Virginia’s Latest Healing Garden Project

Our friend, Virginia Burt, of VisionScapes, recently completed a large project, the Mary and Al Schneider Healing Garden at the Seidman Cancer Center in Cleveland. The Cleveland Plain Dealer published an article on the garden this week. It’s available on their site along with a photo gallery.

Congratulations, Virginia!

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Electrical and Plumbing Underway

Busy and productive week at the house. Electrical and plumbing is underway. Inspections. Drywall next week.

New door, tub, lights, fan:

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Gutters and Framing Complete

This week, new door and windows, electrical, and plumbing rough-ins.

New roof and kitchen framing:

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New Roof Shingled and Faced

After a lost day to rain (luckily under a roof with sheathing and paper), the roof was shingled and faced yesterday. Next is painting, gutters, and the electrical begins.

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Apple Retina Display Resolution Comparison

Okay, so now I’m lusting after the “next generation” MacBook Pro with retina display. 2880 x 1800 pixels. Awesome. But still not enough vertical pixels to display a retina iPad screen.

How do all these retina displays compare in pure pixel resolution (not pixels per inch or ppi, which vary quite a bit)? Here are a couple of images comparing iPad, iPhone, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, and HDTV. Make me think it’s NSHDTV (not-so-hi-def-TV).

       

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Kitchen Under Roof

The contractors spent a long day yesterday tearing off the old roof and getting the new one up. Just in time! It rained quite a bit overnight.

Exterior and interior views of new roof:

 

The mystery of the old beam was also solved. It was hollow!

This discovery was only the latest in a long line of things in this house that have made contractors shake their heads in disbelief. In addition to this beam, which would have collapsed someday, they found:

  • ceiling joists that weren’t connected to anything, causing a sag in one part of the roof
  • in-wall spliced electrical wires without a junction box
  • multiple open junction boxes, one filled with dry-wall mud
  • beer cans and Christmas ornaments discarded in the walls
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Preparing for Roof

Friday was focused on preparing to tear off the roof on Monday. We’re all still curious as to how that beam is constructed.

Kitchen:

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Prepared for Plumbing and Electrical

Bathroom framing continued, and it’s time for the plumber and electrician to come and do their rough-ins… and clean up the messes the previous owner left us. Amazing stuff.

Kitchen and bath:

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Detailed Demolition

Today, only a little visible progress, but a lot of work went into cleaning out all the stuff above the subfloor. Bathroom framing has started. Both spaces feel SO much bigger than before. The kitchen will have a very high ceiling, and the bathroom is nearly twice as wide.

Kitchen:

Bath:

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Demolition of Kitchen and Bath

Demolition of the current kitchen and bath was completed yesterday. A couple interesting findings:

  • The big ugly beam in the kitchen we were all curious about turned out to be some home-brew laminated plywood/wood beam. Strange, but apparently strong enough to keep the roof up over the years, even under 3 feet of snow.
  • The hardwood floors in the bathroom under the cheap tile is in great shape. We may refinish it (along with the bedroom) instead of putting a new floor down over it.

Kitchen:

Bath:

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