Mystery Pagodas

I continue searching everywhere for a gazebo design that speaks to me. I love all the mini pagodas that I find, with their dramatically curved roofs, but they are a mystery because not one of them have plans or drawings or a clue about how to build them. How can this be?



I can sort of imagine what lies beneath the roof, but not with sufficient confidence, and I seem to more cautious these days, less likely to just make something up on the fly.

And then I wonder if such a thing would be appropriate, anyway, for our backyard Florida hammock, to be tucked under those big oaks and surrounded by philodendrons and viney things. Wouldn't a more rustic structure blend in? And so the waffling continues.


I consult my assistant project manager, Jam, but he insists on a beach theme. What a good boy

The Virtual Woodworker

My search for the perfect design has taken a dark turn. I'm torn between two different concepts--the gazebo and the pergola--and I waffle back and forth, nothing new for me because I've always been a waffler, but now there is a new layer to my waffling. Now I'm learning Google SketchUp, a free graphics software that allows me to see my ideas in 3-D and from all directions, which is an apparently good thing except that using the software is a type of addiction, an infectious hobby that has attracted a whole community of people on the internet who do their projects only with this software, never actually bring home the wood or cut it or assemble it. These virtual woodworkers display and share their finished projects online, and they discuss with great detail how they solved each technical difficulty (of the software, not the wood). And I am beginning to understand why.

Using the software, mistakes are easily erased away, and there is no end to the possibilities, all of which are free except for the time that is sucked away during the process. Try this, try that, make this thicker, thinner, etc. It never ends.

But back to the gazebo and pergola. A gazebo has a roof while the pergola is open. A roof means rafters, and rafters are installed at an angle, and angles are tricky to do in the SketchUp software, at least for novices like me, especially when you consider that that gazebo I want to build is a hexagon.

By contrast, the software is allowing me to easily create and try different pergola designs. Here's a pergola design that I'm considering:

But I don't like the idea that the software is pushing me in one direction of another. I do not like this one bit. I'd prefer to concentrate on the practical issues.

For example, pergolas are ideal to support flowering vines, while the gazebo's roof is not so good for vines. Also, building a roofed gazebo could prompt one of our nosy neighbors to complain to the city, which could require the pulling of a building permit.

More later.

Good Luck, Coach

Possibly it's because I've been distracted by other events, and with a eye to ignore the inevitable, I guess, so that the inevitable would not come--yesterday Coach went in for training and we may never see him again. The best we can hope for is a quick hello when he becomes a guide dog, though I can't even allow myself to hope for it because hoping did not work in the past with our other dogs.

The day would not be delayed, and today Coach is at school. And though we have every reason to believe that he's very happy with his new classmates and his new life, and though we had known about this for months--the exact date and time of his IFT (in for training)-I am almost confused today about his absence.

At some point during the past several days, I'm not sure when, I've finished the hallway table project. I felt sure there was something else that could be done, but there's not.

Good luck, Coach.

A Hall Table

I'm struggling with curves. These curves haunt my early morning hours, elusive, beautiful. And these aren't curves of the feminine kind (well, usually not)... No, these are curves in wood, like the ones in the Japanese azumaya that I was planning to build.

Long, graceful curves along the wood grain. Easier said than done--these are very, very difficult cuts.

The beauty of a curve comes from its simple and perfect grace, something that diminishes with each slight imperfection, even those not apparent to the eye. Our brains are hard-wired to appreciate the perfection of nature expressed in geometry and symmetry. If the cuts aren't perfect, I will look out and hate them every day.

It turns out that the design shown above is an Americanized version of a pagoda roof--an authentic roof of this type should achieve its curve without having to actually cut curves into the rafters. So now I searching for a new, authentic plan (I'm not giving up).

In the meantime I'm exploring some curves in the hall table I'm building for Cheryl. I also found a way to cut some nice tapers into the legs. Even these small curves are tormenting me. I've just finished gluing the legs and aprons.

This will be a really delicate hall table just by the entry to the kitchen.

At some point time in the near future, the dogs will run into the table at full speed and turn it into splinters.

Bamboo

Summer is transforming itself with some deception. I know from experience (or at least I think I know) what will happen if I attempt to do any serious work outdoors in July and August. But now the rains have started. Yesterday a nice cool one soaked me as I was planting the new sun-loving bamboo that should do well along the fence and should help hide the power pole out back. The quick flash of rain had me shivering when I came in to the air conditioning.

Cheryl got me a great book on Japanese garden design. It's got my head swimming with all sorts of ideas, of wandering stone paths and Feng Shui and complexity and simplicity, except that all these ideas require work to implement. And July is here.

We've also got four new trees in the back yard, sitting in pots until we find the right spots for them. Here's our Calamondia orange.

In the master project schedule for the backyard, it's OK to get these plants now because they are out of the way and won't be disturbed by the hardscaping to come, such as the French drain I'll need to make below the patio (which now puddles up during a rain). The yard will be a mess for months to come.

Also last week we put in 4 new giant bird of paradise alone the fence.

Ha, no heat stroke yet.

Here's another of the new trees: a Kaffir lime.

Am I tougher than the summer? Maybe this year I am.

Not What the Mayans Would Do

Continuing on with the long and painful process of converting our former jungle into a less-jungly place, yesterday I tackled the area by the outdoor oven, a place that had become covered with weeds and vines to the point that the stone patio had disappeared, not unlike some of the Mayan ruins that we visited in the Yucatan, overgrown from centuries of neglect, except in our case it has only taken a few years.

No, this patio was not designed with the skill and foresight of Mayan engineers. Whoever put down these stone did so in a hurry and without regard for the future--no real drainage is accounted for, so in just a few years the rain waters have deposited a layer of Florida soil on top. Adventurous roots found a way to grip onto the stones and create their own layer of earth.

A row of ferns lines the patio to the left, several of which were growing directly on top of the stones. I severed these from the main group by cutting the roots with garden shears. Once the roots were cut I was able to pull away the thick mat of tiny roots covering the stones for about two feet, very much like a fibrous door mat about 2 inches thick.

Ferns will cover the planet after humans are gone--they are by far the biggest bullies in our yard.

Then on to the rest of the area, pulling the weeds one at a time from between the stones, checking with my shears to see when I was on top of stone or not. I swept away the dirt and weeds and then attempted to wash off newly revealed patio. I didn't even realize that the stones extended all the way to the picnic table (on the right). Of course, I couldn't really wash them because the water just puddled.

Unless I redo this patio, it will get eaten up by the jungle again, and very soon. This whole area needs to be elevated several inches so that water will run of quickly. Worse, the low spot is currently the air hole that feeds the oven--if a storm comes up while I'm smoking something, the water will just rush into that hole.

All I need is a ton or two of sand...

Next: setting up our new fruit trees.