White is the color of the day...

It started out as a white door (it came pre-primed) and two coats of paint later it's still a white door.

Sometimes progress is just plain invisible and boring.  Cat contortions are much more interesting...

And a hearty "Hi Ho Silver!"

Bruce came to my rescue once again.  (If you don't have a Bruce in your life you need one.)  He removed those pesky, stubborn screws that held up the shelves in the sunroom; shelves that needed to come down before the drywall guys come.  Bruce also figured out how to remove the weatherstripping from around the new door that the instructions said was "easily removed".  The door now has a fresh coat of paint on the outside (the worthless instruction sheet is in the recycling bin).  No picture?  It is rather hard to take a picture of oneself painting...

Meanwhile John continues to enjoy the Boise sights or is that sites?  He sent this photo of Boise's answer to a biker bar.

Coming soon...

The code enforcement officer (the real one) was just here and approved the insulation.  Yes!!!

Those white boards are 14 foot lengths of dry wall.  The professionals (two brothers) will be here on Saturday at 6:10 (that's a.m.) to hang it.  According to them they'll have it hung and the first coat of plaster on by midday.  If you had shook hands with them or seen the girth of their shoulders you would probably believe it too...

Doubles...

Did you ever see so many double yolked eggs?  Bruce served those up this morning at his tub loading party for Randy's "66".  The date on the bottom of the tub is 1929 and is not only in very good condition for its age but it's 66 inches long.  Only a few of these were made.  The extra 6 inches (standard was 5 or 6 feet) allowed for the slanted back - much more comfortable for soaking.  Randy, bottom photos, bought it for his good wife Kathleen and Bruce has been storing it for him.

P3 & P4 - Randy doing his inspection before he headed back to NJ. Alas!  This time we failed.  John, if you're reading this, remember those nails that were going to be put in later in the soffit?  Later didn't come before the foam was sprayed in and it's a little "depressed" in places.  Oh well.  Something to think about on your plane ride home...

Cruisin'

More inspectors cruised in from NH last night.  Steve is the proud parent of both Becca & Ben and this was their first stop on a trip across country to Vashon Island off the coast of Seattle where Becca & her husband have just moved.  Becca's experienced but this is Steve & Ben's first trip via land.  Just think of the wonderful adventures they have ahead of them!

John's on the road in Boise staying with Garry & Yvonne (that's their home in P1). The others are some of the sights of Boise.  Can you spot John?  He's the one in the green jacket.

Karol is to note P2 - Boise's copy of the Winged Victory.  Susan is to note all the photos - the green jacket (John's school color) was her find at the thrift store.  And, yes, it is still several sizes too big.  John refuses to wear it to the big dinner tonight but he did say his leisure suit (the same color green) they wore as band members to the Seattle World's Fair was the hit of the party yesterday.

In the last photo is the statue of Governor Steunenberg.  Years ago on the VW blog I published John's 4th grade poem about the governor who was killed by a bomb in his mailbox.  Someone wrote then to ask permission to use it in a book he was writing on the governor.  He was very disappointed to find there weren't other verses.  It goes something like this...
 "Governor Steunenberg didn't know his fate
When they wired the bomb unto his gate
But when for the mail he did go
He found his life at an all time low."

According to Garry, John was a hero today.  They were cruisin' around Boise when the old VW bug in front of them turned a corner.  The passenger door flew open and a little girl went flying out landing in the busy street.  John rushed out and pulled her safely from the oncoming traffic.  Too bad he didn't have on his green jacket.  It might have been time for Superman and Batman to move over for a new hero.

Blue hoses to green foam...

John may be whooping it up (does one really do that when they've been out of high school 50 years?!) in Idaho but back here in NY work continues.

The insulating truck came today with their blue hoses that match perfectly the little blue boxes.  (Does this have a significance?)  P2 - Men dressed in space suits behind a plastic sheet proceeded to turn our rooms green (probably sea foam green).  They were VERY thankful it was 20 degrees cooler today than yesterday.  And I was VERY thankful Susan & Owen had me to lunch away from the sound of the compressor and the scent of foam!

Packin' up...

