Working at my real job

Well the boom lift is at the “lift doctor.” So there wasn’t any work done on the house yesterday or today. Not sure when it will be released, but hopefully in a day or two.

Had to go to my real job, but have permission to take more time off when we get the lift back. In the meantime, Lynn worked a little on the post but will do more tomorrow. He is recovering from last week. I think I may have pushed him a little too hard.

So there isn’t much to report on today so this will be short.

Plans for the future are: Finish the East gable then the West gable, then the center over the front door. In between the times that Lynn will be doing the structural part, I will fancy things up a bit. I plan on painting the upper part of the shop and if time allows we will move to the side and eventually to the back.

We did finish up the back lower deck of the house earlier this summer. There is also a small upper deck that needs some attention. Oh my as I am writing this, even I am becoming overwhelmed. Nothing has been done inside yet.

Plans for the inside: We will have a master bath, two full baths in the upstairs and a half-bath by the back door. Three bedrooms upstairs and a large bonus room. First floor has a formal dining room, a country kitchen, family room, laundry room, master suite, living room and finally the library/office.

Hopefully, it will be ready by the time I retire.  Sooner I hope.  With Lynn already retired and hopefully I will in another 5 years, we could actually lose each other in this house, which may assist us both in surviving retirement.

Oh, I forgot, his shop is every mans dream.  I believe that he owns most of the power tools that Sears has produced.  I should have bought stock in Sears years ago knowing they had customers like him.  He has a compound miter saw that I bought for him about 5 years ago, and it is still in the box!!

If you had noticed from the photos, his shop has a second story.  Well right now that is storage, but the future plan is a model railroad room.  Lynn still has many model trains he had when he was a boy and various model railroad stuff he has acquired through the years.  (He boarders or being a ‘hoarder’).  Hmm that rhymes.

Well, I just got carried away.  I told you this would be short.  So I will post more as the week moves along.

Annie, Practicing patience

Day 7 of the vacation. Moving a little slow.

Well, today was a little short, had to take Lynn to the Dr. to get his blood thinner checked. Of course, we had to stop by my work to weigh-in, as we are both on that diet thing. Visited with my co-workers who I just love, and talked about me taking another week off. Thought it sounded like a good idea, now if the boss approves it I will get to torture Lynn for another week.

While we were in town, we did a little shopping at the Home Depot and loaded up on the list of supplies we needed to keep going.  One new item was a wire brush.  I saw a u-tube video on how to clean out paint brushes.  It was pretty slick.  You need a wire brush and you basically comb the paint brush with the wire brush, under warm or cold water.  Man, what a time saver that is.  I have been buying cheap brushes so I don’t feel so bad about throwing them away.

Okay now for the progress.  Today Lynn went up in the lift and put some trim around the stain glass window.  First he needed to put 1/2″ plywood up and then a piece of the Hardie Board trim.  That places it out far enough that the siding butts up against it and doesn’t stick out.  I did take a photo of just what we got done today.  It went slow as I was not very proficient with the siding tool.  As a matter of fact, I switched to a chop saw because I was wasting too much trim practicing.  I guess that is something I just can’t get the hang off in this short amount of time.  I did some running up and down the stairs handing things out the window to Lynn in the lift.  Oh, and that diet thing with Lynn, what was I thinking??  He was living up to his nick name:  Ole’ Snap & Snarl.  Boy was he cranky.  So at one point I decided he didn’t need me and I went to the far side of the garage (to get away) and decided to paint a door, that he pointed out needed painting.  I managed to get it scrapped, caulked and primed.  He is a real work incentive.

When we got back from town, I went to work on the post we took out yesterday.  I removed all the screws with a power drill.  Oh, I didn’t tell you.  We did something I know Norm Abrams would not approve of.  We tried to bring the splitting posts together with screws, counter sunk of course.  Didn’t work.  Nothing worked, except taking them apart and fixing them right.  At least that is what I say now.  Ask me this time next year and I will let you know how they have fared over the winter.

Back to the post.  Well I removed the screws and then tried to pull the 4 sides apart.  Nothing is easy.  So I used my versatile putty knife to try to force apart the sticking sides.  It worked but in the process I bent my putty knife.  I loved that putty knife.  Papa said he will buy me another one tomorrow.  This is me frowning. 😦    I truly loved that little tool.

