Shannon Larratt is Zentastic

So I get a call from one of the geneticists that’s working to find out the source of my problems, and they’re currently booking for late March 2010. And if it’s the same wait as last time, I’ll get the results in 2011, and then they’ll book my follow up in 2012, and get those results in 2013. I suppose that’s one good way to save money in a healthcare system… Make the wait time long enough that if you’re “lucky”, the patient will be dead by the time anything expensive has to happen.

Anyway, let me share with you the progress on the house. There are a bunch of pictures, including the very pretty night-time lighting system after the break that I recommend checking out, but these first ones give you an overview. As you can see, the greenhouse is finished, and I’ve build a larger base (which is sitting on some no-scratch pads) with an organic shape. The curved “hills” coming out of the sides like buttresses are just that — hills — and are going to support the land surrounding the building (the bottom story is actually the basement) which we’re going to make out of plaster bandages over top of crumpled paper. I have loads of plaster bandages that I was going to use for casting but didn’t. So the house is going to sit on top of a little hill, and I’ve also added a little light-tower (that I still have to mount a light in.

Please do check out the rest of the pictures.

Here are some close-ups of the new windows. The way I made them was by drawing the frames in Photoshop and then printing them out on the heaviest paper I had, which conveniently was magnetic paper (very weak so it never got used up) with a black backing (convenient for the black, not the magnetism). I then cut out the glass and laminated it, and for the windows that are stained I colored the laminate with markers. The alignment looks a little off on some of them but once the plaster is on the walls — hopefully tomorrow — all of those little imperfections will “buff right out”.

And now for the part that I’m proudest of — the nighttime look! I did this by stringing light rope through the building (so this is a single $10 fix). There are lights in the attic but for some reason they’ve failed but I’ll deal with that later. Same goes for mounting lights in the two towers and anywhere else I decide they’re needed. I’m really stoked about this project, although Nefarious is getting annoyed with me that it’s taking so long. After all, for a kid the fun is playing with the house, but for a dad, the fun is building it.

The first photo of these three is a rear view by the way.

I grew up with my father always building awesome stuff for my brother and sister and I, quite often epic welded playground creations and the like, so hopefully I’ve learned a little from that inspiration.