3 a.m. - OMG!  We forgot to run the wires for the phone & computer!
6 a.m. - Good morning honey.  Guess what we forgot to do?
9 a.m. - Done!
P1 - Putting sheathing over the "old" wall.  Looks much better doesn't it?
P2 & P3 - In spite of the heat wave we packed up everything and cleared out the rooms (the insulation folks come on Friday).  Looks a lot different than yesterday's mess, doesn't it?
P4, 5 & 6 - Bertha strikes some glamour poses.  Don't you think she's one hot kitty?  Especially when you know it was 90+ degrees here today.  John leaves tomorrow for his 50th high school reunion in Boise.  I can't believe that for once Boise may actually be cooler than Earlville.

Taking sides...

John to the east; me to the west.  Places everyone.

On the west side, the framing for the stairs is finally finished.  If those don't look like the treads you expected to see, they aren't.  Too much construction yet to do to risk getting the beautiful old ones mucked up by oblivious walkers.

On the east side... If it looks like a mess of all sorts of tubes and wires, you're right.  John is in the middle of roughing in the plumbing for the radiator.

PS - The electric inspector came today and gave us a thumbs up.  Blue boxes in all the right places.

Odds & Ends

Just cleaning up a few details...
Tillie 2, the boat, had to be launched for the season.  The 3 sailing beauties with John are Susan, Karyl & Bonnie.  VERY handy gals when it came time to put the boat in the water.  (It's just lucky they saw the water snakes AFTER the launching...)
P3 - John & Terry off for a good first sail. I know if you followed the boat last year you're wondering if it leaked.  All I can say is, isn't that what wooden boats are supposed to do?  The good news was they did not sink.

P4 - A community effort.  Terry's holding the top part of the old cook stove at his camp - the rest went to metal recycling.  We're all happy, happy, happy that he upgraded.  However, the part that Terry's holding was saved by his friends for display.  John & Bruce managed to disconnect it before the old stove went to the dump.  John cleaned it up and rewired it.  Chris type set a new clock face.  Leigh glued it on and coated it.  Denise cut a new glass cover for the clock and etched, yes actually etched, the numbers into the back of the glass and painted them red.  It's amazing what can happen when everyone works together.  Now if Terry will only hold it there until we figure out how to hang it...

Back at the home front, more taping around the door and roof flashing.  More work on the stairs.  More figuring out how to shim the funky part of the ceiling so the dry wall goes up smoothly.  Nothing at all interesting to photograph.

Deer slayers

Today was one of those days when it seems like you work all day but there is not much to show for it.  John did finish the wiring and cleaned up (yes, even we clean up occasionally).  I played around with the stairway some more.

This afternoon, we hear a noise that sounds like a cross between a crow and someone with a bad cold trying to clear their throat.  Know what that is?  It's a deer who's upset about something.  Sure enough, in the trees just off the yard there's Bertha the cat staring down a deer.  Gus was there too but he was preoccupied with trying to catch a baby rabbit.  The doe must have a fawn nearby as we hear her often in the mornings when we let the cats out.  Now if the cats would just start earning their keep and keep that deer from eating my hosta!

Shopping & slugs...

Today I went "shopping" in our old barn.  It's full of "stuff" too good to throw away and I wanted to find some planks to use for stairs down into the sun room.  Success - 2 planks that at one time formed the wall of one of the upstairs closets.  They had been installed sideways, then lathe & plastered.  Can you imagine using wood that beautiful inside a wall?!  They're 1.5" thick.  One is 14" wide and one is 12".  The bits of newspaper on the back of one were from 1818 which meant the trees they came from were growing in the 1700's.  I trust you're impressed.  I am.  Of course there's always a down side.  The backs were filled with the old square nails used to install the lathe so they all had to be pulled out.  And then there was the sanding but the end product will be worth it. Can't wait to show you what they'll look like when they're varnished.  P2 - One of the new stair supports (along side the rough construction stairs) that will support the stairs.  Meanwhile John has been busy all day drilling holes and running wires to little blue boxes.  P3 - Slugs.  It was too hot to supervise today.

Little ledges...

We spent the day framing out little ledges under the windows in the sunroom.  Just another one of our crazy design ideas?  No, well yes.  But the real reason was to give us a little insulation in front of the exposed cement block, something our previous room lacked.  What do you think?  Will we start a new design trend?  Move over HGTV!