Tomorrow is grocery day, so we won’t be working in the morning.  Then by the time we get home, Lynn is too tuckered out to do anything, so that means I get to play on the lift when we get home.  Yipee.  Maybe I can get him to move it to the Shop and I will start painting on it.  I need to get the “up high” work done before we have to take the lift back.

Or I may just call it a rest day, and head into town for the Walla Walla Quilt Show.  Leaving Lynn home to recharge for Sunday.  I think that is what I am going to do.  Making and executive decision, Quilting Show it is.  Save the painting until Sunday.  Now for some photos, that finally downloaded.

Annie, Posting,  Painting, and Chop Saw Operator

Window In

Another one of the window

Sliding Garage Door – Mower entrance

Primed and ready for the final coat.

Post in pieces

My beloved putty knife.

Day 6 of Vacation – We are making progress, yipee!!!

Beginning Thursday morning

Just removed the blue tape

Cedar shakes with Sage Green and Red trim

Post is in place and the next one is on the table

Lynn on his way down. The window is in.

Wahoo, the window is in and beautiful.

5th Day of Vacation, Moving along at a snails pace. But Moving

It was 35 degrees on the back porch. Oh man, winter’s going to be here before you know it. Though it got in the 80’s this afternoon.  Got a late start on this project, but it is what it is. Hope to at least get the front of the house sided before we have to return the lift. My vacation ends Sunday, but may have to take another week off this month, we will see how things are at work.

Bonus, Lynn is pushing himself and I think getting stronger without him even realizing it. I think he kinda likes riding in the bucket lift. Keeps figuring out how to make it do different things.  Still runs out of steam after a few hours on his feet.  Was going to go back up there this afternoon, but bees were swarming all around so when it gets cooler in the morning he will go up and try to spray some hives while they are cold.  They were pretty angry about the nail gun and the vibration.  Can’t move away from them very fast in a slow moving rig like the lift.

Lynn put up some more soffit (pre-painted) and hopes to get the siding and maybe the window in.  That is what we are shooting for anyway.  I am excited for Sallie to see the windows up.  They are stain glass and are beautiful.  Sallie made them for me and I will talk more about that tomorrow.

I worked on painting the front porch (one more bay done & one to go).  Also working on the porch post.  Thought I would have it finished today to put it up, but the red is going to need one more coat.  I did research on u-tube and think I have it figured out.  While taping the post and painting the red (just one of the colors) I thought Red, White and Blue would have been pretty cool colors to have, but alas I have to go with the color scheme I picked out.  The colors I have selected are:  Cream Yellow, White, Sage Green and little bit of Red here and there.  The Garage has Red Doors but I am thinking I may change that next year.  Won’t get to it this year.

This will be a short update and hopefully tomorrow I will have some more photos.

Annie, Post painter and novice blogger

Posting on the 3rd day of vacation

Posting. That what I spent my day doing. Working on the test-post. Pictures will come tomorrow.

The morning started with a trip to Home Depot in Walla Walla for some Bondo. Got one can but bought some extra hardener because they never give you enough. Then we went to Sun Rental to pick up the boom lift that we are renting for a month. Secret, I plan on getting Lynn more involved in working on the house. New toys excite him. Unfortunately, it was too windy to get up in it today. Maybe tomorrow.

Back to the post. The Bondo worked really well. Even better than I remembered. All the holes and cracks were filled and sanded and filled and sanded again. I did move it to the back deck. Out of the wind but with good ventilation. I began working on it at 12:30 and finished just before 6:00. I have found that we will need a gallon of primer and the hardener to go with it.  Plus a bunch of 80 & 100 grit sand paper.  I am not a perfectionist, so it is not factory fresh, but is has character.  A few divots here and there, but looks mighty fine.  Used the palm sander a lot and then hand sanded the details.

It is primed and ready for the final coats tomorrow. That’s when my right brain gets to have some fun with the paint colors.  Still not sure what will look best.  We will be removing a bad post and replacing it with this new version.  Then I will be posting photos of the before and after. So excited.

Although, this project took a lot of time to do one post, it was a challenge.  Hopefully, it will get faster as we move along.

