First blog video

Here is the first video on this blog. It is a long video about the shed and how far we have gotten on it so far.

A view of the loft from the ladder. We still need to add the second layer and insulate the loft.

Looking in the front door

Looking toward the north west corner. One piece of plywood is being used as a form for the light clay wood chips

The rocket stove wasn't drawing correctly, so i dismantled it .  I'll rebuild it, but I'll follow the directions in the book more carefully this time.

The south east corner where a permanent ladder will eventually go.

The north side where we are putting in the light clay wood chips.  You can see the plywood forms above the scaffollding

wood chips filled up to the top of the pallets

looking down the pallets. You can see the electrical wire in the first row of pallets and then the second row is the one being filled up right now.

The east side with the forms recently pulled off

The south east corner.  You can see some of the chunks of foam inside the wood chips.  We are using a lot of the foam to help boost the r-value and just as a filler so we don't have to make so much light clay wood chips.  Because I got the foam for free, I'd rather use it than the wood chips, but the wood chips are needed to fill in the gaps and make it all fit together better, plus I don't have enough foam to insulate the whole shed.

The south east corner again

Building a Shed

Image of the Google SketchUp Model

Started collecting pallets and rocks

spreading out the rocks

This project has "Crazy" written all over it.  First of all the reason behind it.  Our son has autism and qualifies for services such as SSI, DSPD, and Medicaid.  There are several requirements to be able to quaify and one of those has to do with assets that we own.  One of the asset stipulations is that we cannot own property that we don't live on.  Well, back in December we bought some property to build our straw bale house on.  When we did that SSI put us on hold with their services for one year.  We figured that we could survive for a little while, but now the bild still hasn't started and we are being told that come December if we don't live on the property we will loose SSI.  Because the other programs are based off of our eligibility for SSI, we will loose them as well.  By the way there is a 4 year waiting list to get back on.  We have gone the rounds to try and find a solution, but it boils down to needing to move on the property while we build.  

The first day of foundation wall

Long story short, we just bought a camper trailer and I'm going to build a shed.  The purpose of the shed is to give us extra space to store things, a place to hang out and a place to eat together.  After the house is built, the shed will serve as my glass shop until I can build an official shop and then the shed will be a really cool hangout for the kids.Here is the link to the SketchUp model: http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=f8e22fec33d9919499a2ba6ee90ca252

The corner at the right was the shallowest and everything after that took more rocks and a lot more time

The code here says that anything over 200 square feet needs a building permit, but anything under that doesn't, which also means that it doesn't need inspections.  So, I am going to build a pallet shed with an earthen floor, light clay straw/wood chips/foam insulation inside the pallets, a rocket mas heater, and an earthen plaster finish inside and out.  I was hoping to do all of this under $500.  The original plan was to use a living roof, but with the materials at hand the living roof would be too heavy, so I'll probably use a metal roof manufactured here in town instead.

That's me working

The foundation used a lot of stone and urbanite (used concrete) mortared together with a cement cap to make it all level.  Anchor bolts were put in between the rocks and mortared in.  The mortar cost $75, the cement $41, the rocks and urbanite came off the property $0 and the anchor bolts (and a lot of other materials for this little project) were salvaged from a dumpster $0. 

Trying to bring up the wall to the right level

 I have been able to find all of the 2x4 material, pallets, windows, door, joists for the loft, wiring, screws, trim, and carpet (for the loft) all through dumpster diving as well as some of the treated toe ups, and most of the plywood.  As we get further along I'll keep you up to date on what I have salvaged and what I have had to purchase.  The reasons we are trying to keep it cheep are 1) Duh who wants to spend extra money, and 2) we are trying to keep a good down payment for the construction loan for the real house.

First corner finished

This process takes a lot longer than just pouring a cement foundation

I spent hours doing this.  After sitting like this for a few hours , It would take me several minutes before I could stand up straight

Almost done with the foundation

A concrete slab to level off the top

Salvaging a Shed

Along with the salvaging we have been doing on a house that is slated to be demolished, we were able to salvage a shed.  This was much more of a process than it originally looked to be.  We got permission to use a fork lift to move it, but it was just too big.

 We tried to strap some dunnage 4x4s onto the tines to be able to span the distance to the back wall.  As you can see by the picture, the shed was way too heavy and snapped two 4x4s in half.  We gave it a few weeks to think about it and came back with a plan that ultimately worked.

 We were able to get some tube steel to attach to the tines that spanned all the way across.  We also tied the shed onto the fork lift to keep it from rocking.

 We were lucky that the shed balanced out.  Finally we were able to move it out of the back yard and 6 blocks away onto our new lot.  The shed will be a temporary storage while we are building.
 Along with making sure we didn't hit any power lines on the way there, the scariest part was that to get it out of the back yard we had to lift it over one of the houses.  Luckily both houses are going to be torn down.  I don't know if I would have dared trying that stunt over an occupied house. We did loose a few shingles on the yellow house.


