Tag: time lapse

Multiple reasons why the back path is being replaced:

• It was ugly
• The walls were falling down
• It blocked light into our semi-basement
• We wanted an accessible route into our house for when we’re old & infirmed 😮
• Also until we get the foundations and the roof fixed it doesn’t seem worth doing any work within the house so we have to look outside.

We’ll eventually have a nice gentle slope on which we will have a wandering bluestone path. We will also reduce the height of the bank on the right so if you look out of the basement window you will have a better view of the garden. We think we’ll plant ferns as it is mostly in the shade.

We removed the steps on Saturday and today we hoping to dig out the majority of the soil, alas, it was raining today and we only managed an hour or so. The rain has stopped now, but we are feeling a little lethargic so we will probably stay in and catch up on other work. Tomorrow is a holiday so we will try and start early. It will also be cooler tomorrow which will be nice, it was in the hight 80’s, low 90’s on Saturday so a little too warm, thankfully there was a slight breeze and we were working in the shade.

As a reminder this is how it used to look.

[Show slideshow]

And this is the latest:

Yesterday we demolished a lot more of the concrete block walls. It poured down most of the day but cleared up round about 5pm so we went down and worked till dark. I didn’t bother filming it, but it was quite hard work swinging the hammer and filling up the skip.

Today was better weather so I tried out our new jack hammer, the best $145 I have ever spent, apart from the round on Jasons stag night but that’s another story. If I had to do todays work with sledge hammers and chisels it would have taken me four times as long. The jack hammer took a little time to setup as the instructions were in poor English with lots of warning about things being fatal! Anyway sorted it out, just had to get the oil level correct. Pretty easy to use and not too noisy, only effort involved clearing away the lumps of concrete. Drill itself weights about 35lbs and once you have it going you just have to keep it vertical which is pretty easy.

In case you are wondering how these time lapse relate to real-time. The camera takes a picture every 10 seconds. The software I use then combines them together at a frame rate of 20 – 30 per seconds (depending on how many days I am recording over). Anyway this relates to roughly 15 – 25 seconds of time lapse to one hour real-time.

Next job will be to remove the concrete steps. We want at least once entrance which is ADA accessible, so no steps.

If I look a little bedraggled at the end, well that’s because I am. I was pleased with the cooling breeze today and on the second time lapse don’t the trees look like they are dancing with the sound track?

Today I offer you:

This involved the removal of the rotten timbers of the rear deck, clearing away mucky soil and starting to remove the concrete block walls. I was hoping to find a Roman mosaic under everything, but alas no.

I did find quite a lot of old blue stone so we’ll use that for paths or garden walls in the future. The concrete blocks are a bit of a pain especially near the house as you can’t get a good swing of the 15 pounder, which might be a blessing in disguise as it’s hard work.

I know these videos aren’t very exciting but they give us something to look back on. All I have to do is set the camera up and forget about it, no need to go and grab a camera at key moments etc. By the way the cameras I use have a battery life of a few hours so to keep them running all day I have to use an ethernet cable (Power over Ethernet/POE) to provide the power. You will see the ribbon ethernet cable in quite a few shots. I have been using this product, there maybe better solutions but this works and I haven’t the time and energy to find an alternative. For these days jobs I should use a USB power pack, but for longer recordings POE will be handy.

The last ten seconds were filmed on Wednesday evening. We have had the skip for almost two weeks (which is really nice of Tom & Kingston Roll Offs), so I was trying to fill it up. It was taking too long to break up the concrete walls so I decided instead to remove the concrete block wall at the rear left of the garden, hence why you see me all over the place.

I’m using royalty free music so you have the choice of:

or

Literally and the fourth skip to be filled!!! I rather like these skip/dumpster movies, even if they are a little disjointed. It’s like the worker bees going about their duties. We also like the cars that suddenly vanish and the moving shadow that the house casts.

The first thing that goes into the skip is our last piles of garden waste, poison ivy, and all (for now). If it looks like we are putting small sticks into the skip, then we are, those are the last of the hundreds of sapling trees we dug up. Next to go in was the rear stairs etc, followed by our rear patio excavation and lastly wall demolition.

Filling up these skips is a pretty good work out, digging, lifting, pushing, arms, legs, back, up and down steps etc. It’s nice in the evening just to feel that nice fatigue sleep slowly envelope you.

The skips/dumpsters are from Kingston Roll Offs, I have no complaints and the Tom the owner seems a great chap and always manages to maneuver the skip onto our drive way. Thanks Tom and thanks to the Major of Ponckhockie, Barry who introduced us.

By the way the two guys in white shirts that appear on the street at around 30 seconds are not having a boxing match as some viewers have suggested.