Spring

This warm weather is presenting an opportunity to finish the painting work that I didn't quite get to finish last fall. It is basically the portion of the wall under the lower roof over the kitchen.

Second Coat

Before...

... and after

Over the last couple of months I've been slowly working away at giving the house a second and final coat of paint (technically stain, but seems like paint in practical terms) and I'm rounding the corner literally and figuratively on the project.

In September I decided to start at the porch and then work around the back of the house, figuring that I'd cover the cooler parts of the house while it was still warm and then be painting the sunnier sides as the fall progresses. This has turned out to be a wise tactic as we are now in late November and all that's left is part of the south-facing wall.

Progress has been in fits and starts. Hurricane Irene was the first unexpected event that redirected much of our time and attention to helping others over the course of a couple of weeks. Then came teaching an intense two-week course at Yestermorrow, followed last but not least, by a brief stay in the hospital resulting from a cat bite.

Nonetheless, I've been making progress as time and weather have allowed and in this respect, I think we've been quite lucky. The stain requires 40 degrees or above for application, so I've been able to work with very few exceptions right up through the fall.

Our original plan --which we are working to complete-- was to have all the clapboard primed by the factory, then apply a first coat of primer before the clapboard was installed, and then finishing up with a final coat when the siding was in place. Although the house has generally looked finished for a good while now, much of the rafter tails hadn't even been primed, much less painted, and all the nail holes and clapboard butt-joints were rough.

It feels good to know that we're seeing this part of the project through to insure the quality and durability of the siding.

Day by day

Envisioning how I be fastening the maple pieces together for the countertop

The ripped stack of maple

The arced bottom step. The next one up will be similarly arced, although you can tell that from the photo

Adam cutting the radius on the bottom step

Adam is at work shaping the last couple of steps coming down the stairway. These are distinct because the leading edge is curved and they have curved risers underneath coming up to meet them. It took some effort but now they are off to the paint shop (a couple of sawhorses upstairs) for their finish work and then they'll go in soon to finish off the stair project.

I've been working on the counter top project and am making good headway. I took a bunch of 2" x 8" x 8' maple boards, planed them to smooth and then ripped them down into 1 3/4" x 1 3/4" pieces that again had to be planed. The next step is to cut them roughly to length and start gluing them into counters. I'll be doing that tomorrow.

A sign of near completion? Today the technician from the gas company came and hooked up our gas cooktop. We can now cook in our home. Whoo hoo!

Wide Pine Floors

Pulling the boards in through the second floor bedroom window

The expertly stickered stack of floor boards on the first floor

From the archives: This picture shows the delivery truck that brought a big lumber order, including our floor wood back in September 2009.

Today our friends Sally, Jeremy, Anda and Silas came up to help move the pine floor boards from the basement to the first and second floors. We've been storing them for over a year now since we received them along with the massive lumber delivery for the roof framing in the fall of last year.

To move the lumber to the upper floors we each had our jobs: Nancy and Sally and Silas pulled the 16' long boards up through a window on the second floor as Jeremy and I carted them up from the basement and positioned them at the window. Meanwhile Anda stickered each board as they came in. At some point I broke off and started churning out more 3/4" square stickers to keep up with demand while Jeremy continued moving the boards. It was a big effort but felt effortless with the help of such great folks. I had pleasure imagining Anda telling friends at school tomorrow that she stickered wood and her friends saying "What's that mean?" and her being able to tell them.

Beyond this, Nance and I have been quite busy painting, prepping and such. I've been working steadily on lowering the floor of the first floor bathroom shower floor by three inches. Its turned into quite a project. But more about that later.

Tomorrow I go pick up our bathroom tile order.

The tub comes upstairs

The tub very near its new home

Carrying the tub in

Nancy and I continued work on painting and installing bathroom bead-board respectively this weekend, with some nice progress to show. It won't be long before we'll start using words like "done" and "complete" regarding certain specific aspects of the process.

Most fun of all was getting help from our friends Dan, Addie, Matt and Hannah who helped us carry the claw foot tub in from the back yard and up the stairs to the second floor. It actually wasn't that bad, but then again we had lots of hands making it possible.

I'm back from teaching and ready to get rolling again...