Within a week of moving into our newly purchased home and office back in May 2005, I conducted many hours of online research attempting to find new desks for Nancy and I. The challenge was to find desks that suited a particular vision I had for the room itself. The desks were to be the first step towards the room’s final interior design. I’ve mentioned before on this blog that I never have a specific vision of a room before I remodel or furnish it, but I do have an aesthetic or “feeling” in mind and I’m rather good at selecting furniture, colors and accents that achieve my goal if I can phase them in individually. In other words, once the desks are in place, I have a better sense of what wall treatment to use, and so on. It was a long time coming, but after ten months of working on higher priority projects, I was finally able to sneak in the home office wall treatment project  Pictured is a Before and After collage of the room as seen through the lens of our myopic pocket digital camera. In the Before section, I’ve already put up blue masking tape to protect the trimwork in the upper section above the chair rail. Also visible in the Before section is a swatch of red paint I had slapped on much earlier; my prior home office had red walls,  but after trying it on the wall here it was clear it was going to be too contemporary and not suitable for my Olde World vibe  If you enlarge the photo you can more clearly see the After section’s wall treatment. I opted for Venetian Plaster, with a Papaya color above the chair rail and a Rosso color below the rail. Applying and setting up this type of plaster on the walls is more time consuming than standard paint but the payoff is absolutely huge. It’s a huge bleeping step forward and the room looks fabulous in person.

Here is another photo of the room from a different angle. As you can see, there wasn’t much wall to plaster  The end visible in the photo has four columns of nine foot tall bookshelves built-in. The other end of the room has eight cabinet doors, a 32” high counter and above that there are four columns of built-in bookshelves reaching to the ceiling. On the wall opposite the windows are eight more cabinet doors, another 32” high counter and four more columns of bookshelves reaching to the ceiling. The original homeowner is/was a cancer surgeon and I can very well imagine that every shelf was full to the gills with medical texts. Obviously, we’ve got a good many years of book collecting to do before we fill our shelves

The next step of the home office redux is acquiring an iimpact piece to mount on the wall between the windows. After some online shopping I’ve found a great hand painted leather map. I think it’s the perfect piece for our Ye Olde Entrepreneur’s Office.

Until then, it’s back to pasture excavation and grading. More details on that particular project soon!

I’ve been hoping for some gaps in my self-imposed schedule large enough to squeeze in a home office improvement project. The opportunity arose this weekend, after a burst of inspiration caused by the re-shuffling of our twin campaign style desks. Until now we’ve had our two desks backed against eachother in the center of the back wall. This configuration didn’t really show off the beautiful lines of the two desks, so we decided to turn each to face its own window looking out to the front yard. When you’ve got two very heavily wired computers and their respective peripherals, moving desks is not an insubstantial project  The number of wires running to and fro each desk was well beyond reason so I took the opportunity to organize the wires and group them inside some cable management tubes that I purchased from Rockler.com. The tubes worked out perfectly in this office and you can now hardly see the wires that once hung down from each desk in a mass of Medusa-like chaos.

Once the desk moving project was complete, I found myself staring at white walls breaking up floor-to-ceiling cabinet and bookshelf built-ins with a rich dark walnut finish. The flat paint was tired and even a new coat of white paint wouldn’t do the room justice. I wanted to keep moving forward with an Olde World campaign-style vibe, where the decoration suggested a hint of one European culture here, and another culture there….. So I looked into Venetian Plaster while I was at Lowes and I took the plunge. Pictured at right are the colors chosen. The top color is Papaya and the bottom Terra Rosso. I’m pleased as punch over how the colors, texture and the wonderful sheen of Venetian Plaster work together so evocatively. I’ll post more photos tomorrow morning once I’ve finished the stretch of back wall. Fun fun fun!

