Sorry. I've had a lot going on.

 

I've started a new post a number of times, and every time I got distracted or something came up and then then it just sort of fizzled out.

Stress will do that. Year two of a pandemic that most of the country seems content to ignore in some state of willful ignorance and acceptable losses. A new-to-me-car that developed issues almost immediately (The '16 CRV needed a new catalytic converter to the tune of $2k. The dealership made good on it, thank goodness.) More layoffs at work that have left me down another boss and out 6 direct coworkers. I'm the only one left in the States who does what I do. A bathroom that has been in a state of half demolition since last August. A living room in a state of half completion since December. A neighbor who is happy to fly Trump flags and other distasteful... yard adornments... that I get to look out at every day.
And a relationship that had run it's course, with a breakup that occurred right before Valentine's Day.
I have the best timing.

My front morning view taken through a piece of antique reclaimed red glass.

As the one who instigated the parting of ways, you'd think that I'd be all over this by now. But you'd be terribly wrong. My partner was my best friend and confidant, who I'd been with for close to ten years. We had grown together in many ways, starting that day in Boston when we didn't get blown up at the finish line only because of a last minute change of route and the grace of God. But we had started to grow apart as well, and though I hate to say that Covid killed our relationship, it drove home to me that we were built on shared experiences. When that was taken away, we were reduced to 2x a day phone calls. I experienced a frightening disphoria that I only was able to identify in hindsight. He had become a voice; when we were finally able to be together, his voice no longer matched the person I remembered in my head. For me, it became a process of meeting a new person every few months - a person that I was supposed to have intimate familiarity with - who wasn't who I remembered. His voice became uncoupled from his physical self in my head. There were a lot of other issues as well, related to distance and life's paths diverging.

I guess I've changed too, though I feel more like I've been standing still and the world has just past me by.

 

It has made working on the house - something I thought I would have more help with than I got, something I'm more comfortable working on specifically because of my relationship with him - hard. Sometimes impossible. Memories bubble up and won't leave me alone, so I walk away from the work bench and tools and try to figure out who the hell I am - who is this person who's lived in a strange sort of limbo for years - who may or may not be able to tolerate people in my space any more. At 1 month shy of 42, likely past my ability to have a family, it's.... daunting... to even consider what dating looks like today, and I wonder about my worth in the world and if I'm compatible with anyone left on earth. It's easy to doom-spiral when you can see as far backwards as you think you can project forward.
I guess that's why they call it a mid-life crisis.

When all else fails, find something hard to do,
like moving 2 yards of dirt one drywall bucket at a time.

So I'd better get a move on with the house, because there's no knight in shining armor who's going to show up and do it for me, never mind that if I want it done and done right, I'd better do it myself. (Which, if you've had any sort of therapy, you'll recognize as absolutely not a healthy coping mechanism. But it is what it is, and it's what I've got left.)

I've completed the raised beds out back as much as I'm able to at this time. Built the last far back bed, ordered 2 yards of dirt and got everything filled. The dirt isn't great and needs some amendments, but with the cost of gas right now, it was actually cheaper than having some driven down from the farm.

Before the last bed (far back right)

Trying out the hugelkulture method of bed-filling (fill the bottom with wood).
It'll rot and break down, and most garden plant roots don't got that deep anyway.
It will probably take the box with it when it goes. But that's a tomorrow's money problem.

Bye wood! Rot peacefully!

All three beds (two are 3' x 16', the one closest to the house is 2' x 16') are done. I'm considering a load of mulch for between them - after I fence it off, mowing it turns into a pain in the neck.

I'm also considering 2 yards of crushed stone for the bottom of the driveway. Everyone cuts the curb, which had made it sort of a muddy mess, and now I've caught the postman turning around here (which is fine) but he also missing the pavement. We'll see.

⥈

I participated in a fundraiser for the Bangor Humane Society to help my friend Monique - you make a  donation, they take the image of a pet you submit and assign it to a random artist. You could get a professional, or you could get a picture from the local 1st grade art class (that's part of the fun - you have no idea). These were the three pictures I came up with. Short haired dogs are the best, but I got better with fur on the grey cat. Considering I haven't painted in a very long time, and never seriously, I don't think these are embarrassing.

I also washed the screens and got them in, which is terribly exciting.

I went into Boston for Palm Sunday, which I hadn't done in over 2 years. While I was there, I decided to take in the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum. I'd forgotten that none of the art is labeled, which drives me nuts, but I guess it's part of the directions of the trust. (She didn't have to label anything, and wanted it to stay the way she had it when she lived there.)
The courtyard is stunning, as always.

More people than I prefer these days, but so pretty.

⥈

Any who. I promise to try to be better about regular posts, but sometimes it's hard to tell if anything is really worthy content. 

Until next time, remember that evening snuggles and ice cream are two very good things.

(Ice cream sandwich not featured in this photo.)

A minor fix

Since the beginning of the heating season, there's been a minor annoyance that I just couldn't seem to fix. The damper on my furnace flue was getting stuck open. I would go down stairs and knock it loose, but every time I went down there, it was stuck open.

Now, hot air rises. So this stupid thing was sucking the warm(ish) air out of my basement every time this happened.

