Building A Custom Pergola Attached To Your Home | Home ...

This easy-to-follow article provides the step-by-step instructions, so that you can learn to build a pergola attached to your home. Even though this is a complex woodworking project, you can easily accomplish the job by yourself if you follow our tutorial. An attached pergola is incredibly functional, and it creates an outdoor room where you can relax alone or entertain friends. Since there are a variety of different designs, this tutorial covers the basics that are applicable in your custom pergola.

Laying Out Your Pergola
Setting out the corners of the pergola is essential, and we recommend accurate measurements. If you do not have much experience in construction projects, you can benefit from the assistance of a handy friend. Most jobs also proceed smoother with help from a friend, and a pergola can be started and finished over the course of a weekend.

A customized pergola is a great way to add value to your home, and the structures are durable while they provide an outdoor room for your family. Since the type of materials that are used affects the quality of your project, we recommend using pressure-treated lumber, cedar or redwood. These materials are ideal for exterior applications and are designed to resist decay and insects.

Materials
-8-9-feet-long 4?4 or 6?6 posts
-3-, 4- and 6-inch wood screws or nails.
-Concrete tube forms
-Adjustable metal post anchors
-2?10 Supports
-2?8 Ledgers
-2?2 slats for shade
-Cement, sand and gravel

Attaching your Pergola
After you have decided the length and width of your pergola, it is time to lay out the corners. To finish your construction project like a pro, batter boards should be set at each of the two corners away from the home. A string line is then run between the home and the boards. This line is the perimeter of your new pergola and provides the exact location for each of the supporting posts.

Using the string line as a guide, a 3-feet-deep hole is required for each of the posts. In the bottom of the hole, a layer of sand or gravel ensures a solid foundation. Tube forms are then set into the hold and are anchored directly to the posts. We recommend setting the posts, plumbing them with a level, and allowing the cement to set for at least 48 hours.

Once the cement has hardened, you can install the 2?8 ledger board against the home. This board needs to be level and should be secured with 4-inch galvanized screws or nails. Now that you have the ledger board attached to the home, you can run the remaining 2?10 beams around the perimeter. The beams should rest on top of the posts for a secure foundation.

Adding Shade Elements
Shade elements can easily turn your outdoor room into a comfortable oasis during the summer and an inviting retreat in the fall and spring as well. Adding more 2?2 slats creates more shade, and fewer slats allow more sun to enter your pergola. Either method works and depends on your landscape and your desires. The slats should be installed perpendicular to the shortest dimension of your pergola, and steel anchors are readily available to ensure the shades are securely held in place.

Adding a Decorative Touch with Custom Shade Elements
Fastening the shade elements square is fine, but cutting a design into the edges of the boards makes a customized pergola. You can easily make up your own pattern. After one of the boards has been cut to your liking, simply use this as a pattern and you can trace the rest of the shade boards from the same piece of lumber.

Finishing the Pergola with Putty and Stain
Completing your project like a professional(http://www.softwoods.com.au/assets/downloads/project-planner.pdf) will ensure a lasting pergola that provides years of service to your family. It is essential to cover any small holes with putty to prevent water damage. Sometimes, nails and screws will leave minor holes, but these are easily patched with wood putty. Sealing the lumber with a quality stain is also a good idea and will allow you to enjoy your pergola with fewer routine maintenance chores. We recommend applying several coats of a high-quality polyurethane stain that is designed for exterior woodworking projects.

Related posts:

1. Stepladders, Ladders and Scaffolding
2. How you can Develop a straightforward Bird Home
3. Bamboo Flooring Ideas
4. Epoxy Flooring: A DIY project
5. Home Remodeling

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 27th, 2012 at 5:16 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

Source: http://www.usuae123.com/441/building-a-custom-pergola-attached-to-your-home.html

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The Motor City Business Startup Boom

Andy Didirosi had a hunch in 2012. He felt that his hometown, given up for dead, was about to start a new life. Didorosi, 23 at the time, leased an old industrial building near the city's northern limit. He posted a notice on Craigslist, hoping people would come to his big empty building to share tools and ideas, make stuff, and maybe start a small business or two. "The response was incredible," he says. "Overnight we had enough tenants in here for it to make financial sense."