PS - Those little white things I mentioned a couple of days ago - John actually calls them white gizmos.  Thinks they are one of the best things that has come on the market for electricians in years.  You probably heard it here first.

58 shortcakes & a soffit later...

Today is our friend Owen's birthday.  It's a decade birthday (we won't say which one).  If you were born in the middle of June & lived in upstate where it's the beginning of strawberry season wouldn't you want strawberry shortcake as part of the celebration?

So while I baked, Brian (love that guy!) came over to help John put up the soffits.  P1 - Inspecting the job site this morning we had not only Susan (Owen's wife who you might recognize from past photos) but Leslie & Dick from London.  Pretty amazing who all makes it here to inspect.

P2 - John & Brian with a corner piece of soffit (it fit).
P3 - Brian has just finished installing the wicked corner that would have taken John & me much, much longer to figure out.
P4 - The measurements for the final soffit pieces being taken while Gus stands at the ready to inspect.

Now it's off to PARTY!!!  Happy Birthday Owen!

Little white things...

Yesterday was little blue boxes\


, today it's little white things (some sort of electrical wire staple).  Wiring continues.
The cats are bored which is why you see the / and , and extra lines put there as Bertha walked across my keyboard...

Little boxes...

OK, OK... No blog over the weekend = no work = no progress = even we deserve a break.

After a wet, cloudy Saturday, John decided he better get in gear and make some progress getting his boat ready to sail again this year.  Needed was a new mast.  (I can't say what happened to the old one except to tell you part of it is now a lamp.)  And a new mast needs restringing. (I'm also sure there's some nautical term but not sure what it is.)  Luckily, Dillon who was up to visit is young, tall & willing & together they got the job done.  The photo was taken of the back deck of our barn which makes a perfect "launching pad".

P2 - Survivors.  They came, they saw, they stayed and they left smiling.  For those of you might know these folks - back row, Joey, Kathleen, Dillon & in the front and growing fast is Peyton.

P3 - Back to drilling.  And finally, P4, the little blue boxes going in for the wiring.  If you've never heard the song, "Little Boxes" by M. Reynolds, look it up.  Think the first stanza could also apply to these boxes.

"The" wall... again...

First we had the wall opening between the kitchen & the new room.  Looked pretty good to us until assorted friends came to visit.  Suggestions were made to make the opening bigger because how could I possibly stand being at the stove and not be able to see out all of the new window.  Debby strong armed John and said "cut here" and the opening ended up being two feet wider.  We must admit the view from the stove has vastly improved. However... the concrete wasn't poured for the new room with that in mind.  We were stewing (not just at the stove either) on just what to do until Mike came to get the dumpster.  He said to put the wall half back.  We'd keep our view and add a little "point of interest" (not that we don't have enough of those already.  P3 - Wider opening; extended header; view from the stove, point of interest half wall.

P4 - John decided to end the work day sitting on the closet.  Isn't that what you do?  (Actually he's closing up a small opening we hadn't taken care of.  P5 - Drilling through the 3 old beams on the side of the point of interest wall... 9.5 inches of wood to put a hole through.  And I misspoke yesterday.  Those 2 x 6's are actually 2.5 x 6-1/8".  They didn't skimp on wood back then.

Behind the wall...

Today we started in earnest on the wall between the kitchen and the new room.  It's old (1820) construction so instead of a 2x6 being 1.5 x 5.5 inches it's actually 2 x 6, sometimes a little more and a lot more solid and heavy and better wood.  The post holding up the header over the doorway (we extended that header today for the wider opening) is actually 4 x 6.  It is plum.  The new wood in the opening to its right is also plum.  The old wood in between is...  every which way.  As far as we can tell it never was straight.  Each stud is notched perfectly into the top and bottom beams as are the angle pieces.  Everything is still strong and tight so far be it for us to complain.

The aerial cats are checking out John's wiring and the new header to the right.

In case you think all we ever do is stare at crooked walls and contemplate the destruction an army of mice can do, the bottom two photos are some of our flowers blooming in spite of total neglect this spring.  We do occasionally go out and enjoy them...

The over-achiever...

