On Your Mark, Get Set...

Ed finished the Trex deck two weeks ago, and I forgot to post a picture. That darned stuff is really heavy! Hopefully it will last forever, especially since it is on the "weather" side of the house.

Things are starting to ramp up now that the holiday is over. There will be a delicately timed string of events sometime at the end of August and into September. We have to finish the apartment, still without stairs. The doublewide has been sold and will be moved. At that point we can build the stairs to the apartment, get the rest of the interior finished, and move in. While all of this is going on, we will be living in a 5th wheel, generously lent to us by a neighbor.

In a perfect world, the apartment would be all done, painted and finished just like on one of those home improvement programs on TV. I'd just have to show up with an overnight bag and toothbrush and just make myself comfortable. In the real world, the mad scramble has begun and won't be semi-normal until almost Thanksgiving, which is the four year mark since we moved up here, and 18 months since we started the garage/apartment phase.

The other night we made a to-do list and time-line. Wow...what a reality check! We're in a time crunch and we haven't even started the clock!

Insulation

Sheetrock, order wood stove, removed deck from doublewide

Install front window, choose tile, paint, flooring

Prime/paint interior, seal/stain interior wood trim

Finish electric fixtures

Install flooring/tile, buy fridge

Measure for cabinets, install bath fixtures,buy countertops

Balcony rail
August 25: Doublewide moved!

Build stairs

Install cabinets,countertop

Install kitchen appliances

Furniture

Sit on deck and enjoy fruits of our labors

Ed retires mid-August...thank goodness!

We spent most of Tuesday cleaning up in preparation for the insulation guys this next week. All the old bits of wood, sawdust, wrappers, empty soda cans, plywood cut-offs, all had to go downstairs, then into various trash/recycle piles.

After all the sweeping was done, things looked pretty good.

Downstairs, in the garage, the same thing had to happen. Almost everything had to go down to the barn, and Ed's 71 Boss 302 Mustang, actually had to go....eeek...outside! Everybody worked together to get it all straightened out...well, almost everyone.

Yes, Mittens and Midnight, scourges of the rodent and bird populations, killers extraordinaire, were exhausted by all that mousing and stealthing. Poor things.. it's a tough life...

Removing the deck from around the doublewide is primarily my job. I had taken down some of the rail already and I started on the floorboards. It is nice cedar decking, so I'm taking out all the screws and stacking the wood. I have the floorboards that border the spa off, and will work on the frame this afternoon.

I am waspophobic..an irrational fear of wasps, not so irrational when you've had a nest of those bombers from Hell swarm over you! Ohhh yes...I've seen them hovering about, trying to look innocuous! I'm not fooled by their casual and seemingly uninterested demeanor. Anyway, I take off a few boards, peek around looking for a nest, take off a few more boards, peek again..you get the picture. I'm pretty sure they either have a nest inside the spa (unused) or between the spa wood and fiberglass. Either way, I don't want to stress them out, so I work pretty gingerly around

the area.

All Hands On Deck

We were having a house full of company for July 4th, so one of the priority projects before that was to clean up outside. Boy, does the stuff accumulate at a jobsite! One seriously full pickup truck full went to the dump. The dump, like everything else, is an hour away.

Then since the grass was growing faster than a baseball player on "performance enhancing supplements", Ed wanted to mow it again before fireworks. That always takes a day and a half.

We had a fallen tree to saw up and get out of the edge of the pasture, then split with the log splitter, and stack. I think we have enough wood now for the next two winters.

Poor Ed...his mind and heart were on the construction project, and the other chores kept getting in the way.

Before Ed could resume shingling he had to build the deck at the back of the apartment, which meant he had to construct a drain pan to drain to downspouts, then put up Trex deck over that. Still can't put up the rail because the deck is still our only egress.

He is also going to drop the soffits (!?) down to be the same level as the balcony so that the lower porch/patio..whatever..ceiling is all one plane. Does that make sense?