Dramatic recreation of it being stuck open.
You can't really tell, but my finger is holding it that way.

Last night I went down and stared at it. I got out my bottle of fancy German oil that Ian had given me and squirted some on the pivots. It swung better when it swung, but as I fiddled with it, the blasted thing would still get stuck open. But not all the time. Finally I noticed a little side-to-side play in the swinging plate, and from there I figured out that it was getting hung up on the very tippy-tip of a sheet metal screw that comes in from the side.

The offending screw is called out.

I backed off that screw, and the blasted thing doesn't get stuck any more!

Ta-da!

The bed is done!

And functions precisely as a bed should!

I did have to order a "bunky board" because I was super uncomfortable sleeping so far off the gound after having slept so close to it for so long. I'm sad that I don't have easy access to that window any more. Who knows, maybe by this time next year, I'll be back on the floor. :)

I put together and moved this bed 3 times before I landed here. Had to take the tiny casters off because it was far too wobbly at that height.

With split box spring. Now if I could have just slept on the box spring, it would have been fine.

With mattress.... things are getting tall. Oh dear.

With bed things. you can barely see the bed. Guess it was ok not to worry too much about the finish.

So far away from the ground! At this moment, I grabbed the phone and ordered the Bunky Board so I could get rid of about 3" of height.

I also noted that someone had tacked pieces of 2x4's on to the bed slats, so I got rd of those and managed to lower the how thing by at least 5". There's little visual difference with all the bed stuff on, but you can see a wee bit more of the headboard.

I started window # 12 of 14 for Ian's shop too. I sucked it up and figured out a much better way of designing the window so it matches it's partner better. It can never match 100%, because the opening is a different size (one is fixed, one swings out) and they are also in two different planes - the fixed one sits about 3" further out in the opening then the swinging one.

Dutch windows were made up of glass that starts off 4" x 6". I cut a bunch of them to start.

I reuse all sorts of glass as long as I can cut it. This is a mix of reclaimed Victorian are storm windows (aqua) and turn of the century vestibule windows from a house outside Boston (lime). That one super dark and thin pane is anyone's guess. 

Cut and fitted up.

Soldered. I played solder chicken and won! (I did have a spare roll in case this happened.)

Little wires soldered on.

Cemented and powdered. The white powder ("whiting") helps the cement cure faster, I'm told. It also helps clean the oils off the glass.

I took a minute to clean the basement, include vacuum my filter box. It's not 100%, but at least all this dust wasn't let to float around the basement.

I was able to meet Ian on Sunday, and he took home the window and installed it.

So this was the old design:

Old style. Blegh.

New style. Still not match-y, which drives me nuts, but much better.
I'm told even better in person.

I have to make a second one with the narrow center (there's two sets of these) but then it'll be on to the last window and this project can be done.

Shellac is where it's at

Quick update: After reading the back of the Old Masters can of finish, and the insane warnings about using it indoors, I've opted for bug squishin's. (That's what shellac is made out of.)
It still has a mild smell, but it won't do terrible things like that other can of stuff would.

Also, a second coat of stain left to sit on the poplar for almost a half hour before rubbing got it close enough for my satisfaction.

Making good on those new year's intentions.

Well, I've accomplished one big thing already this year that has nothing to do with the house.
I took "advantage" of perhaps the worst possible market in memory to trade in a car, and traded in the '14, 60k miles Forester "Touring" Turbo.
Meet the new CRV. It's a '16, has 140k miles, 4 cylinder, takes normal gas and doesn't need fancy maintenance. I didn't realize how much I'd gotten used to sheer power of the flat 6 Boxer engine. It's like going back to driving a lawnmower. But it's a cheaper ride in the long run, I hope.

I just hope this car treats me as well as my first CRV did.

I also started a project for me. I've needed a full sized bed frame for a while, but nothing I found was sized proportionally for my house or priced right for my budget. Then I stumbled over a listing for a free bed - someone had started to refinish it but then ran out of time and ambition. I contacted the woman, and picked it up last Saturday. It looked fine from the onset, but...

The foot board. Decent original condition. Some scratches commensurate with age.
Appears to be mahogany veneer.

Ah. The head board is where the former owner started her refinish.
With an orbital sander with a very aggressive grit.
So many swirls.

Well, let's take this down. Time to get the hardware off, like those casters.

This bed has seen some stuff. Only one rail had one original setup - the one on the left. The bed hooks are inserted into a slot in the end, then two little metal slugs are put into two holes that pin the hooks in (you can sort of see circles near the ends behind that staple), and then the wide staple is hammered over to hold the slugs in.
On the right, you can see that the staple is gone. It's been replaced with a piece of steel bar with three machine bolts that pass all the way through the rail, creating a wood, slug, and hook sandwich.
This is not an elegant solution, but it's certainly a functional one.

No two ends of either rail are the same.
There's literally 3 different size bolts, one for each end of the bed.
The smallest bolts (on the left hook here) were so bent out of shape they will need to be replaced.

Taking off the finish - it was just barely kissed with shellac, I think. I started lightly with a 120 grit, and it was more than enough. I took it down to 320.

