Category: Home ownership

DIY: Crawl Space, Planing, and the Work Bench

The Crawl Space

I admit that I was frustrated with my prospects of having place to work. I wanted my shop to be in the barn, but in order to do that, I had to have a place set up to work in order to work on the barn. That left the crawl space, or what I was mistakenly calling a “basement.” Apparently, the two are different.

What made me think I had a basement was there is an area high enough for me to stand up. But since it’s not finished out, think dirt floors, it’s not a basement.

Continue reading DIY: Crawl Space, Planing, and the Work Bench

DIY: Fixing the Hinge and More…

Finally, a small victory. I fixed the bottom hinge on the front door to the barn yesterday. It was a tad bit more complex than I thought it was going to be.

To celebrate, I decided to continue pulling vines off the rest of the barn to get the other doors open. (See videos below). In the process of doing so, I discovered that the barn has 5 doors on the first floor, and 1 door on the second floor. I will need to repair at least two of them, one by adding a cross bar, the other by making one completely new.

The Barn-Reclamation Project (BRP) continues…

The Second Floor

 

The Side Doors and More

Most of this was done yesterday, so you can guess that I’m quite tired today. But if I get a couple more days like yesterday, hopefully things will progress along.

Needs:

  • Fix one of the side doors.
  • Replace the other side door.
  • Get the upstairs door open so I can sweep out the upstairs.
  • Start taking down the inner stalls. This is where I will get much of my lumber for the floor that I eventually want to put down. (Long-term goal.)
  • Run electricity to the building.

 

 

 

DIY: Inside the Barn

Progress on the barn is slow, given that much of my time is the other major DIY projects: unpacking and finding room in the crawl space.

But given that, here are some pictures I took once I cut away enough of the vines to open the door and one window.

I like the horse trough because you can see where the horses chewed on the wood above.

This the door to the main entrance to the barn: see the red trimmed door below.

This is the main door into the barn. I tried to cut away enough of the growth from the inside to open it, only to discover once I cut my way over to it, that it has a Master lock on it. Only one way to get into the door: cut the lock. Fortunately, Heidi has a pair of bolt cutters. (Marriage tidbit: never marry a woman who doesn’t own a pair of bolt cutters).

Getting this window open was really helpful in helping me look around. When I took the picture, I didn’t realize I was also getting a good look at the second floor, from underneath. It’s all good wood.

All photos copyright © Timothy J. Hammons, 2026.

 

DIY: First Glances into the Barn

Remember, when I first looked into the barn, I wasn’t supposed to be there. It was a Monday afternoon, and we were closing on the house more than a week away. But I had to go looking. I had to take more pictures because … I didn’t take any when I first looked at the house with the Realtor.

I took pictures out front, and worked my way back to the barn. I still couldn’t see much. I found a small hole in the fence next to the chicken coop. Looking around to make sure there were no snakes, or other dangers, I bent over and under the vines growing between the fence and the coop. I was only 10 feet from the open doors of the barn.

Stepping carefully over growth and old beer cans, I went to the first door and looked inside. It looked like an old stall. Upon closer review, I was right. It was an old stall.

Nothing exciting at all… but the potential. It wasn’t wet. That meant that the roof was still good. Further more, there were no decomposing bodies to be see, so I didn’t need to call the police.

On to the next door. This one gave me a better understanding of the structure of the building. The entire out wall was made out of concrete block. The building wasn’t going anywhere any time soon. Again, the possibilities.

Yet, I didn’t go inside. That would have to wait.

 

If you look on the ground, you can see a porcelain light socket. I wondered if the building had electricity at one point or another.

I use to publish pictures of doors for a Photography group call Thursday Doors. I wonder if they would be interested in this one. I plan on restoring it to its original ruggedness.

All photos are copyright © Timothy J. Hammons 2026. 

DIY: The Barn

The one real surprise about the house we recently bought was that it has a four-stall barn on the back part of the property. Heidi knew about it, but I didn’t know until I was actually looking at the house with the realtor. I had Heidi on FaceTime as I walked around the place.

When we were looking over the backyard, she asked that question that made the deal: “where’s the barn?”

“Barn, what barn?”

“The listing says there is a barn on the place, near the back fence.”

I looked and all I could see was a fence that was covered with heavy overgrowth. I started walking toward the fence, peering though the limbs, trees, vines, and overgrowth. There it was. The outline of a small barn.