Roanoke won in its bid to host the 2nd Annual U.S. Challenge. This is a rare opportunity to expose the national – and global – business community to all that the Roanoke Valley has to offer. Read the Roanoke Times article:

http://www.roanoke.com/business/wb/53651

Deep in the belly of my 80’x31’ basement, a 20’x31’ workshop continues to incubate. Recently I’ve put up a dust barrier wall to separate the entire workshop area from the rest of the basement. In addition, within the 20’x31’ workshop I put up another dust barrier wall to create a fully enclosed 12’x20’ paint room. The resulting 18’x20’ wood workshop can now be fully utilized without distributing wood dust throughout the entire basement  The resulting 12’x20’ paint room will allow me to begin spray painting with abandon. As the proud new owner of a Wagner 3/8 HP Piston Paint Sprayer, I can make quick work of painting projects on furniture pieces and doors of all sizes. My first project is my daughter Chloe’s double bi-folding closet wood doors. I’ll post a photo of the doors soon.

With a spray gun, one must excercise a good deal more caution. Airborn paint mist is not a viable replacement for oxygen. So when I’m painting with the sprayer I’m wearing a Moldex Paint Spray/Insecticide respirator. Not just any respirator will do – one needs a respirator with a pre-filter that catches wet droplets before entering the dust filter.  I’m very happy with the Moldex half-mask, it is lightweight and the dual filters have surprisingly minimal breath resistance. As for the airborn mist. Well, it must eventually settle somewhere so to this end I’ve rigged up two temporary ambient air cleaners. Each air cleaner consists of a standard box fan with a poly-fiber 20”x20” air filter duct taped to each side. Until I research a more permanent and portable solution, these will do nicely. I’ve already used them for both airborn paint spray and wood dust and they work well enough.

Recently I was able to finally do away with the last of the previous owners’ farm debris. I had already previously packed full a 30 cubic yard container. To deal with the remaining junk, I ordered a 10 cubic yard container and packed that full as well. It feels good to be rid of 20 years worth of junk lazily tossed aside and now I can put more energy into building projects. Visible in the photo at right is some of the fence I put up over the Fall. The original plan was to complete a forth pasture at the top of the hill (visible on the left side of the photo and extending back +/– 450’). We’ve since decided to carve out a quarter acre out of that top pasture and build a 24’x24’ small animal barn and yard for the kids. I’m designing the pole barn and will begin building it as early as March. I’m really looking forward to this project – it’s my first barn and it will give me a primer on various frame construction basics. When the barn is complete, we’ll have quite a nice home for two pairs of small to medium sized farm animals and several smaller pets.

In Internet-related news, I’ve just finished the design for the standardized interface of all of my upcoming web site projects. All are quite similar to Marketingtool.com, in that each web site serves a distinct industry by providing a convenient guide of small businesses organized by category and by geography (city and state). There is no compelling reason to create a vastly different layout between each web site, and my modularizing and standardizing, I can maintain one set of source code that simultaneously drives each distinct web site. For the first time, I’ve opted not to design the logos for each project. Beginning with NewHorse.com I’ve begun using LogoWorks.com – a logo design service that acts as the broker and application service provider between a customer (me) and an array of graphic designers. Visible in the enlarged photo at right is the NewHorse.com logo. I’m very happy with the logo. I may tweak it somewhat over time. Still, it’s very nearly what I hoped for: attractive, simple and versatile.

Around these parts, an incidious head cold has been making the rounds. I’ve been pro-active and am hopeful my particular bug doesn’t turn into a sinus infection – as it has with so many friends and family in the area. That’s all for now!

Hey, if you’ve ever wondered how John Deere gets their tractors over the big pond to the East and into the loving arms of Dutch farmers, wonder no more:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3377083049671145993

That is a whole lot of green. May each tractor live a good long life on the beautiful flat fields of Holland

I suited up for horse chores at roundabout 7am this Sunday morning and trucked outside with my Powershot S50 in tow. I’m not a photographer, and the S50 is certainly not a photographer’s camera. But on a morning like this, even a photographically challenged bloke such as myself can brute force his way into a few good captured moments  Here are some of them.

Our headlining White Oak tree is something of the Mabry Mill of our 74 acre horse farm. This however is the first shot I’ve taken of the tree at sunrise.

Japanese Maple trees wear snow very well. Seeing them here like this has inspired me to replace the dead or dying Purple Plum trees that line our drive with this species.

These two snowmen are hoping for more than a 24 hour lifespan, but the sun is already breathing down their necks.

Anyone for a horse ride in the outdoor arena?