Then back to shingles. My son in law, Dan, arrived before the holiday and the guys couldn't stand to sit around when there were nails to drive, so up they went. They got all the outlooks hung, which are stained cedar, and got the shingles completely done on the one side. It is a thing of beauty. Unfortunately, it is also the side that is hardest to see...plus, the scaffolding is still up.

In the interests of time (and the fact that insulation and sheet rock are not fun), we decided to sub out those jobs. Insulation guy comes next week, and we've been taking bids for sheetrock. In real life that means that pretty much everything has to come out of the garage.

Once that is done, things are going to go in fast forward and I'll be going crazy. Plus the doublewide is sold and I have to get everything out of that by mid-August. Part of selling the doublewide is taking down the deck that surrounds the west side. Busy busy busy!

Kids, Don't Try This At Home

The immediate goal is to get the shingling done up to that green trim board. That's pretty much the first floor. We want to get that done by Fourth of July. Unfortunately we ran out of shingles mid-Tuesday, and wouldn't get a delivery until Friday.











Friday the truck rolled up and dropped off three huge pallets of shingles, enough to finish the garage and start the house. Of course, that means there will be one more thing stored in the barn for a while. Maybe we need a bigger barn....



Trying to help with the shingling is still an awkward task for me. I tried to do some while Ed was gone and couldn't get the rows to match up. If I measured from the universal standard mark it read one thing, and if I used the ledger boards to measure, it said something else. Then just to see if I could, I marked a shingle and picked up the skilsaw to see if I could cut it by myself. How hard could it be? Ed makes it look so easy. Cutting the shingle is one thing, but the torque when it started up bucked that darned thing right toward my ankle, and I decided I needed to cut my foot off less than I needed to cut shingles.It got easier when he was home. It still took me forever to put up a row, but I did put up a row.

Now kids, don't try this at home. Leave this to Trained Professionals:



Things are getting tougher because the rows are getting higher. So Ed started putting together make-do scaffolding.

Which brings to mind the thought...if you use more than five ladders to build your scaffolding, you might be a redneck. In fact there are actually six ladders, one set of actual scaffolding, four 2x12s, and a bunch of shims.





By yesterday evening, we pretty much had the first floor done, one shingle at a time. I don't even want to think about what has to happen to make the second story accessible for shingling. Do they have parachutes at Home Depot?

A Round Of Applause For The Band

While Ed was gone this week I managed to get two whole rows of shingles up. What a frustrating experience! It takes me forever to do things that he makes look so easy. Simple things like nailing the ledger board up took me forever. Hammer, check: nails, check, ledger board, check. Oops. forgot to measure, so set it all down and reach for my tape measure. Somehow it always stays clipped on Ed's jeans, but it's fallen off mine, and I have to find it. Ok now, measure..crimony, where's my pencil? Then check the line and make sure it's level. Miracle of miracle, it is! Ok...where'd I put that hammer, do I still have nails? Like that. Two rows took several hours.

The farm chores don't stop just because we have a building project to work on. The grass in the pasture was getting pretty long, in some places as high as the tractor tires, so off with their heads! Ed mowed half of Sunday and half of Monday and got all three fields cut.

Monday afternoon and Tuesday, we worked on shingles. It's much easier when you have someone there who knows what they are doing and is comfortable with tools.

By quitting time on Tuesday evening, we had enough shingles wrapped around to give us a good idea of the look and I have to say, we're getting pretty excited. The shingles against the green trim looks really good., and is a color combination we will be happy with for a long time.

Ed has been working alone on this project for a year, and sometimes he feels like he isn't making the progress that he should, or that he should be further along.

Dude.. you're a one man band playing all the songs.

Just look how much things have changed in that year!

This week, we listed an ad in the paper to sell the double-wide, hopefully to have it off the site by end of August, first of September. Then this apartment will be home sweet home through Phase II of the project.

Will I Measure Up?

