"No good deed goes . . . "

Back when we were in Wisconsin visiting The Wife's family a couple weeks ago, I was conscripted to build a cold frame for my mother-in-law.  Well, "conscripted" might not be the correct term here since, you see, I knew that Jan would accompany any project of this sort with ample quantities of top-shelf domestic macrobrew and, if it's early enough in the day, the occasional bloody mary.  I was quick to volunteer for the task.

Having grown up in the West, in places where nobody is really from, it's always fun to visit central Wisconsin.  If you grow up in rural Wisconsin and move 50 miles, it's a big move.  If you go to, say, Alaska, you might as well be in another country.  My brother-in-law, and good friend, Tyler is one of those locals with deep roots to Marathon County.  You need a used window?  He's got a guy who's got a dozen for you.  You need some lumber on Saturday when the local yard is closed?  He's got as many clear 2x10s as you might need.  Tools?  Forgetaboutit.  If Tyler wasn't such a nice guy, you'd think he was part of some Wisconsin Polish mafia.

With materials and bloody mary in hand, Tyler and I made short work of building the cold frame.

The sides are 2x10s cut to the appropriate length and width and joined like a log cabin so it can be disassembled for easy transportation or storage.

The window is on a hinge for easy access to the inside. 

And an updated picture with the fresh planting:

Of course, now that we're home and things are starting to warm up, The Wife is going garden crazy.  She's already sourced a bunch of old windows and, as the saying goes, no good deed goes unpunished.  She just better have a bloody mary waiting.

Everyone should have one

After enjoying wood heat in our old home so much, one of the first major home improvement projects The Wife and I conspired on for our new house was to install a wood stove.  It took us a bit longer to build up our savings and arrange the installation than we'd have liked, but I'm happy to report that our new stove is in. 

We hired out the installation of the chimney and delivery of the stove, but decided to tackle the hearth ourselves.  Building the hearth was fairly straight forward, but because of our hectic schedules we ended up really pushing the time line and had to work into the wee hours of the night in order to give the mortar and grout enough time to set before delivery of the stove.

Our hearth is a pretty simple design, relying on a plywood base laid directly on top of the laminate flooring.  Two layers of durock cement board on top of the plywood provide the requisite heat and fire resistance. . .

. . . with natural slate tiles finishing off the surface.

Neither The Wife nor I had ever set tiles before, but it all came together easy enough. 

I still need to trim out the edge of the hearth, but the stove is in and cranking out the heat.

Winter Shminter

So, we finally got the plant stand up and running......and ever since then, The Wife has kept the house at 80 degrees. I nearly sweat to death on the first night. On the second night, I couldn't get The Dog to come inside. If we don't run out of wood soon, I'm afraid we might not make it. Please send help.