Tag Archives: how to

The Pallet Planter

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Reusing is better than recycling.

One of the things I wanted at my new home was a nice, neat garden. And there’s nothing that keeps a garden neater than raised beds for the plants.

But what to make them out of? A friend offered me railroad ties stacked up in his backyard, but they’re ugly and dirty and I was worried about tar or other nasty stuff they could have been treated with.

And then I thought of pallets.

I’ve got this thing about pallets. There’s something about a nice, clean, well-designed pallet that just makes me very happy. Come to think of it, it gives me almost the same feeling I get from unused paper. Is it the wood?

As I wrote the other day, my chicken coop was made, in part, with three pallets. My beehives are kept off the ground on pallets. And, in the past, I’ve made a “porch” for my RV with pallets and a deck for my poor man’s hot tub with pallets. To me, pallets are the ultimate free building material and I’m always on the lookout for good ones.

I hit the jackpot yesterday morning when I attended a “surplus sale” at the local school. Not only did I score two really nice media carts that’ll be perfect for my shop ($15 each), but I also bought a 4×10 foot magnetic white board in mint condition ($20) and a Sony boom box with AM/FM/CD/dual cassette ($5). And stacked outside were about 2 dozen of the nicest pallets I’d ever seen. I picked 7 of those and took them home for free.

Pallets in a Truck
I have a truck for a reason: I haul stuff.

Figuring out how to use them to create raised garden beds was a bit of a challenge until I took the time to see how they were configured. Then it was just a matter of cutting them in half and standing the pieces up in a square, partially buried in my garden. These photos and captions pretty much tell the story.

Pallet Garden
I started by digging a trench just wide enough to stand up the pallet halves. I used a level to keep them relatively level on sloped ground.

Pallet Garden
I needed something to prevent the dirt from coming out through between the slats. Because I have no shortage of straw, it was the logical choice. I really packed it in.

Pallet Garden
Because the dirt at the base (inside and out) would do most of the work holding the pallet halves together, I only needed four screws — one in each corner — at the top.

Pallet Garden
I filled in the straw all around.

Pallet Garden
Then I lined the inside with chicken wire to “discourage” moles (or voles or gophers or whatever the hell keeps digging on my property) from coming up through the bottom.

Pallet Garden
I filled the inside with the dirt from the trenches, some leftover compost, some leftover topsoil, and a big bag of Miracle Gro potting soil. before planting 18 strawberry plants.

Pallet Garden
For a finishing touch, I cut some scrap 2×4 lengths and set them into the groove at the top of the planter, hiding most of that messy straw.

Someone mentioned rabbits — they’d have to be pretty tall to reach these planters. And they’d have to get past my faithful garden watchdog, Penny. I’m more worried about birds. I’ll be making a chicken wire cover to keep the birds out before the plants begin to show fruit.

I’m very happy with the way this turned out. It took about 2 hours to build. The hardest part was digging the trench — which was actually quite easy because there are few rocks in my garden. The most costly part was filling the planter with dirt; I probably put about $15 worth of store-bought materials in there.

I’ll be building more of these. My goal is to eventually have three rows of six of them in my garden area.

What do you think?

Home Repair 101: Replacing a Thermostat

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Not nearly as difficult as I expected it to be.

In hindsight, I should have realized that the upstairs thermostat was on its way out. What else could explain the way it cycled on and off so frequently? But I didn’t really think about it. Sure, it was annoying, but it wasn’t my problem.

Until it became my problem.

Thermostat
The programmable thermostat in my bedroom. Setting it to 72° in a 65° room should have triggered it to go on.

I turned the heat down to 60°F in both zones when I went to Parker on Friday afternoon. I’d be gone overnight and couldn’t see heating the house while I was away. But when I got home on Saturday and turned the heat back up to 70°, only the downstairs heat pump turned on. Upstairs remained stubbornly off, despite the fact the room temperature was a chilly 65 in the afternoon sun.

I tried the on/off switch. No joy. I tried switching the Fan from Auto to Manual. The fan came on but it soon became apparent that it wasn’t blowing heat. I flicked the Electric Heat switch on the side (not visible in the photo) that I’m pretty sure kicks in some sort of electric heating element. Still no heat.

Clearly, something was broken. Was it the thermostat or the heat pump?

Logic says to repair/replace the cheapest thing first. So as I put an extra blanket on the bed that night, I planned to replace the thermostat the next day.

In the morning, the bedroom was 59°F. It was tough getting out of my cozy bed. Meanwhile, the heat downstairs was working overtime, sending warm air up while the cool air dropped down. I figured that if I couldn’t get the heat going that day, I’d get a fire going to help warm the house. (I still have quite a bit of firewood to burn.)

