Month: September 2018

Summer is fleeting.  We wait for it like eager school children, as if it will last forever, only to be reminded, year after year when the weather turns cooler, that fall will creep in and take its place.  Every year I wonder “Where did all the time go?”  These days, I know exactly where all my time goes.  Here’s what we’ve been up to…

Randy took a work trip to Canada at the end of June, and was gone for three days.  During that time, we decided I should get to finishing the woodwork in the living room.  I had sanded it around the doors and baseboard over the winter, but the two windows had been covered with plastic, so I had decided to wait to finish the job.  The molding around the windows is quite extensive, and it took me one whole day of sanding to finish just the windows.  Everything was smooth as silk!  I gave it a coat of paint on the second day, beautiful white semi-gloss.

 

 

I was ready to start the second coat when my newlywed husband came home.  I now endearingly call him “The Inspector”.  With woodwork that is 150 years old, you can imagine the dings and holes left behind from years of hanging window treatments, decorations, moving furniture, etc. not to mention the scars left in one of the door jams from the long gone door and hardware.  We had used wood putty to fill the obvious holes and sanded them all smooth before I painted.  Of course, once it was painted, all of the imperfections we had missed became glaringly obvious, and Mr. “Everything Has To Be Perfect” started wood puttying everywhere, followed by another round of sanding.  AS IF, the extremely thorough job I had already done was not enough.   I wanted the job done, as our list of summer projects to tackle was long.  All I could think of,  is the thousands of feet of extravagant woodwork in this house, and the years it would take us to refinish it all, if we had to live up to this level of perfection in every room.  I walked off the job to maintain my sanity and let him sand away…

A day later I had raised the white flag and surrendered.  What choice did I have?  At that point, he had almost completely sanded off my first coat of paint to “level out the dents” with the paint acting as a final filler in the faint scratches left behind by years of use.  With a good dose of humor, I joined him in sanding and painting, sanding and painting… to get the job done.  Of course, in the midst of it all, we had disagreed on how to handle the two doorways which are open, without actual doors.  My first thoughts were only to paint the side of the doorways that were inside the living room, but after much “debate”, we agreed to go all the way around the door jams and into the dining room and hallway.  THREE coats of paint later, with wood putty and light sanding between each layer, we were done.  The painted wood trim looks like new.  Seriously!  It is a work of art. (deep sigh)

Outside, the landscape work continued and thankfully in this area we were more successful in working happily, as a team.  We had a tri-axle load of “modified” gravel delivered one morning at 7:30 a.m.  TWENTY tons!  The man driving the truck left one pile at the top of our parking pad, and then spread the rest as he drove forward, creating about ten mini-piles.

Randy and I were ready with shovels, rakes and a wheelbarrow.  We worked to spread it by hand and were done by 10:30!

We saved a portion of the crushed stone to begin leveling the remaining bluestone along the path that makes a left turn at our front landing and wraps around the house and ends near the side porch, off the kitchen. 

In addition to raising the walkway, we are adding topsoil (two truck loads so far) to the front lawn and the flower beds between the porch and the walkway, so that everything is level.  At the corner, we raised the walkway and the yard about a foot!  The purpose of doing all of this is two fold, first leveling out the yard and walkway, and second reducing the distance from the porch to the ground.  Current building code requires no more than 30 inches, or the porch rails will need to be re-installed if ever we need a building permit for some future project.  We dug up stone after stone, shoveled for days, hauling wheelbarrow loads of gravel, and sweating like crazy.  A layer of sand was placed on top of the gravel before resetting each stone to give it a buffer to avoid future heaving from frost.  We ran out of gravel after turning the corner, which happened right about the time we were set to go on a vacation. So we took a break to do some traveling and then hosted a visit from Randy’s parents and one of his brothers.

Two other major projects have been on our radar for months now, and we had hopes that they would get done this summer:  (1) Take down the oldest of two remaining chimneys (this house once had three), and (2) Cut the Spruce tree.  We needed to hire some outside help to take on these projects, as they were way beyond our abilities.  We had been trying to these jobs up for some time, but they just weren’t coming together.  As life has it, both jobs surprisingly fell into place within the same two day span.  Literally, the day Randy’s parents arrived, Ron, the man hired to take the chimney down, called to say that he had an unexpected break in work and could come two days later (he had us scheduled for late September).  Literally, as Randy’s parents were pulling away, Ron was pulling up.  He arrived with a helper named Dave.  Both young men, were comfortable on the roof, and climbed the ladders without a problem.  They went up to take a look and then went off to pick up supplies and while they were gone, Randy and I started to demo the ceiling in the attic so we could have greater access to the chimney all the way to the roof line.  It was the original chimney, which interestingly had been built to avoid the attic window.  It came straight up through the floor, took a 45 degree right turn to the under the window, followed the window vertically and then took another 45 degree left turn to exit the roof at the center of the peak.  Prior owners had chosen to prop it up from the inside, rather than repair it, and the wooden framing was holding thousands of pounds of bricks.  Talk about a stressful job!  We had concerns that the chimney above the roof line might just fall down if we bumped it.   It would need reinforcement before they touched a thing.