The weather has been springlike, which means rain followed by glorious moments of sunshine, followed by rain, accompanied by explosive of growth by anything with chlorophyll.

For the most part, the rain isn't particularly cold, and is only occasionally windy, so depending on the project, work can continue.

On a particularly windy and rainy day, Ed started making the eave brackets. These are cedar, stained not painted, and there are 14 of them for the garage. They are going to look awesome!

While Ed was gone last week I painted the green trim around the garage doors and the lower windows. That way, we can start shingling. Ed made a board ledge thingie (I'm sure there is a name for it) that keeps the line of shingles straight and exactly 7" from the row below. That's assuming of course, that you put the ledge board on correctly. Then you can line the shingles up the way you want them, and go back and shoot the whole row in. Then, every three rows or so, check all your measurements, level and plumb, and continue. Simple, yes? You're talking to the woman who measures a yard of cloth by holding it from one shoulder to opposite fingertip. It is now my life's work to shingle while Ed is back at work.
"Just measure," he says, "You'll be fine."
I sighed heavily.

I want to do it right, and I want it to look good. But the whole process is a little scary to me, being out of the realm of prior experience. Guess I'll just jump in, and if I mess it up, nobody dies. I'll just take it out and fix it.


We know that the best practice is to hand nail all these shingles on, but.. really.. If I were Bill Gates, I'd hire a crew of 15 or so to do that, but it's just Ed, who is gone half the week, and me, who hasn't a clue what I'm doing, so we're gonna shoot em in. We're using a Senco SCN49 nailgun with 2" 6D hotdipped galvanized nails. We have 80 psi on the compressor and the nails go in like a hot knife through butter.
We were interrupted by Abby's sudden discovery of a porcupine. It was her first, and hopefully last encounter. Six quills to the nose was a painful lesson to mind her own business.

By yesterday afternoon, we had a few rows of shingles up and it's looking good! This morning Ed went back to work and I'm on my own. The sun is supposed to come back out this afternoon and be nice all week so the pressure is on.

They Are Such Fauxnys!

While Ed was gone this week, I worked on the faux painted carriage doors. After staring at pictures of real doors on the internet, I worked up the courage to paint the shadows. Amazingly, it worked!

My mantra was "underneath and on the right, underneath and on the right", thus putting the light source to the west which is where it is in real life. It did a fair job of making the doors look three dimensional...in a painty sort of way.

Remember all that glaze with black paint that was so horrible as the glaze coat for the rails and stiles? I used that stuff for these shadow lines. I taped the straight lines off, leaving about an inch, sponged on the lines and then immediately took off the tape..like it was sticking anyway...(see prior chapter). That way it wasn't a solid black line, but sort of mottled. I had to free-hand the curves, and with a sponge, it ain't easy.

Hallelujah! Sunshine this morning..at least after the fog burned off. By 0930, I was out with my paper handle and hinge stencils and went to work. I knew that trying to tape the stencils up and paint was not going to work, so I kind of held them up and drew them in with my trusty construction pencil. Once they were all drawn in, I took the black paint (unadulterated) and some cheapie art brushes and started in. No major problems there, except my stencilling wasn't always exactly the same for each one. How can that happen!!?? Oh yeah..the tape wouldn't stick and I drew them in. Once I got them all painted, I added a few details, like the screws and some curve marks on the handles. They still need some fine tuning with a teeny brush, but I'm pretty happy considering it was the first time I've ever done anything like this.

Which reminds me, tomorrow is Mother's Day, so it is time for a little motherly advise.

Just Try

I had never painted anything artistic...ever... No art classes in high school, convinced I couldn't draw. When I retired I told myself I would try new things, even if they sounded silly or hopeless. I signed up for a local Bob Ross painting class, and while the method isn't my favorite, the painting was a blast. I had a wonderful instructor, DeDee Crouse, who has since moved to Machias, New York and has opened up a business there, Black Sheep Art and Antiques. The moral of the story is, I was afraid to fail, and I wound up having a really good time.

