Long time coming

I spent a couple hours yesterday finally trimming the foundation insulation down a bit below grade on the side of the house. It wasn't that hard, really. I sliced down into the foundation about 45 degrees and peeled back the sod. That gave me access to the blue-board, which I was able to pry/break off in large chunks (without a ton of foam splinters flying everywhere). Then I just flipped the sod back into place. This is what it used to look like (I don't have a more recent shot). This photo was taken in the spring of 2007 when I was going around the house fixing random clapboards that our by-then-fired general contractor had neglected to put up. Helen helped quite a bit, too.

Here's a shot showing her helping rather than getting fixated on the mud! She was only 10, after all.

More Boat Storage Racks

It's spring time on Advent Hill road which means we start thinking about messing about in boats. I built some boat storage racks on the barn for winter boat storage a while ago. Well, in order to be really convenient, the barn is just a bit too far away so I decided to put another set of racks on the woodshed.

Using some old 2x4s from the barn construction project, I built these in a few minutes so that they could hang on the side of the woodshed. Not wanting to completely block the back of the woodshed, I hung the racks up with 5/16 bolts, washers, and wing-nuts so that they could be removed easily. I rarely need to get at that side of the woodshed, but I figured it was just as easy to use removable hardware as permanent so I went with the removable. The racks are 88" long; each bracket arm is 30" long and the two brackets are about 32" apart. This allows me to have the kayaks up on edge and put two of them on the bottom.