Thursday, March 22, 2012

Decidedly NOT helping

I took a few minutes on this un-seasonably warm day to sweep off the deck & patio. Actually, un-seasonably strikes me as far too gentle a word - maybe something like anti-seasonably? At any rate, it was hot and sunny and July-ish for Maine. I was sweeping for a couple of minutes on the other side of the deck from Frankie, and I turned around to see this little excavation:































 I guess he was pointing out that we still need a half dozen bricks in that corner.

Some 'helpers' apparently need more direction than I am used to giving. On the other hand, perhaps he can be enticed to till the garden for us...

Monday, March 19, 2012

Last light

Since it's the last day of winter, posting about light seems appropos.

This weekend a landmark event occurred: Ken installed the last - LAST! - light fixture in the house. Period. The whole damn house. We did all the wiring a bit ago, but had to wait until the ceilings were done in the cellar to actually add the fixture to the orphaned wire - and after a Herculean Saturday of ceiling-ness, we installed it on Sunday.

The ceiling in the future living room area has been done for a week or so, after a month of scrubbing, whitewashing, and varnishing above my head. Arm...falling...off....

In the future kitchenette area, the rubber met the road. This was the area where we basically routed all the infrastructure for the house, because it is next to a utility room. So the ceiling couldn't simply be cleaned and done - it needed cladding.














 Enter the gorgeous old boards from last post. The idea is to create something that looks like whitewashed undersides of subfloor, but dropped to hide the wirey mess. I haven't felt so guilty in a while - we scrubbed them clean and then - gasp - whitewashed and cut up those awesome old 5/4" x up to 12" boards (up to 12' long, too) to fit between the joists. (We used up oh-so-much scrap 1 by as cleats on the joists to carry the boards. Sweet!) Don't anyone dare comment that we should have planed them and sold them for a zillion dollars to yuppies for flooring - we know! But we paid $40 for the load, we had them here, and that's what we bought them for.


And there was light. And today, we rested (well, went back to our day jobs).