The 22,000-square-foot facility he named Paper Street attracted graphic artists, jewelry-makers, Web designers, carpenters, metalworkers, a music publicist, a spice-maker, and a motorcycle mechanic. They paid as little as $99 a month for a work space; Didorosi added to the rental income by refurbishing meat slicers and other equipment from bankrupt supermarkets and selling the appliances to new businesses. The money allowed him to buy three Blue Bird buses and start a jitney service to supplement city bus routes. Now, in 2025, Didorosi runs the thriving Detroit Bus Co., and 20-plus small businesses rent space at Paper Street.

Didorosi and Paper Street are emblematic of the DIY ethic that helped bring Detroit back. "It's about starting a creative revolution instead of an industrial revolution," he says.

A few blocks from Paper Street, a nonprofit called i3Detroit is full of new and refurbished tools and machines?>a CNC mill, a plasma metal cutter, a 3D printer, an oscilloscope, welding torches, a machine shop, a woodworking shop, and a video-editing studio. Members pay $39 or $89 per month, depending on their level of use, to make furniture, solder circuit boards, build bicycles, and concoct robots. The exchange of tools and ideas, and energy, is free. "I think of us as a pre-business incubator," says Eric Merrill, a computer programmer and i3Detroit's CEO. "If you had an idea for a widget, you used to have to pay a machine shop $10,000 to fabricate that widget. Now, for a few hundred bucks, you can make it here and see if it works. From there it's easier to get backing."

In 2012, that prevailing philosophy led Inc. magazine to dub Detroit Startup City. It earned the name because of the proliferation of small-business incubators. Among these was TechShop, a national network of member-based workshops. It was another iteration of a model created by TechTown at Detroit's Wayne State University in 2003.

Detroit native Clover McFadden is a TechTown success story. After graduating from college-prep Renaissance High School on the city's northwest side, she earned a degree from Howard University in Washington, D.C., and dreamed of becoming a doctor. But on a return trip to Detroit she discovered Bizdom, which grooms aspiring entrepreneurs at TechTown. McFadden enrolled, developed a business plan, and successfully pitched investors. Her business, Circa 1837, produces and sells clothing adorned with school logos of the nation's traditionally black universities, such as Howard.

"People told me I was crazy to start a business in Detroit, but I think the exact opposite," McFadden says. "There are so many people here who want to see you succeed."

John Kushigian is one of them. Like McFadden, he was born in Detroit and moved away to go to college and start a career. He had a tech-related job in San Francisco, where he also took up furniture and cabinet making. In 1990, he returned to his hometown. "I'd been wanting to do something to help Detroit, something that involved woodworking," Kushigian says.

One spring afternoon, Kushigian visited Barry Randolph, pastor of the Church of the Messiah. Kushigian's eyes lit up when he saw the spacious church basement, where another Detroiter, Jeff Sturges, had already set up shop for people to work on bicycles, appliances, and computers to screen-print clothing, do Web design, and edit audio and video. Kushigian asked whether he could add carpentry to the mix. "Barry gave me a three-word answer: 'Go for it.'"

Soon people from ages 5 to 88 were flocking to the DIY space, using the equipment Sturges and Kushigian had purchased. Today dozens of people are learning skills to prepare them for the workforce. "A couple of teenagers discovered that our computers had the GarageBand app for simple music production, and they figured it out. Then they started spending 5, 6 hours a day writing lyrics. Now a local Internet radio station is interested in their work," Kushigian says. The young men are on their way.

"Detroit for years, during its decline, had been hoping for a corporate messiah," Kushigian says. "The city finally gave up on that. I'm from Detroit, I escaped Detroit, and yet I came back. Why? Because there's an energy, a lit-up, beefed-up energy, a mental aliveness to Detroit. A lot of people here have a fire burning inside. My feeling is that the messiah is us."