I was ecstatic.

“We have to get this place.”

So we did.

Since we closed on the house, I’ve made two working explorations towards the barn, with loppers,  hedge trimmers, and a bowsaw. I’ve cleared overgrown areas before, but never for a place that was my own.

As you can see, the barn is almost completely covered. My first concern was poison ivy, and then poison oak. I don’t think I’m allergic to either, but I still wanted to be careful.

My biggest concern were the ticks. So far, haven’t see any.

However, there is a very large vulture living in the first shed. Did I tell you that there are two sheds on either side of the barn, along with a chicken coop? I didn’t did I. But there are.

Apparently the owner of the house, when they built it back in 1935, had plenty of room for chickens, and horses. I think the pen on the right side of the place might have had sheep or pigs in it. But more on that later.

As you look at the picture above, realize that I had yet to step into the barn. I didn’t know if I was going to find… well, junk, rot, dead bodies, whatever? I wasn’t even sure how big the barn was. There was way too much brush and vines covering it to get a clear look of it.

Since we had yet to close, when I took the above picture, I didn’t dare go inside. I wasn’t supposed to be there. But I had to take a look. What you see, is what I saw: a door open to a stall.

All photos copyright © Timothy J. Hammons, 2026.

 

 

 

DIY: Workbench

Since we moved into our home three years ago, I’ve wanted to build a workbench so I would have an area to work on projects. I’ve done a few since moving in August 20, 2022: painting a lot of the rooms, painting the garage, making a spice rack out of a wooden pallet, painting book shelves, sanding down and painting a hutch, and more bookshelves. But I haven’t really built anything. The workbench would be the first building project.

I watched a lot of DIY videos on YouTube about building workbenches in preparation and finally settled on the following one here. I thought that one was simple enough to give it a go.

I bought the wood in early August and started on the 6th. Here are photos of my progress with commentary.

You can see the need for a workbench already. I had to start in the driveway.

Once I had the two sides put together, I had to put together the two sides. This is where the seeds of doubt began to sprout. I thought for sure the project would be a bust. Please notice the bungee cords I was using to try and hold it together while I put in the lag bolts. I ended up buying two large clamps.

My little helper.

It started to come together.

Once I had it set up, I realized that the way it was positioned, there would be no room to work off the edge of the table. My garage isn’t wide enough being only a single-car garage. I needed to turn it against the right wall, which caused a problem keeping it level. If you will notice down in the right-hand side of the photo, the big crack in the foundation of the garage? I had to use a brick to level it out once I turned it.

Once I turned the table and leveled it, I wanted it as flush as I could get it up next to the wall.

This was after I realized I needed more 2x8s.

Notice how solid the joints are. I had a man in my church tease me saying it was over-engineered.

The final piece was the backsplash against the wall. It was an extra piece that I didn’t want to go to waste.

Looking underneath.

Declaring it done!

If you watch the video, let me know how close I came to duplicating the table. I will say that I made my table higher and deeper. Bigger is better!

All photos © Timothy J. Hammons, 2025.

 

The Hope of a Slow Growing Burr Oak

When we moved into our home, almost 2 years ago, it became obvious that the previous owners had one love in life: watching NFL football. We gathered this because there were televisions mounted to the walls in the living room, every bedroom, and there were three in the den. They were kind enough to leave us all the wall mounts, which we quickly put on the curb for disposal. I don’t think they ever imagined we wouldn’t follow their lead, and mount 15 televisions throughout the house. We have one.

But the real problem with people like that is that they don’t care for the yard, or the house itself. People like the previous owners should be renters, not owners. Just look at the pictures of the back yard when we moved in back in August of 2022.

Sparse.

But they did try to add some curb appeal out front. In fact, the yard out front under the big oak, was actually in good shape. It was filled with St. Augustine grass. The rest of the yard was mostly weeds, and three, newly planted trees. One of which was this Burr Oak.

As you can see, this burr oak isn’t very big. Maybe a foot tall, and it has been about that size since we moved in back two years ago. There were times where the weeds and grass in the front yard almost obscured its existence all together. I had to put those yellow warning flags around it, so that my boys wouldn’t mow over it when they were helping me in the yard.

It’s a small tree.

This morning, while cutting the grass, I had to stop, get the hand shears, and cut the St. Augustine away from the trunk. I got my shovel out and worked to get the roots of the grass out, then added some mulch around the base. I love this tree.

