NEW DUNBURY

That’s the way Michael was adding treads to the basement stair today. (Yes, this is the second post today.) He’s about three short of a flight. With luck, the basement will be safely accessible again tomorrow by noon.

Just before lunch time, he remembered that I was supposed to call the quarry guy about checking out stone samples for the powder room. Okay, so I knocked off for an early lunch and called. The guy was out in the factory; they had inspectors on site. I waited for a callback, which came after lunch and while I was (naturally) in the bathroom. Liz fielded it and set up a 2:30 meet. Given that there was not a lot of time till the meet, I changed my plans for afternoon work. As something that I could mostly just put down, I elected to start oiling woodwork, doing the loft window before the meeting.

Liz couldn’t go because she was waiting for an appliance repair man (who, naturally, didn’t show up until well after the meeting was over) but I went and looked at several slabs, forgetting to bring the camera. He loaned me his and I took pics of the candidates. I showed Liz the tiny, tiny pics, but she still agreed with my choice as the leading candidate. I’ll convey that info tomorrow. The chosen one ought to hone up well. It’s got a branching mineral vein that sort of looks like a diagram of magma working its way up a volcano. That pattern will run up the center behind the glass vessel sink. Should look pretty cool.

After the meeting, I hauled the sinks he’ll be needing over to the house and oiled some more woodwork. I got the guest window and door casings done, as well as the loft baseboard. The concentrated linseed oil vapors are tough on me, though, generating headaches even with open windows. Makes the evening not a lot of fun.

While I was oiling, the first “stain-grade” room got its baseboard caps: the master bedroom. Now to slap some oil on that soonest, to let it air out as much as possible.

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With us out of town on family matters, the guys on the construction crew remained busy.

The garage has its “people” door installed, complete with hardware. The skylights are in as well. The framer has been called off for a bit to another job. This is not so bad, as he was going to have to wait while drywall went up and insulation got blown in, and it looks like there is a delay on the carriage doors. Don’t know what it is yet, I am not getting through to the makers.

The base for the “paneled” wall is up inside and much more baseboard installed. The casing for the the stained glass window is up on Liz’s office side. We’ve got hardware up on most of the installed interior doors. The interior casings are finished on the aisle doors. The first piece of kitchen countertop is in. Guys are working on baseboard caps and the back porch, and Michael is putting in treads on the basement stairs.

The trailer is mostly empty and may be leaving soon. That will make a difference in the impression, for sure.

There’s so much activity spread around the house that it is hard for me to find a place to slip in and do some work while staying out of the way.

This morning I did manage to get door stops on the upstairs and powder room doors and install the closet rod/shelf in the guest closet. Right now, I’m back at the rental, awaiting a callback on going over to the quarry to pick out the soapstone for the powder room slab.

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This weekend, which would have been even longer without the help of Katie, Eric, and Sheryl, is finally closing down. The aforementioned, greatly appreciated folks came by on Saturday to pitch in with the painting program (even if the women ended up oiling woodwork rather than painting — our contractor considers it ”painting.”) Eric did his own version of the “basement exile” by painting the Game Room ceiling while the women were oiling in the master bedroom and bath. Liz and I worked on the master hall, the main aisle, and the stairwell, as well as a bit of the loft stub walls. Sunday the core crack painting team attacked the rest of the loft walls, the upper stairwell, and the niche end of the gallery; the latter two areas being those not done by the pro painters.

We spent most of this afternoon doing clean-up and re-laying builder’s paper on the main floor and in the upper gallery. Dusty work. And it took way too long. We ran longer than usual, then we worked on freeing the stained glass window from its lightbox frame. Joe had started it on late Thursday afternoon and realized it was a pain, suggesting that we might want to save money by doing it outselves. We did. I have to say that said window was never going to accidentally part from the light box frame. Do 44 screws seem sufficient? Plus glue? [note from Liz: those of you who knew my Dad know that his middle name was “overengineered”]  Anyway, it’s free now and I expect to be discussing its new home soon.

In other progress, the pro painting crew started oiling the timbers and the ceiling boards on Friday (when they wouldn’t interfere with the carpenters.) They also showed up on Saturday, thereby complicating our plans. One result was that Katie and Sheryl ended up oiling rather than painting — we couldn’t get to many of the areas because of the pros at work. They’ll be back Monday, I think, for more oiling.

The HVAC units for the garage arrived on Friday, as did the building inspector. We got approved on framing, plumbing rough, and electrical rough. All is go! Framer says, “skylights on Monday.”

On Friday, to avoid getting in the way of the oilers, I spent most of my time in the basement, putting in three of the miniatures cabinets. One more of that model to go.