The first ladder they tried wasn’t long enough to make it to the upper roof line, so they rigged two ladders from the side porch and went up in two stages.  Now, the chimney had wasps.  The insects had to go, before any work could get done, and thankfully there were not too many and they weren’t too aggressive.  The two guys took apart the chimney brick by brick, using just their hands.  Very gently!  It was like watching a Jenga game.  The mortar up there had turned to sand.  There was really nothing we could do at that point, but watch.  Meanwhile a few lingering wasps would show up here and there, just to test their ability to remain calm and stay focused.  They were amazing!  They threw down the bricks one at a time and before long they had taken it down to just below the roof.  Randy fashioned a tarp with two boards at either end to act as weights, which they placed over the opening for the night.  After they left, Randy and I went up into the attic and began taking the chimney apart there.  Again, most of the bricks came apart without much effort.  We worked together, Randy taking the bricks out, as I was heaving them out the window to the ground below.  What a dirty job!!!  We found the first squirrel nests in the chimney at the point were the chimney started to bend.  Below that, in the straight piece were the bee hives.  Layers and layers of them, all neatly sandwiched in there.  It was a mess!  I saved three of the deepest and oldest honeycombs, which were just too beautiful to discard, and still nearly perfect.   Below that, the chimney was open, with no obstructions.  We took it down to the the level of the floor, where the mortar is still firm and in tact. Also found was the rest of the original wallpaper.  I think I mentioned this in a previous post.  Now we can piece together what was one complete roll to see the beautiful original wallpaper.  We will cap the chimney at the attic floor and leave the remnants in the lower floors in order to preserve the history of its presence.  On day two, Ron and Dan returned to patch the hole in the roof.

 

I needed to go to work that day, and on my way there I got a call from Allen, who had been recommended to take down the tree.   Let me back track a little here…  The spruce tree next to the house was so beautiful, but it was enormous.  We loved it, and it broke out hearts to cut it down, but it was simply too big and too close to the house.  It blocked the sun, and kept the exterior damp.  After getting estimates from local tree removal companies that were very expensive, we were told of Allen, who happened to be the brother of Andy.  Andy had helped us take out the old oil tanks from the basement.  Allen is a logger.  So there I was in my car on the side of the road talking to Allen who was willing to stop at the house to look at the tree on the very same day at 11:00.  I knew Randy was home with Ron and David on the roof, so sure, Allen could stop by and take a look at the job.  Randy met Allen who looked and sounded just like his brother.  Both are strong, gentle, humble and hard working local men.  He took a look at the tree, gave Randy a quote we couldn’t beat, and said he could be back that afternoon at 3:00 to take it down.  Unbelievable!  He came back with two chain saws, some rope harnesses and spikes to strap to his boots.  He climbed that tree with great finesse, cut the limbs one at a time from the bottom up and then from the top down, began cutting the trunks (there were two) into lengths of six feet or so, until he was done.  Half way through the job it started to rain.  Then it POURED!

Remember Ron and Dave?  They were still on the roof, three stories up.  They had all their tools up there and were getting the new shingles on when the rain started.  Three men up 40-50 feet in the rain, and luckily no thunder.

We asked if they wanted to stop, but all insisted they keep going to finish the jobs, with no concern about the rain.  Randy and I were hauling the limbs away in the downpours and making a giant pile in the gully to make into mulch later.

 

Dave even jumped in to help haul off tree limbs, and carried off one of the biggest and heaviest pieces like it was a twig.  Ah, to be young!  We were soaking wet and covered with mud, bark and wood chips before the job was done.  Before leaving, Allen cut the longer lengths into smaller lengths that can be split later for outdoor burning in our fire pit.  The rain let up after an hour or so, and Ron and Dave finished their jobs, also capping the other chimney for us, before they left.  You can imagine our relief and disbelief at the end of that day, when both jobs were done, and everyone paid and home safe.  PHEW!!!

With relentless fortitude, we ordered more gravel to finish leveling the walkway, and stone by stone we made it all the way back to the kitchen steps at the side porch.

 

 

It was like a marathon, day after day until we were done.  I don’t think I have ever sweated so much in my life!  We added a step down at the bump out for the dining room windows and used pieces of broken stones to support the step, similar to what we did out front.

 

 

The finished job looks great and we love it!  We plan to add some topsoil to cover the gravel and plant grass seed this fall.

In the midst of it all, we took time out to enjoy life, and REST.

Fall is knocking at the door and the metamorphosis continues…