John was down in the basement at 6 this morning wiring the new circuit in the electrical box.  It was 41 degrees here this morning and I much preferred to stay in bed where it was warm.  Even Gus, the cat who was snuggled next to me, didn't want to move.  While I ate breakfast John began nailing in the lighting canisters. I couldn't wait to get to the pool where at least the shower was warm.

This afternoon we finished "tidying up" the garage and delivered the usable bags of insulation and silverboard to Brian who thought he might be able to use it.  You can actually move in our garage now.  We still have wood stored there but at least we can get to it.

Big boy toys...

I thought Cousin John had the best toys until Mike came today.  (Mike is the husband of Stacy who plays French horn in John's trio, not that you're interested but just in case...)  At any rate Mike's new truck came with the dumpster we used.  A big hook reaches out, lifts it up, and pulls it on board.  The truck also has a flatbed attachment and a dump truck attachment.  Not a bad thing to have around.

Back to puttering in the house - before & after photos.  You may not see much difference but most of the change is above the rafters.  We sheathed the new room side of the peak as we felt folks using the bedroom upstairs would not necessarily want access to the new attic.  We also insulated that wall on the bedroom side, more for noise control than anything else.

Much more exciting looking at pictures of the truck, right?

I know it's got to come from somewhere...

Today was a day that would have made "Holmes on Homes" envious.  There was this one pesky little electrical wire coming out of the sun room wall that was still live.  Normally this would not be a problem.  You'd just disconnect it.  The only problem was there didn't seem to be a connection to either the attic or the basement.  John finally resorted to cutting into the bedroom wall.  At the end of the day there was a bigger hole there, another even bigger hole near the floor, matching holes in the sun room.  Nothing is easy but the problem has now been resolved - there's just nothing visual to show you.  Some days are more dramatic than others.

Before & After

Before; this morning...

After; this evening...

Note: the ceiling ties had to be added to cover the protrusion of the old roof.  Friends suggested we just saw the old roof off.  However, that would only open the room up to the attic above the adjoining room which is well insulated with cellulose. If you've ever "played" with cellulose you know what a mess that can be and how it just loves to "fall out".  We opted for the ceiling ties.

See those discolored ties?  Those are recycled from John's shingle lifting invention which were recycled from the old support beam in the room.  Hopefully they will stay put this time!

How to install a door

Begin by inviting a friend over.  Hopefully it's someone like Bruce who has installed a door before and who understands parallelograms.  P1 -dry fit the door.  Since some things are never easy, we found the rough opening size we'd been given was an inch and a half too wide (at least it wasn't too narrow).  After that was corrected and the bottom weathersealed once again, the sill plate is caulked, P2, with the prescribed really sticky stuff.
P3 - lift the door into place and spend the next hour trying to get it plumb and level and the door opening and closing correctly.  Take a break for lunch.  Resume shimming and adjusting screws and recalling everything you ever knew about parallelograms until everything works just perfectly.  P4 - the twins point to their completed very successful handiwork.  P5 - Bertha & Gus have now inspected it and think it should come out.  They liked being able to go in and out at will.  For that matter they think the windows should come out as well.  P6 -  Question - to nap or fill the dumpster? It wasn't raining so the dumpster won. (Still up in the air is question is whether we are in fact better for having opted for the dumpster.)  Gone is the big pile of stuff you saw a couple of days ago.  Also cleared out is the shed behind and the garage.  It's amazing how much garbage one little project can create.  Now to get rid the dumpster so naps can be reinstated.

Casual Friday...

The last of the windows, the end window, John put in before breakfast.  You'll be pleased to know this is a "green" window in that it's recycled from the bedroom upstairs.  We had to take it out to make room for the roof over the addition and that location is getting a smaller window. In the photo John's getting ready to caulk and put in the final nails around one of the windows before the final weatherstrip taping is applied.  A LOT of steps to putting in a window.  John's nailing arm was getting awfully tired before they were all in place.

Bertha, the cat, was up early doing her morning patrols and brought us in another live chipmunk for breakfast.  Is your cat that thoughtful?  When is the door going in?

Terry took me/us shopping in the afternoon for lights.  Let me tell you lighting decisions are not easy or cheap.  However, we did come home with several LED fixtures which you're just going to have to wait to see.  Now to save enough money for the bulbs...