Some might say: why not plant a Bradford Pear, it will grow 25 feet in 5 years? Because it will be dead in 15 years.

Not a burr oak. The burr oak is a tree that can last as long as 400 years. It only grows about a foot every year, so it is a slow growing tree.

I need to remind myself of this. I’m not caring for this tree, for my benefit, but for some future homeowner. I seriously doubt I will ever sit in the shadow of this tree, unless I pass out from the Texas heat, an just so happen to fall next to it.

But there is a deeper spiritual truth illustrated by this tree that is helpful to me in my ministry. The way this tree grows, is often times the way the LORD chooses to grow the church. The roots of this tree are going deep, and the branches are slowing going upwards. This is exactly what ministers should want in the growth of their churches. They should desire that the roots of the gospel are going deep in the parishioners, while they slowly produce sprititul fruit of their own.

This burr oak may not produce any acorns for some time, but it will. It may not provide any shade in the near future, but when does, it will be magnificent. This oak may not even be noticed for years, but when it is noticed, it will point back to God and His glory.

All these truths help us to see the greater reality of building Christ’s Kingdom and the church. Elders and pastors have to ask ourselves: what are we trying to grow?

Sure, we can use the ways of the world, with flashy concert-like worship services, lots of entertainment, smoke machines and loud praise teams to build the church. In fact, that is more often than not, the approach many take. But to do so, has consequences and those consequences are not good.

Paul put it like this in 1 Corinthians 3.

For no one is able to lay another foundation than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 Now if anyone builds upon the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, grass, straw, 13 the work of each one will become evident. For the day will reveal it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the work of each one, of what sort it is. 14 If anyone’s work that he has built upon it remains, he will receive a reward. 15 If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved, but so as through fire.

The question is: what are you going to build the church with? Gold, silver, precious stones, which Leithard see as true believers in the church, or wood, grass, and straw, which are more like tares. Who are we going to appeal to?

This has always been my fight as a pastor. Yes, we can put on shows, adopting the ways of the world, and draw large crowds, but Jesus told Peter, “Feed my sheep.” In doing that, we must realize that we don’t have the freedom to use the wisdom of the world. For us to be faithful, and truly feed His sheep, we must use the means HE has given us: the preaching of the word of God, prayer, and the sacraments. These are the things that work in the lives of believers. These are the tools He has given us to work in the body of Christ.

In doing so, it’s going to take a long time. This is why the burr oak gives me hope. It reminds me, that what I’m doing as a pastor, is slow work. We might not produce a great deal of noticeable fruit for a while. We might not provide a lot of shade in the near future. But we are not working just for the near future. We plow in hope, grow burr oaks in hope, not for our benefit. We may never see the fruit of our labor. For the tree we have planted is not a Bradford Pear, here today with lots of entertainment and smoke machines, but gone tomorrow. We a planting for the future.

That takes time.

I’m grateful the former owners planted the burr oak. I shall water it, fertilize it, keep the St. Augustine off of it, and let God cause the growth.

Here is our backyard as of a few a moments ago. I believe we are to take dominion of all that we have been given. Hopefully you can see the difference.

All photos are copyright © Timothy J. Hammons, 2024.

A Painted Garage

I hate white walls so much, I had to paint the walls in my garage. I love doing things in there, so it does matter. But before any of you say those wretched words: “man cave,” please note that my garage is not a man-cave. It’s a garage. If something needs the adjective “man” before it to make it acceptable, then it has already failed. Men don’t need to apply the word “man” in front of what we do, for legitimacy. We don’t wear buns. We don’t carry purses. We don’t need rooms labeled “man this or that.” In fact, in a man’s house, every room is his. If he is married, like I am, every room is ours. OK, enjoy the photo.

All photos are copyright © Timothy J. Hammons, 2024.

DIY Summer: The Dutch Hutch

Walking through our favorite consignment store, I spotted this hutch and pointed it out to Heidi. She wasn’t keen on it because it was painted. I pointed out that it’s style was similar to the bookshelf I painted earlier and I could repaint it to match the bookshelf. She said if I wanted to.

I did.

I figured it would be easy to paint since all I had to do was lightly sand the existing paint for the new coat. WRONG. The paint just flaked off meaning I had to take it all the way down to the wood from top to bottom. Look at that first picture. Notice all those grooves in the wood? Where did that ever become a good idea for furniture? I got to the point where I was trying to sand the grooves out of existence. What should have been a weekend job, stretched out to weeks.

