Faux Wood Floor

I just completed the laundry room floor on the cheap.  We had linoleum, which I peeled off and then painted the concrete floor yellow, yes yellow.  It looked ugly so I removed all the paint and filled in the cracks.  I like the look of wood floor, but it's expensive, so I tried painting on a wood floor.  Here's the floor stripped and cracks filled in:

I used a semi gloss milk chocolate brown for the base coat:

I used a black sharpie and drew the lines for the wood planks. Next I combined 3 parts "Kona" colored stain/polyurethane and 1 part glaze.  I bushed it on the brown base paint, then lightly brushed in one direction to simulate the wood grain.  Pale webbed feet not required for this procedure (thanks dear for including my foot)

Here's the floor over half way done:

I finished the floor with an acrylic finish to protect the paint and glaze.  I put the wood plank I was trying to copy next to the floor.  I think it's a pretty close match.

 

We're thinking of doing this for the living room.  The wood floor guy quoted us $3,000 for that area, so we'll see how much we can beat the price.

Goin' Hiking

I went for a 5 mile hike today at Towsley Canyon Park in the Santa Monica Mountains.  This mountain range separates the Santa Clarita Valley from the San Fernando and Simi Valleys (or is it Vallies) hmmm.  Anyways, here are some pictures and a little history:

 Here's a tree growing out of the side of a rocky hill at the beginning.

This is the Golden State Freeway, specifically the Newhall Pass going south towards San Fernando. This was the view just shy of the top of the hike.

 A downed oak.  In the background are communication towers and Doppler radars on the ridge separating Santa Clarita from Simi Valley.

Here's a great example of tectonic upheaval.  Those two hills in the foreground are sedimentary rock that were once flat and were pushed up and broken in two.  Don't jump my stuff because I only had High School geology.

 The State flower, the Golden Poppy, blooming after much needed rain.

 

There's a lot of oil around here.  Actually, about a mile north of this photo is the historic town of Mentryville.  Back in the late 1800s Mentryville had the first production oil well in the country.  In the center of the photo is a naturally occurring pool of black gold.  Last I heard the EPA was suing God trying to get Him to stop doing this.

 

Not So Green Acres

 Some projects turn out fine, others are miserable failures.  Here's the latter:

I planted sunflower, brussel sprouts, broccoli, lettuce and onion.  They took off and grew too tall.  I either gave them too much water or not enough light.  Back to square one.  I'm planting a new batch and I'm putting them under artificial light.  We'll see how that turns out.

My Espalier Nectarine Tree

Espalier is a French word which refers to a growing technique for trees.  It comes from the Italian "spalliera" meaning to rest the shoulder against.  It's a good technique for growing fruit trees when space is limited.  When we went to George Washington's place at Mt. Vernon, he had a walled off garden area with several of these trees.  I started my nectarine tree two years ago.  Each year a new row is tied to the trestle.  As you can see I have two rows and I'm waiting for this spring to tie down the third row.

I know it's a bit ghetto, but it's my first.  One day it'll look like this:

Cityscape

Mamma said I haven't posted in awhile.  Yes, I've been lazy, but here's the first one of 2015.

Wifey and I went to New York a few years ago and she loved the place, especially all the lights and high rises.  So I brought New York to her, sort of.

We have a long cinder block wall that worked as a good back drop.  I took 1/8 inch rod, from a welding supply store, and bent it in the shape of buildings.  Then, with much patience, I hot glued a strand of LED cool white Christmas lights to the rods.  Lastly, I used anchors to attach the rods to the wall.

Hmmm, I lost my iPhone two weeks ago and all the pictures I took of the process.  Oh well.  Here's the  finished product (about 1/4 of what's going up).