Source: http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/engineering/rebuilding-america/the-motor-city-business-startup-boom-13111675?src=rss

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Fox News Climate Coverage 93% Wrong, Report Finds

Primetime coverage of global warming at Fox News is overwhelmingly misleading, according to a new report that finds the same is true of climate change information in the Wall Street Journal op-ed pages.

Both outlets are owned by Rupert Murdoch's media company News Corporation. The analysis by the science-policy nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) finds that 93 percent of primetime program discussions of global warming on Fox News are inaccurate, as are 81 percent of Wall Street Journal editorials on the subject.

"It's like they were writing and talking about some sort of bizarre world where climate change isn't happening," study author Aaron Huertas, a press secretary at UCS, told LiveScience.

"It's clear that we're not having a fact-based dialogue about climate change," Huertas added.

The report, available online, focused on Fox News and the Journal because of both anecdotal and academic reports suggesting high levels of misleading climate chatter in each. UCS researchers combed through six months of Fox News primetime programs (from February 2012 to July 2012) and one year of Wall Street Journal op-eds (from August 2011 to July 2012), for discussions of global warming.

Fox's climate problems

The researchers found that Fox News and the Journal were consistently dismissive of the established scientific consensus that climate change is happening and that human activities are the main driver. For example, a statement aired on a primetime Fox News show on April 11 says, "I thought we were getting warmer. But in the '70s, it was, look out, we're all going to freeze."

The statement refers to some research in the 1970s that suggested a cooling trend, exacerbated by pollutants called aerosols (also known as smog). However, a greater number of papers, which represented consensus in the science community, in the 1970s predicted warming, according to Skeptical Science, a climate change communication website maintained by University of Queensland physicist John Cook. Temperature records have since improved, revealing the cooling trend was confined to northern landmasses. [10 Climate Myths Busted]

The most common climate mistakes on Fox News involved misleading statements on basic climate science, or simple undermining and disparaging of the field of climate science. For example, on March 23, one on-air personality referred to global warming as a "hoax and fraud."

Misleading opinions

The misrepresentations in Wall Street Journal op-eds similarly twisted the science and disparaged the field, UCS said, though there were also examples of disparaging individual scientists, including calling NASA climate scientist James Hansen a "global-warming alarmist."

One March 9 column by Robert Tracinski called global warming a "bubble" and decried the "failure of the global warming theory itself" and "the credibility of its advocates."

Fox News and the Wall Street Journal did not respond to LiveScience's requests for comment. The organizations have not responded to UCS either, Huertas said, though they were informed of the report before it was made public.

The goal of the report, according to the UCS, is not to shut down legitimate debate on the appropriateness of various climate policies.

"It is entirely appropriate to disagree with specific actions or policies aimed at addressing climate change while accepting the clearly established findings of climate science," the authors wrote. "And while it is appropriate to question new science as it emerges, it is misleading to reject or sow doubt about established science ? in this case, the overwhelming body of evidence that human-caused climate change is occurring."

The organization called on News Corp. to examine their climate-change reporting standards and to help their staff differentiate between opinions on global warming and scientific fact.

"This is happening no matter what, so we can have a sober adult conversation about it and figure out what to do, or we can turn it into another hot-button ideological issue," Heurtas said. "Frankly, we already have enough hot-button ideological issues. I don't think we need another one."

Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas?or LiveScience @livescience. We're also on Facebook & Google+.

Copyright 2012 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/fox-news-climate-coverage-93-wrong-report-finds-193433943.html

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Launch of iPhone 5 draws fans worldwide

Published: 9/22/12 @ 12:00

Associated Press

In a now familiar global ritual, Apple fans jammed shops across the globe to pick up the tech juggernaut?s latest iPhone.

Eager buyers formed long lines Friday at Apple Inc. stores in Asia, Europe and North America to be the first to get their hands on the latest version of the smartphone.

In New York, several hundred people lined up outside Apple?s Fifth Avenue store. Jimmy Peralta, a 30-year-old business-management student, waited three hours before getting the chance to buy his new gadget. Was it worth the wait?