This past Saturday, with the help of my boys, we finished it.

Have I mentioned GROOVES? What a headache. I’m into grooveless furniture.

Finished Product

All photos are copyright © Timothy J. Hammons, 2023.

DIY Summer: The Dinning Room Table

This is one project I have wanted to do for a long time, and glad that Heidi thought it was a good idea. I took the table given to me by longtime friend and sister in the LORD, Lucy, sanded it, and painted it. We have so much wood in the house, it really looks great.

I started by working on the leaves of the table.

Commitment!

Satisfaction.

The first meal, Joey’s breakfast.

All photos are copyright © Timothy J. Hammons, 2023. 

DIY Summer: The Bookshelf

I told Heidi that this has been my best summer as a public school teacher since entering the profession eight years ago. The reason: we are in our own home and I have had a lot of project to keep me busy.

Most summers, while living in an apartment, I finished my projects in about a week. Boredom ensued. But not this summer. Whether working in the yard, or on furniture, I’ve had a lot to do, and still do.

Here are some of the projects.

The Book Shelf

We found this pine bookshelf at the consignment store here in town (realize that about a third of our furniture comes from the consignment store. After the debacle of buying a new sofa, and having it returned because it was broke, we swore off new furniture stores.)

Sorry, but I don’t have a before shot, just an after shot. Joey was really helpful on this project. We had to quit working every day at about 11 a.m. because it got too hot in the garage.

We call him Captain Studious.

All photos are copyright © Timothy J. Hammons, 2023.

In Memory of an Arizona Ash

Planted some 40 years ago, the ash was cut down yesterday, October 27, 2022. I’m not sure why it’s bothering me so much. It’s just a tree, but it is.

And in the interest of photography and tree lovers, I’m adding this to Dawn’s Festival of Trees 2022. 

All photos are copyright © Timothy J. Hammons, 2022. 

Death of an Ash

It doesn’t look much to the untrained eye. But it is everything. After moving into our new home in late August, I was sitting on the back porch, enjoying my backyard when I really began looking at the Arizona Ash growing in the middle of the yard. I fell in love with the tree the first time I saw it because I love big, old trees, as most people do.

So I was enjoying the tree. It stood their providing shade and character to my back yard.

Then I noticed it. It? The big hole that looked like it would be a wonderful home for a squirrel. It was right there in the trunk of the tree. Great place for acorns. But a dreadful warning.

I looked up at the tree and made my second foreboding observation. All the limbs, without exception, were dead. There were no leaves on them. There were plenty of leaves on the tree. But the long branches, that extended up and out, had no leaves at all.

The feeling that something wasn’t right began to creep into my brain. I’m not a tree expert. But I do know, when you see big holes and dead limbs, well, you better seek some help.

I got up from chair and went to look more closely. I saw the rot in another part of the trunk. The type of rot that broke off in my hands when I probed a bit deeper. The tree was clearly sick and dying.

I didn’t want to think about it. I went and sat down on the back porch again… and thought about it.

“Maybe the tree wasn’t dying. Maybe, the dead limbs at the top of the tree, were nothing more than a result from the drought we’ve been experiencing. Maybe the tree is just fine and needs a trim. All is well. Nothing to see here.”

I went about my business, hoping that nothing was truly wrong. I even asked a landscape man to look at it. He made the comment that if we trimmed it, it might last a while longer. I ignored that key word, “might.”

All was well.

Then, several Saturdays ago, as I was working in the yard, I noticed something. A big portion of the tree had fallen. It had fallen over my fence and into the neighbors yard in an arch, missing my wonderful fence. I trust in God’s kind providence. It also missed the neighbor’s fence.

Being industrious, as much as I can be, I got out my loppers, and bow saw, let the neighbors know I was on it, and went to work cutting and trimming away the limb. Then… 61 years of age caught up with me. I realized, as that fictitious tool man once proclaimed: “I need more power.”

I texted the men of the church asking if anyone had a chainsaw I could borrow, and I continued to work on the limb. I even sent a few of the pics below to the group. A few responded saying that they couldn’t help because of prior commitments. There was o surprise there.

