‘Tis a Gift!……

“‘Tis a gift! .. A gift to the foes of Mordor. Why not use the Ring? Give Gondor the weapon of the enemy.  Let us use it against him.” Boromir at the Council of Elrond on the fate of the One Ring.

Okay, so half of you don’t know what the heck that was all about and the other half don’t know why that came out of the blue.

Hmmm. I don’t know either. I was just thinking about it. Or maybe it has something to do with the upcoming holiday here in the United States,  Thanksgiving. I came home Saturday afternoon and found that the Editor picked up a gift for son Jude for when he arrives home from college on his Thanksgiving break. Check it out.

'Tis a gift!
‘Tis a gift!

Somebody has got to cut up the rutabagas. These things are so hard you practically need a chainsaw to chop them up. Nothing says welcome home son, like a couple of rutabagas.

I really don’t know how this image made me think of Boromir and the Council of Elrond but it did.(Gotta cut me a break every once in a while okay, people. I have admitted to being a Lord of the Rings nerd. So bear with me.)

And welcome again to another edition of the Hobbit Hollow Construction Blog! I hope your week went well and you are now getting ready for the upcoming holidays.

Wait! One more thing. I don’t know what it is but these New York Jets are really starting to bug me. It must be because the Mets did so well this year. I guess in my head I’m thinking everything has to keep going great all the time after the season the Mets had. Oh well.

Hey Jim get to the blog already everyone is getting a little sick of your rantings. Yeah, I guess you’re right.

Well the holidays mean that we have to put the house on the sidelines a bit. (There really is a lot to do this time of year.) Terence and I did go over to the house on Saturday and we did a general cleanup. I also set up the roof terrace and roof walkway around the chimney, as well.

Roof terrace you say? Ah yes, of course. What good is a Hobbit house if you can’t go up on your roof and enjoy the sunshine? Not much of a Hobbit House if you ask me. So the premise here is to set up an area where you can sit and enjoy the view from the top of your Hobbit house. Here’s what I did.

Basically the idea is to use pressure treated 2×10’s to establish a border delineating the walkway areas and the grass roof. Or whatever we eventually put on the roof to cover up the soil. So on the North end of the roof I set up a 12′ x 12′ area to put a couple of chairs and a fire pit or whatever in the future. It’s a nice little space though and I think when it’s all done it is going to be quite nice. I also included a walkway so that you can walk from the North to the South end of the roof without having to traipse though the vegetation. This way when someone pulls into the driveway you can check out who’s there (friend or foe) without having to get your hobbit feet tangled in the grasses, if you will. I think I might be losing a few of you. I’ll walk you through it with a couple of pictures.

Secureing the 2x10's
Securing the 2×10’s

The first thing I did was secure the 2×10 to a small 2×4 that I nailed into the concrete. You don’t want the 2×10’s to move around up there. Once I had all the inital 2×10’s secured on both ends of the roof it was a simple task to lay out the balance of the 2x’s and nail them together.

This is the walkway to the South end of the roof.
This is the walkway to the South end of the roof.

So what we will eventually do is fill this area with gravel for drainage and maybe put some stepping stones in there to make it look sharp.  The other side of your 2×10 will be your soil filled to the top of the 2×10 with some sort of ground cover.

North side patio/terrace.
North side patio/terrace.

I used the concrete blocks to hold everything in place while I put it together.

Terrace area
Terrace area
Walkway outline and Terrace outline completed.
Walkway outline and Terrace outline completed.
View of the stream from the terrace.
View of the stream from the terrace.

I also boxed out the electrical pipes for backfilling purposes. Check it out.

Boxing out the pipes so we can backfill the North side of the house and set the grade.
Boxing out the pipes so we can backfill the North side of the house and set the grade.

Check this out. I pulled off a piece of plywood that I used to patch the back wall. There was a small void at the top. Look what I found.

A little stash of nuts some little critter hid away.
A little stash of nuts some little critter hid away.

I do that with cookies at my house all the time. It’s always nice to have a little stash that nobody knows about.

Here’s a final shot of the house after cleanup.

Winter clean up complete.
Winter clean up complete.

Have a happy and blessed Holiday this coming week! Thanks for stopping by!

Jim

 

 

 

 

 

 

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