And then there was help!

 Last weekend, Ian was able to come out for a couple of days for my birthday. It's not much "fun" but he was able to help me get a few things done that I needed a set of skilled hands to help with.

Finally! The railing up to the second floor is installed! And it's solid and not pulling down the wall! That was quite the task - some of the bolts are right into nice solid studs - some have fancy molly bolts holding it on to the plaster and lathe. I need to hit the heads of those with some matte black touchup paint, which I ordered from the guy who made the railing. (The little jar he had sent with the railing had dried out.)

Finally!

The next day he helped me hang the shed quilt. I've designed it in such a way that I can lift of and replace the quilt with seasonally appropriate themes. This tickles me greatly. Of course the price of plywood is astronomical right now, so I'll hold off on a new one for a while.

I took this picture a while ago - the rose has filled in since.

Before Shed Quilt though, he helped me right the clothes line post. The ledge is so close to the surface here that the further post really wasn't sunk as deep as it should have been. We dug out a roughly 3x3' square around it and back-filled a square pad with 480lbs of cement around it to give it a bigger foot. That sucker isn't going anywhere now. I just tested it with my noggin last night mowing the law, and in a contest of post vs head, the post won, so I think it's as solid as it's going to be.