I made my decision: I needed a chainsaw. I went to work doing a quick investigation on the best chainsaw within my price range. I didn’t need much of one, since I didn’t plan on becoming a lumberjack any time soon. I settled on one, and went to buy it at the local big-box hardware and junk store. I was quite pleased with my choice. The guy on Youtube said it was the best for the price, and he was like me, not in need of too much power.

My concern was with Heidi. She knows that I won’t make a rash decision, or maybe she does, but is willing to let me make it as any godly wife would. Yet, I knew she didn’t like the idea of spending that kind of money on something I would use once or twice. So I was hesitant.

I pulled into the driveway with great expectations of dealing with the problem of th tree limb quickly and getting on with the rest of my day.

Then the text came.

I had already made up my mind that if anyone texted me to help before I opened the box, I would take the chainsaw back. Seth texted me. He said he could come over and help later in the day. I let him know that I bought a chainsaw. He persisted… gently, as is his way.

I pushed back… but not with a lot of force.

He gently persisted again. It was hard to say no to Seth because he and his brother Abel had survived off of running a tree trimming business for a while, so I needed to listen.

Humility came crashing in by God’s rich grace and mercy and 32 minutes later I was returning the chainsaw… and buying a leaf blower. I will definitely need a leaf blower. But I digress.

Seth came over later in the day and started looking closer at the fallen limb. What he was able to spot was that … it wasn’t just one limb that fell, but two. One much higher had actually fallen and hit the lower one, the one I was working on, and was still trying to fall. As he worked about the tree, trying to bring the top limb down, the reality of the danger I faced was slowly sinking into my brain. Had I kept cutting on the lower branch, the upper branch would have fallen and possibly hit me, and definitely taken out the fence.

Seth saw it right away. I tried to get up high enough in the tree to get a line around it, so it could be pulled in another direction in order to take down the lower limb. He climbed too high for my comfort and I started praying.

When that didn’t work, he got on top of my fence, which has a 1×4 running along the top, so that he had a pace to stand and toss a rope up towards the upper branch. Now I really prayed. Had I stood on that 1×4… I get dizzy just writing that sentence.

But there he was, perfectly at home, tossing that rope, ignoring my pleas to come down and be sensible.

He finally did and said what I was telling him all along, I needed to higher someone to come take care of it. To my delight, Seth continues in good health today and suffered no injuries due to my sick and dying tree.

But it was worse than that.

Seth explained to me that the green leaves I was seeing on the tree were not the green leaves of a healthy tree, but one of a tree that has already died. The tree is dead. At least to those who know trees.

That means it has to come down. And for one who love big trees, I have to say that I’m saddened by the reality. One of the reasons I loved it so is that I’ve planted a lot of trees in my adult life, but rarely been able to enjoy them. This tree… was planted by someone more than 40 years ago, and I was enjoying it, if only for a short time. I was hoping that it would last many years. But it isn’t to be so. The ash is dead.

 

First Fire in the Fire Pit

Got home after work on Tuesday, and was tired. I didn’t feel like doing much, but sitting out on our back deck and enjoying the evening. I hadn’t planned on it, but the call of the empty fire pit was too much. So I started a small fire and enjoyed it for half an hour. It was the first fire in the fire pit since we moved into our new home.

As for the pit itself, I plan on remove all the white stones, and white bricks. I’m replacing the bricks with stones from the Watauga River in Tennessee. As you can see, we need to make a lot more trips to the river to finish out the fire pit.

All photos are copyright © Timothy J. Hammons, 2022. 

Welcome to the Neighborhood

Last night, after picking up my boys from up north, I drove by our new home to surprise Andy, my oldest. I had already teased Joey about us buying a new house, so he already knew. It was fun watching and listening to Andy as he realized we had bought a home.

However, as I was showing the boys around, Andy looked out in the back yard and noticed a hose attached to our house running under the fence to our neighbors. What? My mind tried to grasped what I was seeing. “Could my neighbor really be stealing my water?”

Uhm, yes. And my electricity too.

We called the police. We kept the extension cord, we’ll be cutting up the hose soon. Apparently, the backyard of our neighbors is inhabited by homeless people. Suddenly, we realized why the previous homeowners built a 10-foot high fence.

The rest of the neighbors we have met have been great. They informed us of the situation. Not sure how we are going to handle it.

The woman who “owns/rents” the house doesn’t have much going for her. The police officer who came by to take the report said she doesn’t have electricity or water. So it will be interesting how to move forward.

As for the my backyard, I bought locks for the gates.

Welcome to the neighborhood.