, meats, fish, artisan cheese, groceries, ice cream, flowers, grilled cheese, baked goods, crafts, books, clothing, and specialty and ethnic foods. Every space in the market is rented out; three of the vendors are descendants of original market…
Rock Garden Extended
It was at the start of the September (2016) - we were finishing wall replacement works and already had installed first bearing beams, there were still some things left on home remodeling works, but all the major tasks were done, and everything was done to preserve house for the winter (as we will be absent) It was good day to spend some hours in garden and continue shaping our rock garden, please see: Building a Rock Garden Shaping…
Outer Walls from AAC Blocks + Installing Bearing Beams
As Summer of 2017 is approaching really fast, and I still have so many not post processed images from home remodeling works performed during Summer 206 in Adobe Lightroom library, I decide to extend articles and feature more info in fewer articles. In today's article I'm sharing a two day construction works performed at the start of September 2016. In day one I continued to construct walls from aerated concrete blocks, and in fact…
Philadelphia Greyhound Terminal
There is a super cheap way to travel across the United States using intercity buses. Back in the Summer 2013 I made a long journey from New York to Houston, Texas for about USD 200 per 2 persons using MegaBus. Last time I was in the US, we decided to go to Philadelphia from NYC using Greyhound, the ticket price was very cheap some 24 USD, again for two persons. When we traveled back to NYC, we bought even cheaper - USD 10…
Night Office 2016
It's in the far future I will build a fancy working space in our rural country house, for now we are still busy of replacing log walls with aerated concrete blocks. For now to perform digital nomad activities I'm left with what I have a laptop and high speed internet - and I cannot complain. See: My Outdoor Working Place During Last Summer (2015) and My Summer Office 2016 It was on the cold September night, I had to…
Red Robin Gourmet Burgers, Secaucus, NJ
Once in the Burger bar - order burgers. That's how in short I could describe my experience at Red Robin Gourmet Burger in Secaucus, NJ. Located in the some building were La Quinta Inn & Suites Secaucus Meadowlands, in which we stayed during my latest US trip Red Robin was an oblivious choice for meal. They indeed have gourmet burgers and super delicious milkshakes. Red Robin Gourmet Burgers in Secaucus No wonder it's called…
First Rows of Aerated Concrete Block For Pump Room
Let's keep building walls from aerated concrete blocks - the material I really love - it's easy to install, it's durable and it should be cost effective in combination with proper insulation. Today I was left alone, no handy hands, completely on my own - at start I was worried, but result turned out really good. Walls from aerated concrete blocks Yesterday I did the soil grading, and this part of the house starts looking decent. A couple of…
La Quinta Inn & Suites Secaucus Meadowlands
La Quinta Inn & Suites Secaucus Meadowlands was our first hotel in United States, during our latest trip here. We booked this hotel as a secret deal on hotwire, as we wanted to get a reasonable price for a hotel with easy access to the Manhattan, New York city. Our booking price was about USD 140 per night here. Once our reservation was confirmed, it turned out to be located in the New Jersey, we paid for a limo service about $140 to get…
Grading Soil Around Foundation
I could probably come up with an article How to grade soil around foundation, but I'm not an expert on this topic. In today's home remodeling series I will show with images how I leveled soil around foundations using just two tools - a shovel and a rake. Technically speaking, here is what you should know about grading soil around foundation: Proper grading around the foundation of your home keeps many potential issues at bay. Without the…
Zen Ramen and Sushi House, New York City
Nestled in the middle of financial district, New York City, we discovered this place by an accident. After wondering around Manhattan, I took the wrong subway ride and once we left subway, we were in a cool neighborhood somewhere in Midtown. This place promised some 50% discount on some select sushi and we decided to go inside. Zen Ramen and Sushi house in New York City if you don't read Japanese you should take a careful look around, as it…
Constructing Foundation From Fibo Ceramsite Blocks For Pump Room
The long story short - we are continuing to build a pump room, a room to store inside pumps and other aggregates, earlier this Summer we drill a bore hole and we are looking to draw in water to the house. For that we need a pump room. Unfortunately the old log walls have been rotten and we started to replace them with aerated concrete blocks, prior to that we had to strengthen foundation. During foundation works we found out that there are…