I took Penny with me to Wickenburg Airport for the Sunday morning coffee and donuts gathering. I’d started the ritual back when I managed the fuel concession at the airport in 2002-2004 and was very happy to see that more than 10 years later others were carrying on the tradition for me. It was great to meet up and chat with the other pilots.

I pulled Jason aside and queried him on the thermostat replacement. He assured me that I’d have no trouble doing it. He recommended that I take a photo of the wiring setup before pulling everything apart — just in case I had to put it all together again.

After picking up my toolbox from my hangar, Penny and I went to the hardware store. They didn’t offer many options. I wasn’t interested in making a big investment in this home repair since I didn’t expect to be living in the house much longer. But I did want a unit that was compatible with my system. A Honeywell device looked about right at $35, so I bought it.

I should mention here that several of my Twitter and Facebook friends were following my dilemma and were recommending that I buy a Nest thermostat. I’d heard all kinds of good things about Nest and really wanted one. But I certainly was not going to buy a $250 thermostat for a house I hoped to be out of by June. Instead, I’d buy one for my new home when it was built. Besides, I needed a solution quickly and I wouldn’t be able to get my hands on anything as nice as a Nest in Wickenburg. And there was always the chance that the problem wasn’t the thermostat at all — it could be the 15-year-old heat pump unit.

Inside the old Thermostat
Inside the old thermostat were cobwebs and a tangle of wires.

I went home, made myself a cup of hot cocoa, and got to work. The instructions that came with the Honeywell unit were extremely easy to follow, with a full page in the little booklet for every step. I discovered when I removed the main plate for the thermostat that the wires were not color-coded but letter-coded: each wire went into a different lettered slot. There were also two jumper wires. And, of course, the switch that had been added for the electric heat. The Honeywell unit had come with a little sheet full of lettered stickers. The instructions said to label each wire as I removed it. So that’s what I did. I found that I also had to customize one of the labels for one of the jumper wires since one letter was used twice.

The Wires
I admit that I began to have doubts about my ability to complete this little project when I was faced with this mess.

That done, I removed the back plate of the old thermostat, leaving the wires hanging out of the wall.

I should mention here that the Honeywell unit had no way to hook up that little switch. The old thermostat had been cut and customized to accommodate it. I was not prepared to do that. Or interested in taking the extra effort to try. This was a temporary fix that might not even work. So I decided to ignore it — except for the one labeled wire that I knew I’d have to connect to the new thermostat.

I screwed the back plate of the new thermostat on the wall and pulled the wires through it, leaving that silly little switch behind the plate. I then began matching the wires to the labeled slots.

And that’s when I realized I had a problem: one wire was labeled RH but there was no slot labeled RH.

Understand that I have never done anything like this before in my life. I had no idea what might happen if I did it wrong. I certainly didn’t want to short out an otherwise functioning heat pump. Or cause a fire.

So I paged through the instruction manual and found the toll-free help number. It was midday on a Sunday and I didn’t have much hope of reaching a real person to help me, but I picked up the phone and dialed anyway. After navigating through a brief menu system, a man answered. I gave him my name and phone number per his request and read the model number off the thermostat’s packaging. I then told him about the RH wire. He asked if there was a wire labeled R. When I told him there wasn’t, he told me to put the RH wire in the R slot. Easy as that.

While I had him on the phone, I confirmed something that I had already suspected: that there was a jumper wire running between the R and RC slots in the Honeywell unit. He confirmed that there was. I told him that my old thermostat had a jumper wire in the same slots and asked him to confirm that I wouldn’t need to insert them in the new thermostat. He told me I was correct. He then assured me that I’d have no problem completing the installation, but if I did, I should call back.

Great customer service from Honeywell!

Thermostat installation
It wasn’t easy, but I got all the wires tightly fastened in the right slots.

With some effort, I managed to get all the wires into the right places. I have medium sized hands and struggled with the tight space — I can’t imagine how a man with large hands could do this at all. Maybe with tiny needle-nosed pliers? I got the wires in place and screwed them in tightly.

Then I pulled the batteries out of the old thermostat and put them in the new one’s control box. I fastened the box onto the wall plate. It lit up with the temperature.

Finished!
The completed installation.

I flicked the switch to Heat and left the Fan switch set to Auto. I tapped the temperature up button a few times to set it to 70°. The heat came on immediately.

Looking good so far!

I cleaned up my workspace and finished my cocoa.

