DIY

I can’t stand diamonds. No, really, they just tick me off, because nearly everything about them is a lie. Diamonds are neither rare nor intrinsically valuable nor uniquely romantic. Those are ideas invented by the diamond industry. And no, despite what the ads tell you, diamonds are not forever. They are flammable and will burn brightly with a little help from a torch. This makes perfect sense when you consider that they are made of pure carbon, which reacts with oxygen to form carbon dioxide (“reacts with oxygen” just being another way of saying “burns”).

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I’m standing on top of the third floor after a very productive day of putting the Kama Eebs panels and the upper joists in place. When the panels arrived, we had just put them in piles all around my site so it was a bit of work just playing the find-and-seek game to get the proper panel to the correct wall location. But then it was just a matter of gluing and screwing the track into place, spraying foam onto both the shiplap joint and the track and tilting the panel into place. Once you have a tight fit, you screw the track and the shiplap joint together and move on to the next unit.

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One of the most unique things about my green home is the walls: instead of a standard "stick-frame" construction, I'm using special insulated panels from a company called Kama-Eebs, which have all sorts of advantages in efficiency and heat retention.

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My welding hobby started shortly after I got a bid for a steel staircase. As with everything, the money always causes me to do the Carnett calculation:

• How much is the equipment?
• How much is the material?
• How much did that guy say he wanted?
• How much can I save?

Then I run off to buy the gear.

This of course leaves out the skill to do any of these things -- but the Carnett calculation includes the discovery phase, where I make all my mistakes, ask just about anyone for help, and somehow come out on the other side a more skilled operator. And 50 percent of the time, I really do save money.

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Don’t call Lyle Rowell’s giant fire-breathing robot a dog. The artist, who lives in Rimini, Italy, insists that his 1,900-pound creation, Lrry (pronounced “Larry”), is actually a cloven-hooved, two-legged, half-donkey, half-raptor-type-reptile.

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My primary means of getting around town is a 1979 Land Rover that has been fitted out with a 2005 300 TDI engine. You may have seen me walking this morning with my head down. Yes, I walked 30 minutes for a cup of coffee. I enjoy walking, but it is hard to build a house without a truck.

My Land Rover doesn't have one temp gauge; it has two. I look at both and compare them and wonder why one is higher. None of the gauges are correct, so it really matters very little. That was till yesterday, when I found myself at 65 mph with my head out the window, the cabin filled with white smoke, and a serious panic on. I managed to find the shoulder, and bailed out, thinking the rig was on fire.

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Every home needs lights. But for the Green Dream? Forget copper wire between lights and light switches, three-way switches and batteries; I’m looking at Verve’s lighting control system—-a wireless solution that uses radio frequencies to control a home’s lights, allowing you to put your light switches wherever you want--on your wall, in your pocket or even the dash of your car.

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