This steady, seven-days-a-week thing is getting to be a real drain. I was way too cranky with my helpmate today. I did apologize, and do so again here and now. [note from Liz: All is of course forgiven.  These last two weekends have given me a hint of what your life has been like the last too many weeks.] Methinks I need a vacation. I at least need some sleep.

Bye.

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This morning I went over to work on installing the closet stuff for the master suite. Assembly of the hutches went pretty well considering I didn’t have a bench to work with in the basement. I brought the first hutch, the larger one, up to the closet and discovered it was too wide. I had forgotten to allow for the sides of the hutch when cutting the shelves to width. Oops. I partly dismantled both units, with much pounding, moderate cosmetic damage to the units, and just a little cussing. Morale was low for the lunch break.

The afternoon went better. I came up with a relatively painless way to make my cuts to un-widen the hutches. Said method even meant I didn’t have to remove every nail in the shelves, which was good, as they would have been a real problem. I reassembled the hutches and carted them upstairs. Lo and behold, they were the right width. Mine slipped into place easily, but Liz’s ran afoul of the ”extra mud” that often accumulates in corners. It’ll take a little sanding to ease the corner of the hutch to get it to fit. But I had reached my hutch quota for the day, so I spent most of the rest of the afternoon installing brackets for the closet rods and shelves. I also trimmed the framing pieces for the “cabinet with shelves” and cut some of the trim out for the hutches. By then, it was pretty much closing time and the guys were packing away the chop saw. I can take a hint.

The carpenters continued trim-out. The railing is pretty much done. I’m thinking they may think it is done, but I’m not sure an inspector will agree. There are no pickets beneath the brace. A hypothetical baby could crawl through and go flying down to the great room. They almost finished the casing on the big window, just the bottom piece to add. The only leaves the upper big window, one in the master bath, and part of the big kitchen window to be cased. There are still a few doorways needing work, and a few rooms that need baseboard, and baseboard cap pretty much everywhere. All the “paint grade” trim rooms except the game room and my office need finishing as well, but on the whole the trim program is drawing to a close. Another week maybe?

The garage roof is mostly shingled. The ridge needs doing. (And, of course, some of the work will need to be torn up to install the skylights.) The result on the garage’s “presence” is great. It is definitely subordinate to the house (as we wanted) now that it no longer presents a great big, black rectangle to the arriving guest. It also looks more a part of the woods. Yea!

Tomorrow, more work in the closet for me, I think.

 [Note from Liz: there are new pictures, and in particular a really cool composite view of both buildings — it’s the last one in the Outside Work portfolio]

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Well, as you may have guessed from recent posts, things are moving fast at the house. Yesterday I apparently encroached too closely on the space of one of the carpenters by working in the same room, so I got exiled to the basement today “where we’re not working.” Fortunately, I had planned on working down there anyway.

Of course, even this was not without issues. The planer got set up on the patio after lunch and the one extension cord downstairs (that I was using in the AM) got dragged out to service it. So after lunch it was swap and swap back for a while.

So what was I doing down there? In the morning, it was sand the wood and, in the afternoon, it was stain the wood. Said wood being pieces for the closets. It took pretty much all day so I didn’t get to any installlation. Looks like that is for tomorrow. Since nobody is working in the closet, I ought not to be encroaching on anybody’s space.

Upstairs, the railings and posts around the open space were getting their caps. That last section of pickets is further along but still incomplete. Casing elements were installed on the interior around the front and back doors and trim work got going in the master bathroom.

The plumber who some call Tim was in today. Apparently his vacation starts tomorrow. He turned on the water (no, we don’t have the results of the test yet) and installed the sink and toilet in the guest bath. Fortunately I was there this AM and working in the basement, because he hadn’t completely tightened one of the connections on the hot water heater. It leaked. I discovered the water flow and hunted him down to control it. The water, naturally, made a bee-line for the stuff I had stored in the unfinished area. I got several miniatures cabinets and tools out before they got damaged. Had I not been there . . .

Shingling has proceded around to the front of the garage and the electrical rough-out looks complete. The sheetrockers will be in (proably Monday) to do the collar ties in prep for the insulators. They’ll come back to do the rest of the ceiling (saving me from that over-my-head work), the wall dividing the workshop from the garage (a place for tools!), and the bathroom (for that hint of privacy.)

A major cleanup of the site was in progress today. The remaining oak timbers have been moved into the garage, along with some salvage off-cuts from the ceiling/flooring in the house. The leftover bricks were restacked out of the clearing and the new dumpster is now (again) almost full. They want to get the infamous beer trailer off site. The rest of the stuff for the house stored inside the trailer will be moved into the house on Monday.

Michael tells me he believes that we are “comfortably on track” for the C.O. (Certificate of Occupancy) inspection on March 14. He also allowed as to how the house would probably not be finished at that date. This is not surprising to us. But we all want the C.O.

Perhaps it shall be so.

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