A manure pile. It’s a perch. It’s a warm bed. It’s a morning snack!

Gotta love the mineral rich piedmont red clay. Just about the best place to grow Ash trees, Basswoods, Poplars, Maples, Mockernuts, Oaks, Hemlocks and Virginia Pines. Franklin County is one of only five counties in Virginia with Ultramafic Woodlands, which is globally a rarity. Something to be treasured!

I was waiting for a day like this to snap a photograph of my tractors in their dress whites.

Old farm fence often long outlives it’s usefulness. Here is a relic that remains on the gnoll behind our indoor, from the farm’s original cattle era.

Okay, the cats out of the bag. I didn’t go on a two mile hike to take photographs. I drove my 4WD Gator HPX. Which, I might add, can run up a 35 degree grade covered in six inches of snow without so much as a slight slip of the tires.

Not sure what to do with this open field yet. The Walnut and Mockernut trees are an awful nice place for a picnic during warmer months. With the acquisition of the adjoining 35 acres, I don’t see a reason to turn this into horse pasture. Perhaps a small pond to the left of the trees. Hmmm, that’s an idea to bring to the next farm business meeting

This is Grace. She’s running around me wondering why I’m holding a camera and not her grain bucket. Behind her is Cahas Mountain, almost completely unspoiled. Wades Gap Road runs over the mountain, along the gradual slope visible to the left and between the mountains’ two peaks. Wades Gap is entirely paved and has a surprising number of modest homes and farming homesteads. On one spot along Wades Gap on the north side (we’re facing the south side) you swear you can see every inch of Floyd County gazing westward.

This is Calvin and Eef. They’re also wondering where their breakfast is.

My breakfast, a delicious plate of Sunday morning waffles, was to come later, after eleven horses were tended and left munching and crunching away in the bright winter sunshine.

Boones Mill and points beyond were blanketed with it’s first proper snow of the season. Here are some photos that Nancy snapped while the flakes were falling.

Sean’s Wall of Storage (TM) is progressing nicely. Pictured at right is over 2,000 feet of vinyl rail on the top two levels. In order to make room for the rest of the vinyl strewn outdoors, I had to come up with a creative solution. Laying the posts horizontally as shown is not the most efficient use of space. My solution was to build a quick and dirty “bin” with spare 2×4x8 boards. The idea is to stand the posts up inside the bin in a grid 14 posts wide and 12 posts deep. I should then be able to store 168 posts inside the “bin”. I’ll then be able to free up my bottom row of shelving and use that available space for the rest of the vinyl rails.

I may still need to add a fourth shelf to my wall of storage. If I do that I’ll need to add two more support legs to distribute the weight of the vinyl. One of the wonderful things about a pole barn is that you can anchor structures to the 6×6 posts. By anchoring to those strong posts my front shelf legs aren’t in danger of “racking” back and forth, and I can build shelves much higher without a huge front support structure.

Our storage barn is large. It measures 36’ wide and 78’ deep. The standard pole barn ceiling is an ample 16’ at its shortest so you would think you’d have plenty of storage! Unfortunately, the barn as we bought it had no practical shelving for large materials. So pictured at right is the first phase of Sean’s Wall of Storage (TM). The goal is to have shelves built from 2×8x8 “slats” with 2 1/2” of space in between them for some ventilation. Each shelf is 36” deep – room enough for large materials, big boxes, and storage totes. Front support “legs” in the front are in line with the pole barn’s 6×6 support posts at the wall. Each shelf will be 36” higher than the shelf below it. Ultimately, I will have five vertical storage “rows”. I can build these shelves as I need them, and at present I just need these three levels. I’ve got several hundred feet of used vinyl posts and rails – that I’ve removed from pasture perimeters – and all that material will be stored here. Some of the vinyl posts and rails will be used to construct a decorative 20×40m dressage ring perimeter. The rest will be sold CHEAP. So if anyone reading this blog happens to live in the Franklin, Roanoke or Floyd County area and you dream of a beautiful three rail vinyl yard fence, here is your chance to get it for MUCH less than the $14/foot cost that this high grade fence will set you back if you buy it new. I suspect I’ll have enough for several hundred feet of residential fence, enough to encircle an acre or more. I even have four to six matching gates large enough to safely drive a truck through  The only caveat is that each rail and post would need to be pressure washed, but that would be an easy weekend job.

