Wrapping it up... finally...

P1 - Yes, that's Gus.  He's already wrapped it up for the day and it is only ten in the morning.  Some snowy days are more trying than others.
P2 - The finishing touches on the bedroom.  Captain's bed with storage underneath (now if we can only remember which storage cubby we put stuff in).  The headboard is part of Debby's picket fence she took down this summer.  I had originally thought porch posts again but the picket fence turned out to be a better idea.  John is still adjusting to the idea that the color I chose for it is a lot pinker than it looked like in the store.  Although you can't see it in the photo, the chairs face the wood burning stove.
P3- Curtains finally up in the new room and odds & ends strewn about just like someone is enjoying living there (which we are!).
Stay tuned - another trip to Texas & a new Habitat project starts in April.

After an interlude...

We're pleased to report that our renovations made having and enjoying the company of 40 on Thanksgiving Eve and 22 on Thanksgiving a piece of turkey.  Of course not quite everything is finished but we're getting there.
P1 - Debby & John hung the curtain rod from Debby's previous home.  It's nice to have friends who had big windows and never throw anything away.  P2 - look closely to see "the rod".  The proper curtains, or should I say "window treatments", are still under discussion.  P3 - Our new solar panel is now installed but not yet operational.  A bit more electrical work needs to take place before it begins generating electricity.  P4 - Debby, queen of decorating, screwing the Thanksgiving turkey into its lofty perch.  Some folks have mistletoe.  We had turkey toes. P5 - Mr. Turkey flew back to the attic and has now been replaced with Gabriel.  P6 - Closet in the raw.  P7 - Making progress on the closet.  One day soon it may actually hold something other than tools.  P8 - The rest of the bedroom is a wreck but Bertha remains unperturbed.

More odds & ends

P1-5  Last post left you/us with a pole in the ground.  Since then the digger came to bury the conduit for the electrical cable from that pole to the barn.  Although the digger tried to cover it up neatly, the ground was very wet and there's going to be A LOT of yard work to be done in the spring.

Meanwhile life/work goes on inside.  P6 - more work on the closet.  P7 - the top step of the stairs got glued and screwed into place.  That odd board on the top step held it tight while the glue set.

P8 - They came to do a home energy test on the house complete with a blower door test - that's the red contraption.  P9 is the meter that shows where we're lacking insulation (and where the mice tunnels are).  Guess what?  The part of the house we did NOT work on, needs work.  Where will it all end?

What now?

After rushing around hosting B&B guests, then rushing around preparing for Sandy who spared us, I thought I was only going to be able to report that Bertha snoozed through the week P1.

But then... it seems a little rain is no reason to stop the guy who came to install the gutters P2 & P3.  It's not something I would choose to do on a rainy day but I guess it's one way of knowing right away if they're working.

Then today P3, P4, P5, the photo-voltaic installation crew came to install the pole that will hold the panels to generate part of our electricity.  A BIG hole, a BIG pile of muddy dirt (they too do not let a little rain stop them), a BIG sonotube (a big cardboard tube like the one in a roll of toilet paper except that this one is blue, 10 feet tall and 30 inches in diameter) into which a BIG, tall 20 foot steel pole is placed and a BIG truckload of concrete is added.  The dirt is pushed back in the hole around the sonotube to hold it and the pole in place.  You might also note the yard, or what was the yard, in the last photo.  If you think it looks bad now, just wait with us until next week when they come to dig the trench to run the electric cable to the barn...

Now take a deep breath!

We actually got the finish on the kitchen floor AND dried AND the kitchen back in order, P2, before our guests arrived.  John even had time to screw on the metal strip, P1, that covers the crack between the concrete floor and the wood floor.  (The floor looks a LOT better than the photo.  Your amateur photographer here just doesn't know how to take the photo so reflections don't occur...)

A few dry hours over the last couple of days also let the house painting go on (mostly thanks to John - my time was relegated to cleaning and, dare I say, the fun activity of going to the regional farmers market with Susan of the tea party to stock up on provisions for the winter).  P3, P4, P5 - those walls are all done.  P6 - John is finishing (now done) the grey on the back wall.  He still has to give the trim one more coat of white.

So is that it?  Not quite.  Stay tuned.  I'll do another post at the end of next week to keep you in the loop.

The unexpected...

 If you were expecting to see photos of the finished outside, you will be very disappointed.  Rain, fog....  However, life and birthdays still go on.  Today was our friend Susan's birthday - Happy Birthday Susan!  And to all of you who also had birthdays in October (Rita, Joey, Peyton and probably a few more), Happy Birthday to you too.  It was only because Susan came over and told me it was her birthday that I managed to shove aside enough paint cans to make room for a tea party P1 for Susan and for Gus P2 who's birthday is also in October.

P3 - Taken in Sept. you can just make out the kitchen.  Today we decided to clear it out P4 so we could redo the finish on the floor tomorrow.
P5 - The cats had never seen it so clean and were dazzled by their reflections.
P6 - I needed another photo so threw one in of the dining room - cleaned out of "extras" stored there as well.  No "before" shot of that one.
P6 - The Adirondack room as you last saw it the beginning of October and P7 now that it's finally back together.
P8 - The music room filled with stuff we had moved there while we renovated.  P9 - after sorting things out again.
P10 - The new room as it was yesterday.
P11 - The new room today filled with all the stuff from the kitchen.

We have B&B guests coming on Friday.  Will we have things back in order?  Stay tuned for my next post on Saturday...

And since I almost certainly missed it, Happy Birthday to you too!

Where to paint...

First things first - John finished caulking today.  That means everything between the windows and their casings got caulked; where the siding meets the trim got caulked; where the soffits meet the roof on one side and the trim on the other got caulked; and, for good measure, his hands, fingers, pants etc. also got caulked.  And this was in spite of what felt like 40-50 mph winds, strong enough that he couldn't keep his hat on.

What needs to be painted, you ask...  While we used mostly pre-primed wood, any exposed cut edge such as the trim under the roof line has to be primed before it's painted.  I managed to at least prime everything that needed it on the door wall of the sunroom.  After caulking and priming, everything needs at least one if not two coats of paint.  I started painting the white trim on the front of the porch (you can see it's now white instead of the yellowish color) but the wind forced me to give it up.  Painting will have to take place another time.

Back inside, Gus was hard at work testing fabric being considered for curtains? slip covers?

Because painting isn't very exciting and because rain is predicted and because this project is winding down, I won't be posting again until next Wednesday.  Hopefully by then I'll have some great pictures to show you...