?Definitely,? he said, noting that the new phone?s larger screen and lighter weight compelled him to upgrade from the iPhone 4. ?A little treat for me on a Friday morning; why not? Why not be part of something fantastic? It?s just such a smart phone, it does all the thinking for you. You can?t get any easier than that.?

Apple?s stock closed up $1.39, or 0.2 percent, at $700.09. The stock surpassed the $700 level for the first time earlier this week, as excitement for the launch mounted.

For Apple, the iPhone introduction is the biggest revenue driver of the year. Analysts expect the company to sell millions of phones in the first few days. This spring, iPhone sales slowed down from their historical growth rates, apparently because potential buyers were holding off for the arrival of the ?5.?

Source: http://www.vindy.com/news/2012/sep/22/launch-of-iphone--draws-fans-worldwide/?mobile

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Verizon iPhone 5's secret feature: It's 'unlocked'

Western Michigan University student Alenna Brown ,19, leaves with her new iPhone 5 in Kalamazoo, Mich. on Friday, Sept. 21, 2012. (AP Photo/The Kalamazoo Gazette, Mark Bugnaski) ALL LOCAL TV OUT; LOCAL TV INTERNET OUT

Western Michigan University student Alenna Brown ,19, leaves with her new iPhone 5 in Kalamazoo, Mich. on Friday, Sept. 21, 2012. (AP Photo/The Kalamazoo Gazette, Mark Bugnaski) ALL LOCAL TV OUT; LOCAL TV INTERNET OUT

NEW YORK (AP) ? The Verizon Wireless version of the iPhone 5, which went on sale Friday, comes with a secret and unexpected feature: it works on AT&T's network as well.

Confirming blog reports, The Associated Press found that the Verizon iPhone 5 accepts an AT&T "SIM card" ? a little chip that identifies a phone to a wireless network. The phone can then be active on AT&T's network.

It's the first time Verizon iPhones have been able to access AT&T's network without complicated hacking procedures. The feature may mean little to most buyers, since they're signing up for two years of Verizon service. But it does give them the option of switching carriers.

It's unclear whether the feature is intended and whether the phones will work with other carriers, such as T-Mobile USA. But Verizon Wireless spokeswoman Brenda Raney confirmed Saturday that the iPhone 5 models it's selling are "unlocked."

Last year, the first shipments of the Sprint iPhone 4S were unlocked and worked on AT&T, but Sprint later issued software updates that turned off that capability.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2012-09-22-Verizon-iPhone%205%20Unlocked/id-d461d50fb18a48a0acfbb82e6c9e531a

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Automotive Fine Art Studio Blog: A Love Story

Non car people just don't get it. They think a car is just transportation ... that it's a means to an end from point 'A' to point 'B'. When they look at a car (or truck, for that matter), they see 4 wheels, some metal, fiberglass, lights, a windshield and some other stuff that makes it go. But for many, though, it's much, much more than that.

We are often asked, kind of warily, if Michael is in fact a car guy at all. Or just one of those artists that has set their sights on a subject they feel will be profitable to them. With 4 classic cars, mountains of car magazines, shelves of books and boxes full of parts (many duplicates and triplicates, just in case), I can assure you, he's a car guy, nut, enthusiast (whatever word fits) through and through. And, he's definitely not alone.

In searching through the Netflix selections for car chase movies the other day (see what I mean about his passion?), Michael came across a documentary that, as car enthusiasts, you're sure to appreciate. "Love The Beast" is about one man's love of his car, what it's meant to him and his friends, and their journey together.?

