Extreme Origami

HOLY CRAP!

I had no idea you can make something like this with single piece of paper...



this was constructed over 40 hours spread out to over several months.

Here is a link to the original post on this:
http://www.neatorama.com/2006/09/03/extreme-origami/

The person who made this dragon is Satoshi Kamiya. He is in his 20's and he is a pro origami artist as I understand. Here is the video of this guy. Start from 4:30 and see. You will be blown away!



Here is another video of his works.


He has a book out on but it is sold only in Japan... too bad.

I am just speechless...

Bump in my backyard

So I made this "bump" in my backyard today.

I got shit load of dart that I don't need, so I pilled them on a section of my backyarad.

Here is the "before" picture:


Then the "after picture"



Then I went and got bunch of sod.



Then I covered this bump with the sod.




I need to to name this bump... not sure what I am going to call it, Probably something very boring like "Grass Mountain".

Any good ideas?

Let me know.

Bilingual dog

I trained my dog to be a bilingual dog.

We speak Japanese to the dog at home but he has to go to vet or stay at kennel from time to time and understanding English is very much needed in those places. So, we decided to train him to be bilingual.

The result was very successful!

What you do is have him learn your hand signals when you are training your dog for the first language. Once your dog is done with the first language, you can apply the same gestures but use another language.

Here is the youtube video of our bilingual dog, Koko.

Enjoy!

Made planters

I made 3 planters today out of pressure treated woods.

You just cut them and nail them together and make rectangle.



Than add another 2x4, so you have place to sit or put your hand to.


Put water proof paper inside. Ones that you use for roofing and such.


Then you are done.


I made 3 of these, placed them and got dart for them as well.


Dumped some dart in there and planted what was growing on the ground.


The purple object in the back of the picture....Ghost?

Nahhh. It's my wife but she did not want to be in the picture.

I will be making fence and fence doors next.

Attaching doors

Since I am done with carpet, I've moved onto attaching doors.

What I am attaching are the foldable doors, like the ones you see for closet.



The first thing you do is to attach a rail on the top. There are 2 metal pieces that go on the floor, which would hold the low end of the doors. (forgot to take pictures)



I attached right side first.



Once you know how to do this, the second one is super easy, I attached it on 5 minutes.



The last remaining piece are the moldings, and I will be completely done!

Carpeting

Now that I am completely done with the walls, I've installed carpet today.

First thing you do is to place tackless strips. It has bunch of nails sticking out. You hook your carpet to this.



Nailing the strips.


All done!


I was telling my wife that it must hurt like hell and probably JUMP if you STEP on this...

Then





We stepped on it.



It was indeed very painful that we both

JUMPED.

Then install carpet pad. All you have to do is just staple them with tucker.





Then you install carpet on this and cut off any excess.



All done!



Lastly, install ending to the entrance.



I am all done now!

I forget to take the picture of the overview.

Will install doors next.

Finally done with the partition wall!

YES!!

After I was done with the joint compound, then I applied first coat of paint.

My family members are helpful only when it looks to be fun.



Since I wanted rough surface, I got this spray compound.

By spraying your wall with this thing, you can add rough texture to your wall.



This is how the wall looks like with this compound sprayed on the wall:


Koko playing with the spray cap.


Repainted the wall after I was done spraying this thing.

I am DONE!!


The outlet that I've patched up.


Looking from inside the new room:


From the "usual" angle:


Done with the walls now. Moving onto carpeting.

Joint compound.

Now that I am done with installing all the drywalls, I am onto applying joint compound to hide all the drywall joints.

What you do is to put the compound to the joint with mud knife, then put joint tape on the mud, and then reapply joint compound with mud knife again.

You got to do this neatly or the drywall joints will stand out afterwords.

This is what the wall looked like as of last night.




This is what it looks like now.



Also patched up the hole I created by moving the power outlets.



Here you go.


I am finally starting to a light at the end of the tunnel.

What's left is to paint and to add doors to the opening.

Insulation

So I finally finished the partition wall today.

I've installed insulation and nailed all the remaining drywalls today.

So it looked something like this the last time but I installed the insulation first.

Since the "push & stick" insulation did not stick, I got rid of grass wools and made the space to staple to the posts.

Then covered the whole area with the drywall.

Done for the day!

Moving onto applying joint compound.

Drywall

So I attached rest of the drywall today. This was time consuming but was easy.

Here is what it looks like now.


It does look like wall now.

So the next thing is to install insulation.

Here you go.



According to the package, it requires no tuckering. Supposedly it just stick to the wall as you press this against the wall.

Well...


Talk about false advertisement.


It does not.


But I tried anyway and this is what it looked like.



This sticks maybe for 10 seconds, if that.


I will do the rest of the work tomorrow.

I made decent progress on my partition wall today.

I added 2x4s to the spots where I will be installing doors in the end. The hight of the vertical ones are the height of the doors to be installed, and I added another horizontal bar to it.

Here is what it looks like.



Here is the closer look.



Then I added 2 more support posts to this.

The first one.



... and the second one.

This really looks like wall now.



I had some left over dry walls, so I nailed it also.




But I ran out of drywalls, so I went to get some.
But I am all by myself.

Drywalls are Heavy!!

They are 4" x 8" each and weighs 60lbs.

I baught 6 of them and loaded onto my truck and got them off to my garage. I thought I'd just die. I am only 5"6 and weighs 140. This was just too much.

I will start nailing these drywalls starting tomorrow.


PS:
Get a buddy if you are to buy drywalls.

Koko, the digger

Our dog Koko, decided to dig today. and boy, he did dig alright.

Have a look. Enjoy!

Partition wall - Day 2

Today, I installed only 2 posts for the partition wall. orz..

(BTW, when you type "orz..." it looks like someone is on his hands and knees and crying, doesn't it?)

As I was going over my plan in my head, I suddenly realized that I had forgotten to take the thickness of drywalls to be installed.

So first thing I did was to fix it. I shorten the sole plates I've installed the day before with my chisel. I had to do this both on right and left sole plate, What a hassle.





Then I marked where the studs are going to be. But it was easier said than done when you are to do this all by yourself.

Then I got the studs up and held it with clamps.



Then nailed it with 16d nails.



I did the same thing to the other side and was done for the day.



Since this is a very crucial part, I am happy that it went well, though I did not make whole a lot of progress. More on the walls tomorrow.