- Plan for China House
Well, exciting times have come to the Paris to Peking Railway, haven’t they? Just look at our new surroundings.
Housekeeping first: our new surroundings will result in better information for you. You’ll be seeing more and better links coming in the very near future.
We have new staff to help us accomplish this bold new look…my brother the graphic genius has officially signed onto the railway as the Marketing Director. He is most welcomed!
Important Update: I talked to young China’s mom this morning. China’s vision in the damaged eye has been making a steady recovery…first lights and darks, then shadows, then blurry colors…until today. China told her it was no better today than yesterday. Still, it’s a rapid recovery from a disastrous injury. I thank you, good reader, for your prayers, your concerns, and your well wishes. Her mom asked that I thank you, too.
Okay, back to work. In my panic to use up the remaining plywood before the arrival of the dreaded dumpster I designed this very cool looking China House.
A quick aside: when I tore the roof off of my patio I had nowhere to park the debris. Mind you, this was a big job…20×30 feet of tarpaper-covered plywood laid over 2×6 supports. The guy who put that thing up must have had the hots for the nails saleslady…that sucker had a nail blasted in there just about every half inch. We’d ordered a dumpster to haul the junk away, but my went crazy with the chainsaw and trimmed the trees in front, filling the dumpster twice. Twice!
Anyway, I stacked all the junk on a corner of the patio, with the best sheets of plywood stacked vertically. Sunday I noticed there were nails pointing into the walkway…very much a hazard. I pulled one out with a hammer, and that one darn nail was supporting something else, and that slipped, and the whole pile of junk cascaded around me like Fibber McGee’s closet! You would have to be in the Navy to hear worse language!
So I’ve decided not to use the plywood anymore…bad memories. Instead, I bought this cool insulating foam from Lowe’s. At least I thought I did.
According to an article I read in Garden Railroader Magazine you can use insulating foam for structures…you have to coat it with something like stucco, but it’s supposed to hold up for decades.
Well, the foam I bought at $10 for a 4×8 sheet of 5/8 looks suspiciously like the foam my laptop came in. What gives? It has a very interesting thin sheet of plastic, kind of like a Mylar, on the faces, but once you cut it you get that grainy, crumbly snowfall of little pieces. Grrrrrr
I used the really sharp knife blade in my-friend-the-Leatherman. Most often it worked when I cut quickly, but the stryofoam bunched up underneath the Mylar sheet and made a mess. Grrrrrrr
To do this right we’ll have to invest in a hot knife, unless I can find a plan to build one on the…you know me…cheap. I’m excited to use it as a building material…just have to get used to its idiosyncrasies.
I’ll do that after I clean up the wreckage on the patio!
- It's still styrofoam!
- Ten bucks a sheet! Cheap!