It didn’t take long to realize that the heat was now working. The temperature crept up, one degree at a time, over the next hour or so. Soon the upstairs was as toasty as downstairs.

I pulled the extra blanket off the bed. I wouldn’t be needing it that night.

One final note: The guys reading this might be thinking that I’m making a big deal out of nothing. After all, you guys probably replace thermostats or do similar tasks all the time. But while this might be nothing to you, to me, its a real achievement — more proof that I can take care of myself. I’ve done all kinds of minor home repairs in my house, the rental properties I used to own, my camping cabin in Williams, and even my RVs. Everything from drywall and toilet repair to installation of hardware cloth to keep mice out. These are things that most women are never taught to do and never even attempt to do. But women living alone have two choices: they can either ask a man for help — and possibly have to pay for his services — or they can do it themselves. Which do you think is better for us in the long run?

Creating a Photo Calendar with InDesign

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An overview of how I did it and the results.

This year, I decided that I needed an affordable yet memorable holiday gift to send out to all my customers and the folks I do business with. I wanted this gift to be an in-your-face-all-year-long item. That means it had to be something the recipients would want to keep and refer to.

A calendar seemed to fit the bill.

Now every year, I get sample calendars with my company name on it from various printers who print promotional items. They’re usually pretty boring; certainly not the kind of calendar you’d want to use all year long. Clearly, I had to do better than that.

The solution was a custom calendar using the photos I’ve taken over the years to show off the places I fly to and my helicopter. The challenge was to make a professional-looking, attractive calendar that was cost-effective to print.

iPhoto’s calendar printing option was the obvious choice for creating the calendar. It offers several different formats, many of which would meet my needs. What did not meet my needs, however, was the price: $19.99 per calendar. Since I figured I’d need at least 50 of them, that was far more than I wanted to spend.

My husband suggested MagCloud, which I’ve been using for other print-on-demand needs. At first, I didn’t think it would work out. After all, MagCloud produces stapled magazines sized just under 8-1/2 x 11. But then I held a sheet of paper up to the Robinson Helicopter calendar on my wall. And guess what? It was the same size.

So I decided to go with MagCloud for printing.

At that point, it looked as if I’d be creating a 28-page calendar from scratch. Not something I looked forward to. But I did a Google search for 2010 InDesign Calendar Template, which directed me to the 2010 InDesign Calendar Template by Juliana Halvorson on the Adobe Web site.

I downloaded it and discovered that it was almost what I needed. The template assumed a landscape orientation. I wasn’t sure if MagCloud would accept the document created that way. So I modified the template to make it portrait orientation and rotated all the calendar grids. A few adjustments to the margins and bleeds (which I initially got wrong) and it was a good starting point for my own project.

First up was reviewing the holidays. Juliana had included several extra religious and “Hallmark” holidays that just weren’t appropriate for a general use calendar. I removed them. I also changed the wording of some holidays — for example, changing Thanksgiving Day to just plain Thanksgiving.

Then I needed to redo the thumbnail calendars for the previous and next month that appear on each calendar page. The type was just too small. That turned out to be a time-consuming chore, as I had to basically reformat each little calendar individually. But it was worth the effort; the numbers are now far more readable.

Here’s a little movie of the calendar’s pages. You’ll need QuickTime to view it.

Then the big task: finding the images I needed in my calendar — 12 full-page images and about 16 smaller ones — cropping them for the right proportions, saving them as TIFFs, and dragging them into my working file. It took me two full days to get the job done. In the end, it was very tedious and I just couldn’t wait to finish it.

Since the calendar’s pages had to be in multiples of 4, I had to stretch my 26 page document to 28 pages. That also meant filling in 2 more pages with something. I decided to put information about Flying M Air’s services, along with thumbnail images from the big pictures.

Once completed, I created the PDF MagCloud needed to print my calendar. The first upload (which took 4 tries on my miserably slow Internet connection here in Wickenburg) resulted in an error. I’d gotten the bleed measurements wrong. I fixed them and (fortunately) did not need to adjust the layout. Two hours later, after about 8 upload attempts, the file was online. The preview looked good.

I ordered the free proof and am now waiting for it to arrive. If it passes muster — and I’m about 95% sure it will — I’ll order about 50 copies to give as holiday gifts to clients and friends.

In the meantime, I’ve “published” the calendar so others can preview and (hopefully) buy their own copies. There is one caveat, however. Because MagCloud publishes magazines and not calendars, if you buy from MagCloud, you’ll have to punch your own hole in the top of the calendar.

I’ll be doing a lot of hole-punching next week.