Do they look so real that you'd reach out for the handle? No. But if you're that critical, you might want to go read some other blog. I'll come back with a little brush and neaten things up, make the door handles exaaaactly the same length..stuff like that.

In the meantime, from the road, the doors look pretty good...better than the white-on-metal that they were. Once the neighbors stop laughing, they can pass by with affection and say "Look what those people did to their garage door!"

Just wait until all the shingles are on! I can hardly wait. Oh..wait.. I'm the shingler. Tomorrow is supposed to be nice for the first part of the day, then cloud up and rain the rest of the week.

Chapter 2:The Pumpkin Changes to a Carriage

Now that the plumbing is signed off, Ed took the last steps to hook the sewer lines to the live septic system. Once that was done he shoveled all that dirt back into the trench. And take it from me...well actually from Ed since he did the work... when it rains hard for two days, that dirt is really heavy!

He had so much fun shoveling all that dirt he went right down to the pasture and started digging out rootballs for cucumber vines. For those of you not familiar, cucumber vines are Washington's version of kudzu vine. They have rootballs as big as a Gold's Gym Exercise ball. He dug some of them with the backhoe on the tractor, but some of them were in inaccessible areas, so he dug them up with a shovel. Needless to say, at the end of the day his back was pretty sore. I volunteered to walk on his back, but he declined saying that probably wouldn't be a good idea. Whatever could he mean!?

In the meantime, I was having fun pretending to be the Fairy Godmother, trying to turn the Cinderella garage doors into carriage doors.

I bought Valspar Ultra Premium exterior paint. It's thick, high quality paint with very good coverage. I chose Pale Cordovan for the base coat, and Natural Cork for the contrast (rails and stiles). I also got a quart of black to mix in with the tint and glaze for the wood grain definition, and for detail painting later. First I painted the base coat. We wanted it to look like cedar. After the base coat dried, I mixed 1 qt glaze with 2 oz of the Pale Cordovan, 2 oz of the Natural Cork, and a splash of black . I rolled that mixture over the base coat, in 3' sections, and wiped it with a damp rag. Once that was dry, the pumpkin effect was toned down a little, and there was a little definition to the grain.

Sunday after church, I got my grid and my pencil and started drawing the design. Once I had all three doors drawn out I spent the last hour putting tape on the first door so that Monday I could get up bright and early and start painting. I was stoked!

I got up Monday, went out to start painting, and almost every single piece of tape had come right off and was in a heap at the foot of the garage door. Between the rough surface of the door and the humidity, the tape had just floated to the ground. That turned out to be a good thing because had I tried to roll the paint with the rough surface, the paint would have bled under the tape and been a horrible mess. I just got out a brush and followed my little pencil lines, and painted the first coat of contrast. I was pretty happy with how the first coat came out...a little light on the color, but I was thinking that when I put the glaze coat over it, it would be fine. So I did all three doors, and went to bed dreaming of an equally charming Tuesday.

The next morning, I got up, did some household chores, and went out to paint. I mixed one qt of glaze and 1 cup of black, the recommended ratio, and began to paint. For the glaze, you paint on a small section, say 3', and texture, in this case, wipe with a slightly damp rag. Well the darned stuff was really really black. So I wiped some off, and then wiped some more off. I finally got it to where it didn't look like an old tire, and went to the next section. By the time I had half of one door done, Ed and I agreed this was not what we wanted. Now what? Do I just put on another coat of the contrast coat? Do I drive two hours to go get a different color? Do I fiddle with the paint I have to see if I can make it work? Yeah! Let's try that! There was about 3/4 of the gallon of the contrast color, Natural Cork left. I stirred in about 1 c. of the black, and started to re-paint. Well, that worked out just fine! So I went ahead and painted all three doors with that mixture, and we're pretty happy with the result. As you can see, the sun came out to bless the doors, which is pretty amazing since we have had over three inches of rain in the last four days. Rains here all the time.