We have had a lot of wind today and at one point I thought we were going to get some rain, but the clouds just moved North.  The goal of this blog is to keep me enthused and get something accomplished before winter sets in.  My motivation comes from my journaling.    I would much rather be curled up with a romance novel or doing girlie things like sewing or cooking.  Those are my winter projects.  Now it’s time for some Excedrin and a hot shower.

I hope you are enjoying this journey with me.  I welcome any comments or encouragement.

Annie, the “posting queen”

2nd Day of the Working Vacation

Well I just can’t seem to get the hang of this blog site. I wrote a long blog about what I did today and when I went to edit it (there wasn’t a button for that) on the page I was on so I tried moving around to find the edit button and totally lost my posting, so I gotta start over. Learning to blog, ugh.

So I will try to remember what I wrote. Here goes!! Out the door at 8:00 this morning and the weather was beautiful 70s and 80s with a wind about 20-25 miles an hour. Breezy but comfortable. Spent the morning putting primer on some of the porch ceiling joists.  I had primed and painted them once, before they were installed, but they hung up there for a couple of years before we finished putting the roof on. Needless to say, they weathered and now had to be scrapped and re-painted. This time I used better primer and they will be sheltered so I shouldn’t have to do them again for a long time. Maybe not in my lifetime. Tomorrow I will put on some of the finished coats if we get back from the rental center in time. The ladder climbing went better this week.  Last weekend I was jinxed.  I was coming down the ladder and whoops, missed that bottom rung.  Luckily, the wall caught me and no damage done.  Then I moved the ladder and positioned it to do another porch joist, but wasn’t paying attention to the cross joist, and ouch ran right into it with my head.  I was literately seeing stars.  I had a friend tell me just the other day that “a 60 year-old-woman has not business on a ladder.”  Humm maybe she had something there.  Sad part, my husband watched it all, and just grinned and shook his head.

Finished that little task around 11:30 and stopped for lunch and a break.

Now, time to work on the test-post.  Took the clamps off and proceeded to scrap, sand and turn and do it again.  I also took some photos of the post, but will post them when I get it finished.  The before and after.  I did find a helpful tool that I am sure Norm Abrams would not approve of on a wood post.  A whole new appreciation for a “rasp.”  That little baby helped me take down some of the parts that didn’t line up.  Just tooling along with that and then thought I would try some of the Bondo in the cracks.  Just to get a feel for how it would do.

I used Bondo  about 6 or 7 years ago when I refinished the 70 year old posts on the front porch of the house we are living in now.  It was really slick and easy.  So I thought “no problem, I got this.”  Wrong!!  My frugal Scotsman husband, said “Oh, we got two cans in the shop, so don’t buy any.”  Sounds like a plan.  Got the 2 cans and a tube of hardener.  First can, dried out.  That went in the trash.  Second can, iffy.  Putty like gray substance, didn’t remember it being that color or that consistency.  Oh, well, now to the hardener.  Remembered that being the consistency of tooth paste.  This wasn’t like that, it was  liquidy like water.  That didn’t look right to me either, but thought maybe I didn’t remember right.  Put a golf-ball sized  (that’s what the can said) glob on a mixing surface, then added some hardener.  The can said about an inch and a quarter (1 1/4″).  How do you measure an inch and a quarter of water?  Something wasn’t right here.  Being the eternal optimist, I proceeded.  I just added what I thought would be enough.  Mixed it together and proceeded to work fast filling in some holes so it wouldn’t get hard on me.  Hum, two hours later, it still hadn’t set up.  Now, I had to scrape it all off and try to clean-up that area.  What a waste of time and effort.  Tomorrow I will be buying some Bondo before we go and pick up the boom lift at Sun Rental in Walla Walla.  So excited, can’t wait.  Now, I need to just concur my fear of heights.  Maybe it won’t be so bad in the lift.

Finished for the day about 3:30.  Cleaned-up and headed home for a shower and a blog update.

You know men seem to be born knowing about these things, but us ladies fly by the seat of our pants.  I would appreciate any sage advice on the Bondo thing.  What do I need to do different?  All encouragement appreciated.

Annie, the novice blogger and post fixer.