Gutter in action

May 8, 2023NewsDeck, roofbkrijger

Aesthetically not ideal, but functionality sufficient;

After I extended the rain gutter by a few inches, rain is now transported just off the edge of the deck.

One day I will install a downspout that ends up in a wooden barrel. Until that day, this will suffice.

Finally a little bit of rain; thunderstorms have been forecasted for days, but today the rain added up to a whopping 0.25 inch.

On my way back from my visit to HCPL I took the backroad that follows the river. It wasn’t as low as I thought although the river pass was completely dry.

In the gutter

May 5, 2023Newsroofbkrijger

Don’t worry, I did not end up in the gutter. But I did install a rain gutter today;

In case you have a hard time seeing the gutter; that’s because it’s brown. Mounted on the fascia boards. Rather flimsy aluminum, but at least aluminum so it won’t rust or crack.

It will prolong the life of my deck boards, as the rain and condensed water will now be funneled off to the side.

Instead of an ugly down drain, I simply opened up the right end cap so that water can poor out that side. It should hit just off to the right of the deck. There should be little leaves and other debris in the gutter as there are no trees taller than my home nearby.

And yes, the gutter is mounted slightly non level, allowing water to run off to the right side.

Maybe there will be a thunderstorm, in which case I can check if it works as intended.

Not one night stand, but two

May 3, 2023Newsupstairsbkrijger

I’m not a fan of one night stands, so I made two. From the very last leftovers of the cedar wood I had. I had to improvise a little, but I think this looks nice.

Here’s a closer look at one night stand;

As this bedroom has no air conditioning of its own, I added a tower fan that is quiet and has a remote.

Closet Storage Space

May 1, 2023Newsupstairsbkrijger

Today I picked up some free storage space for upstairs; The Armoir fits pretty well here;

The upstairs bedroom had 0 storage room also, so this one fills up the corner nicely;

Next I will need some storage space for the HCPL amenities such as towels, paper towels, shampoo etc. But that’s for local stock to easily re-supply the bathrooms and kitchen, so I might add some shelve space in the technical room.

Upstairs bedroom floored

April 29, 2023Uncategorizedupstairsbkrijger

With the upstairs bedroom now also having a nicely finished floor, all floors are finished

Time for a beer 🍻

Office Floor Installed

April 29, 2023NewsOffice, upstairsbkrijger

Today I installed the office floor. It’s called Beach sand and I think it definitely makes the upstairs look more finished.

It looks like wood, but for costs and practical reasons I went for vinyl.

Hot Tub Gadget

April 28, 2023Newsgadgets, hot tubbkrijger

I treated myself to a new gadget. A man can never have too many gadgets. It’s a Bluetooth hot tub thermometer, that is linked to wifi using a base station with display and of course an app.

It has a little display on the thermometer (I’m holding it in place as the bubbles make the thermometer dance around) but the main purpose is that you can see from inside what the water temperature is. You can even set an alert when it reaches a certain temperature.

This was taken after I used the tub for about an hour. It only went down from 100F (37C) to 97 so still very comfy. The additional purpose of this gadget is to have a historic view of temperatures, both in the house as well as the hot tub.

That way I can keep better track of the temperature inside. I could already see the current temperature, but no historic data so now when a guest says it was hot, I can check how hot it really was.

Sadly, they don’t have an API yet, so I cannot link it to the smart mirror.

No more cracking up

April 26, 2023NewsTruckbkrijger

Today the windshield of my truck was replaced. The crack that passed inspection for 6 years finally was a reason to fail inspection.

~~Tomorrow I’ll try get through inspection again. Fingers crossed~~ 🤞

Today my truck passed inspection, and renewed my registration, so I can finally legally drive again. If the cops pull me over and yell “License and registration!” I’m good.

Even Smarter Mirror

April 25, 2023Uncategorizedgadgetsbkrijger

As a developer I had fun making some improvements on the Smart Mirror App I made;

As a metric fan, I decided to display both Imperial and metric units, so I don’t have to do the math in my head. Top left is the outside temperature. Next to it the expected weather for today, followed by a detailed forecast which shows the next 8 hours temperatures, icon for weather, chance of rain, wind direction and speed. It also shows the date and current time. To the right is a weekly forecast with max and min temperatures, a temperature curve per hour and a weather icon.

On the left, below the temperature is the current local wind direction and speed. Under that is the barometer with a trend icon. Below that is the precipitation window, showing current precipitation, the amount of minutes it rained today and how much in the last 1 hours and the total this day. During Saturday’s thunderstorm, which included a rare nearby tornado (25 miles away) the precipitation was several inches in one hour.

On the right below the weekly forecast is the relative humidity, under that the UV index, followed by the Comal county burn ban status.

At the bottom right you can see the last detected lightning strike, with the distance. And the number of strikes the last 1 and 3 hours.

The centered text now rotates between an unlimited amount of custom texts I can set remotely, for instance to provide the wifi password, ask the guests to store the outdoor chair cushions indoors overnight and what ever else I would like to display.

Finally, the red motion sensed icon shows when the passive infra red sensor registers motion.

After a few minutes of no detected motion, the screen switches off, to save energy and preserve the monitor.

In the future I will likely add some new features but for now it works pretty well.

Office Chair

April 23, 2023NewsOfficebkrijger

Although the IKEA seats are fine, they’re not made for spending many hours a day on. So I ordered an office chair, which arrived today;

It’s comfortable and has an adjustable spring tension when you lean back.

Ozuye Lodge

B's log home