"What if you were a Hollywood movie star with an obsession for cars and racing? You would probably read every script with even the tiniest link to the subject matter, in the hope that you could tell a great car story of the likes of "Grand Prix", "Le Mans" or "Mad Max"."? ? www.imdb.com

You'll follow Eric Bana and his Ford GT Falcon Coupe ? "THE BEAST", through his early childhood, acquisition of his first car (which is incidentally, the Falcon Coupe), restoration, rebuild, racing and more. Through Eric's eyes, we get a glimpse at his own 25 year long love story ? reflecting on a lifetime of ownership and of friendship. Jay Leno, Jeremy Clarkson and Dr. Phil pitch in to help give us insight into the car obsessed psyche. You'll be glad to hear, they all agree it's quite healthy (yes, even Dr. Phil says so!).
When you have a spare couple of hours, check it out. I don't think you'll be disappointed. ? Linda

Source: http://automotivefineart.blogspot.com/2012/09/a-love-story.html

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Afghan militants say deadly blast was revenge for film

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghan militants claimed responsibility on Tuesday for a suicide bomb attack on a minivan carrying foreign workers that killed 12 people saying it was retaliation for a film mocking the Prophet Mohammad.

A short film made with private funds in the United States and posted on the Internet has ignited days of demonstrations in the Arab world, Africa, Asia and in some Western countries.

In a torrent of violence blamed on the film last week, the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans were killed in an attack in Benghazi and U.S. and other foreign embassies were stormed in cities in Asia, Africa and the Middle East by furious Muslims. At least nine other people were killed.

On Tuesday, a suicide bomber blew up a minivan near the airport in the Afghan capital and a spokesman for the Hezb-e-Islami insurgent group claimed responsibility.

"A woman wearing a suicide vest blew herself up in response to the anti-Islam video," said militant spokesman Zubair Sediqqi. Police said the woman may have been driving a Toyota Corolla car rigged with explosives, which she triggered.

But the claim will raise fears that anger over the film will feed into deteriorating security as the United States and other Western countries try to protect their forces from a rash of so-called insider attacks by Afghan colleagues.

Thousands of protesters clashed with police in Kabul the previous day, burning cars and hurling rocks at security forces in the worst outbreak of violence since February rioting over the inadvertent burning of Korans by U.S. soldiers.

The protesters in Kabul and several other Asian cities have vented their fury over the film at the United States, blaming it for what they see as an attack on Islam.

The outcry saddles U.S. President Barack Obama with an unexpected foreign policy headache as he campaigns for re-election in November, even though his administration has condemned the film as reprehensible and disgusting.

In response to the violence in Benghazi and elsewhere last week, the United States has sent ships, extra troops and special forces to protect U.S. interests and citizens in the Middle East, while a number of its embassies have evacuated staff and are on high alert for trouble.

Despite Obama's efforts early in his tenure to improve relations with the Arab and Muslim world, the violence adds to a host of problems including the continued U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan, Iran's nuclear program, the Syrian civil war and the fall-out from the Arab Spring revolts.

PROTESTS, BANS

The renewed protests on Monday dashed any hopes that the furor over the film might fade despite an appeal over the weekend from the senior cleric in Saudi Arabia, home to Islam's holiest shrines, for calm.

Afghan police said among the 12 dead in the Kabul bomb attack were eight Russians and South Africans, mostly working for a foreign air charter company named ACS Ltd.

It followed a bloody weekend during which six members of Afghanistan's NATO-led alliance, including four Americans, were killed in suspected insider attacks carried out by Afghans turning on their allies.

Protesters also took to the streets in Pakistan and Indonesia on Monday and thousands also marched in Beirut, where a Hezbollah leader accused U.S. spy agencies of being behind events that have unleashed a wave of anti-Western sentiment in the Muslim and Arab world.

Authorities in Bangladesh have blocked the YouTube website indefinitely to stop people seeing the video. Pakistan and Afghanistan have also blocked the site.

Iran has condemned the film as offensive and vowed to pursue those responsible for making it. Iranian officials have demanded the United States apologize to Muslims, saying the film is only the latest in a series of Western insults aimed at Islam's holy figures.

The identity of those directly responsible for the film remains unclear. Clips posted online since July have been attributed to a man named Sam Bacile, which two people connected with the film have said was probably an alias.

Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, 55, a Coptic Christian widely linked to the film in media reports, was questioned in California on Saturday by U.S. authorities investigating possible violations of his probation for a bank fraud conviction.

(Reporting by various bureaus; Writing by Robert Birsel)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/muslim-protesters-rage-united-states-asia-middle-east-003156036.html

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