I almost forgot, we also flattened a chainsaw in the process.

Stained Glass Bountiful Utah Temple

This year for Christmas we had Sarah’s brother Joseph and his family to give presents to.  So, following the traditions of previous years, I made them a stained glass picture of the Bountiful Utah Temple where they were married.  I wasn’t able to use much recycled glass on this one, only the windows, but I was able to put to good use some of the wood floor we have been salvaging to use as a frame.  The floor boards are tongue and groove.  The stained glass fit nicely into the groove.  So, I sanded off the old paint, trimmed off the tongue side, routed an edge on it and turned it into a picture frame.

 Another innovation this piece has on it are a couple of female ends to chain locks.  I have been struggling to find a secure way to hang heavy stained glass on a wall and I hope this will finally be the solution.

 I bought an LED light bar from IKEA to mount on the back.  The problem is that there is n o sign at IKEA that says that when you buy an LED light strip, you have to buy a plug to go with it.  So, I don’t have any pictures with the light working.   In fact, I haven’t seen it work yet.  We sent the plug to them after the picture was delivered and haven’t had a chance to see the whole ensemble together.

Look Ma, no plug

Salvaging for a new home.

Free Toilets in good condition

These doors are solid wood from the early 1900s

We are officially getting ready to build our new house in Ephraim Utah. We are going to build a Straw Bale House, which will be the subject of several posts I’m sure. Because this blog is dedicated to sustainable living (recycled glass and gardening) I have decided to add the home construction in as well. Besides, right now there is a lot more going on with the house construction than there is with either of the other two topics. This entry will be dedicated to salvaging materials for the new house.



Here in Ephraim there are a few houses slated for demolition to make way for a new shiny parking lot. We were given permission to go in one of them (hopefully in the near future the other two as well) and take out anything we want. The house had already been picked apart by some other people, but we were able to salvage 10 doors, two toilets, several light fixtures, an armoire, the electrical breaker box and a few really old window frames as well as a few other odds and ends. Over all we have probably saved a couple thousand dollars towards the new construction. Next we are going to try and pull out the old wood floor and some of the cool old moldings.



These are the original windows from the house.  We found them in the root celar



The first batch of wood floor.  We will have to pull the nails and plane each peice before we can refinish it.

Another amaizing door knob

Recycle, Reuse, Reclaim, Salvage, Upcycle: Words to Live By

Because I am pretty new to selling glass art, I have been checking out other people’s stuff online to see what they are making and how much they are selling it for. I have seen a lot of cool stuff out there, but I have come to the conclusion that people need to use a dictionary when they are describing their glass art. So in this blog entry I will attempt to define several “green” terms that are commonly misused or misunderstood. Whenever you see my description of my glass products, you will know that I follow closely the following definitions:

Recycle – Recycling is the process of reclaiming materials from used products or materials from their manufacturing and using them in the manufacturing of new products. -sustainabilitydictionary.com



"Bones"- left over edges from flattened light sconces

 When a plastic bag is recycled into a new plastic bag, it is melted down and reprocessed into a new bag.  It may not be the same color, size or other similar characteristics to the original bag. It may have even been changed into something completely different than a bag like plastic car paneling, or polar fleece. When I recycle glass it means that I take old used glass and change it into a new object. When I make stained glass out of bottles, I first cut the bottles, then fire them in my kiln, then cut them to shape and assemble them into the stained glass piece. When I make tiles, I crush the bottles into powder and then fire them into molds in the kiln. Some of my recycled glass jewelry is made by simply cutting out patterns from bottles or vases and using just that bottle or pattern in the jewelry.

Reuse – noun 2. the act or process of using again. - Dictionary.com

“Often, the most sustainable option is to reuse materials and objects already manufactured, either for their original or new purposes, rather than recycle them into other products. This decreases further energy and materials use in recreating them into a new form.“ -stainabilitydictionary.com

People will often reuse bottles or vases by gluing, cementing, or painting objects onto them. The glass objects retain their original form, but are just decorated. The bottle does not undergo any major changes or processing.



The temple was made from recycled light sconces, but the
 sky was made of salvaged glass a lady was getting rid of.

Reclaimed – verb 2. to recover (substances) in a pure or usable form from refuse, discarded articles, etc. -Dictionary.com

Reclaimed means it has already been thrown away. Objects may be reclaimed to either be recycled or reused.

Salvage - noun 2. the act of saving any goods or property in danger of damage or destruction -Dictionary.com

Salvage may or may not have been thrown away, but without intervention would otherwise be destroyed.



Bottle bottom boxes are upcycled because the new
product is deffinitly worth more than hte original bottles
they are made out of.

  Upcycle - The process of converting an industrial nutrient (material) into something of similar or greater value, in its second life. sustainabilitydictionary.com

Upcycle is a new phrase that I have seen used for items that are both recycled and reused. I believe that to be upcycled the object should be worth more after the alterations have been made.