We took the girls to the circus on Saturday. A new circus production company (George Carden International) was producing the circus for the Kazim Temple. I’ve never seen prior Kazim Temple shows but this one was absolutely one hundred percent fantastic! If you happen to be reading this on Sunday 2/5 then drop what you’re doing and head over to the Roanoke Civic Center for their 6pm showing. If you miss it you’ll be missing out on a very well produced show that is a memorable treat for children ages 3 to 93.

Pictured at right is the show opener for the three ring circus, and the reserved box seats we purchase online just so happened to give us a front and center view of the thirteen Tigers and one super sized Lion. The tigers were very good natured, and the trainer/performers did a very good job at keeping things light for the kids. From an adult’s perspective it was interesting to see the work involved to prepare for the individual rings for the specific show. For the Lion and Tiger show, seven enormous hand pulled wagon cages were lined up and attached together, and wall partitions between the wagon cages were opened up so that each animal pairing could run through the newly created tunnel to enter or exit the ring. Then, once the Lion and Tiger performance was over, a different ring was lit up this ring was darkened while the crew – along with the two trainers themselves – tore down the aluminum ring cage and cleaned up.

Another memorable performance – especially for the girls – ocurred when all three rings were lit up with powerful ultraviolet “black lights” while all three rings were inhabited by twenty plus female dancers and performers. Each performer was suspended high into the air by ceiling ropes. These glowing “pixies” had the girls completely mesmerized while the lone pixie standing in the center ring sang “What a Wonderful World”. It was quite something. Moreover, during performances such as this, children all around the audience were lighting up special toys bought at the circus that gave the impression of hundreds upon hundreds of flying “pixies” dancing in the seats. The pixies were clearly one of the circus favorites for our girls. In fact, Moira (who is six years old) stated on the drive home that instead of being an artist she would like to be a circus performer. And so continues the next generation of children who dream of one day running away to join the circus

One of the most nail biting performances were the extreme motorcycle riders. This sphere was initially entered by two riders who were circling the interior of the sphere at up to 45mph, sometimes driving circles that opposed eachother. Then another rider entered the sphere, and then a dancer bravely stood in the center of the sphere while three riders whizzed by her at odd angles. Then the dancer exited and was replaced by a fourth rider, and then a fifth! Ultimately there were five riders doing about 40mph within inches of eachother. It was mind boggling.

So, if you miss this year’s Kazim Temple Circus, be sure not to miss the 49th annual circus next year!

The only unpleasant moment at the circus happened on my way back from the restroom during intermission. I was walking behind the man pictured to the right, wearing the tan baseball cap and dark greenish shirt. He was walking aside his son who looked to be about five years old. When his son appeared to want to race a few feet ahead to walk aside his mom, the father grabbed him by the back of the next with his left hand and squeezed until the kid whimpered and bent over in pain. When he let go there deep red marks of his fingers on the back of the boy’s neck. To this the mother reacted disapprovingly to her husband, whose response was a sneering “he wasn’t listening!”. Well, I’ll tell you, in plain unedited Sean language, that this little runt of a fucking father came within inches of getting his ass pounded into the cement by yours truly. I had to breathe and remember that beating this runt down would only result in an overnight stay in a jail cell for me, and I’d traumatize his kids and all of the other kids around me. So, when I approached a line of Kazim Temple members and told them about what I considered child abuse, and pointed him out, get this! One of them said “well what you want to do is to look for one of the guys who has a diamond on his hat, they’re the head honchos.”. And they continued their conversation with eachother without missing a step. I tried looking for one of these head honchos, or a police officer, but was unsuccessful. So I settled on posting this photo on my blog and hoping that someone in the Roanoke area might recognize him and be able to intervene somehow. The red marks on the boy’s neck remained for at least a half hour. This father’s abuse may never go beyond veiled neck grabbing or painful pinching – but it just might escalate – and we’re honor bound to monitor the safety of our communities’ children – even when they’re not our own!