The headboard, (where she had started with 60 or 80 grit I think), took the longest to work on. Not because the finish wouldn't blast right off, but because I had the delicate chore of trying to smooth out the deep sand swirls without blowing through the veneer. I'm pretty sure she was going to paint it a color. I'm taking it back to a traditional mahogany stain.
I'm also resigned to never getting all the swirls out.

The little reed details on the foot board gave me trouble. It's about 3/8" wide, tacked on with teeny tiny little pins - maybe literally sewing pins that were cut flush. The grain runs diagonal, and it was happy to break if you looked at it too hard or bumped it with the sander. There was a lot of creative gluing and clamping at this point.

The bed's composition is mahogany veneer on a poplar frame. This isn't a great picture, but the green staining in the grain sort of gives it away.

I hit all the pieces with a wood conditioner to make it take the stain more evenly. I was half-temped to just leave it natural/conditioned, but then it would look very patch-work-y.

Here's where knowing your species is important. I don't so much care because these are just the rails that will be covered most of the time anyway, and this is not a piece of High-Falutin' Furniture. On the left is the (probably original) poplar rail, and on the right is the (probably replacement) pine rail. Both were hit with the same conditioner and same stain for the same amount of time before being wiped, but look at how differently they absorbed the color.
If you're doing High Falutin' Furniture, it's recommended that you keep spare pieces of wood you're using in your project, and you run through different finish scenarios so you know what you're getting in the end.
This project is not that.
I'll give the poplar a second coat of stain today to try to bring it darker, but that'll be that.

*NOTE: Don't do staining projects inside in the winter unless you have some sort of exhaust system if you don't have to. It Stinks. A lot. While the respirator made me blissfully unaware of this while I was in the basement, when I went upstairs I was fully aware of my mistake.*

I have a number of different top-coat options. I have 2 quarts of Shellac I could use (glossy end result). Since this is not a high-abuse piece, I could probably do a few coats of that and it would be fine. Down site is that it scratches pretty easily. I also have a quart of a water-borne "Old Masters" clear finish that's intended for outside projects that would probably be fine (satin end result). I'm guessing highly scrtch resistant. I also have some random poly finishes downstairs, but not a lot of any of them.
I think I'm learning toward a satin finish so that it looks more natural-wood-like, but I'm not so invested in the natural-wood-look that I want to fuss with an oil finish.
I'd like to get this done and under my bed sometime in the near future.
We'll see where I wind up after my trip to Koopman's for new bolts this afternoon.

And if I hate it, I can always paint it again.

 

According to my files, these are only 12 weeks away!

 

A new year. Again.

Beats the alternative, I suppose, but this year really just feels like 2020 on repeat already.
I'm rather tired of this record skipping.

There's not a ton new to report, I'm afraid. Still no bathroom (but that won't happen now until spring), still no living room windows (that also doesn't appear to be happening until spring). Ian started on one of the damaged house sills, but can't really finish until, you guessed it, spring. (He did cut me nice new window sills for the living room though.)
All of this is triple-y frustrating because I just had three blessed, audacious, weeks off. I don't just get three weeks off ever really; it was a confluence of company-wide vacation time, accrued vacation time, and a changing vacation policy at work that meant I had to use a bunch of it all at once or loose it. I might have one more change to pull off something similar this year, but other than that, the next time I can look forward to that amount of time off I'll probably be unemployed, retired, or deceased.
Yay, capitalism.

I managed to pull a few things out.
I hiked over 40 miles in 3 weeks, so that was something.
I puttered.

You will recall the chimney, as it appeared after having been hidden behind paneling in the back bedroom

Then there was the application of InsulStic, which was a saga in it's self.

Wet InsulStic

Dry InsulStic

One coat of drywall compound to smooth.

2 coats of drywall compound and a drastic improvement!

And sanded/primed/painted. I really liked the look of "plaster" for this, so I primed and then painted the surface with the ultra-flat white ceiling paint from Benjamin Moore. It's soft, and different enough that you know it's not just a weird detached wall. I'm going to see about getting two pieces of wood and shape them as "filler" to be recessed a little behind in the gaps, so you can't see where the chimney still looks crappy because I can't reach it.

I woke up one day depressed at the lack of progress and decided to make my own progress. Thanks Al's Rubbish for bringing me a dumpster one day and taking it away the next! (Right before the snow!)

All of the debris that was supposed to leave when work on the bath room started in September was still sitting in my shed, making it almost unusable. I could barely move around and couldn't get the snowblower out if I wanted to.
After I hauled everything out of the shed and basement that needed to go, I moved everything around and ripped up the weird linolium flooring the former owner had in here from her dance studio days. This white flooring was like a sheet of ice when it would get wet in the winter.

Once Dumpster Fun was over, I started on the 3rd to last window for Ian's Shop.

I've got my method pretty dialed in at this point, now it just takes time.

I had just enough cement to do this window! Time to order more.

It looks great in the sash!

It looks dumb next to it's partner.
Sigh.
This is the drawback to not doing paired windows at the same time - you make decisions independent from use, and then this happens.
What's wrong, you ask? It's unbalanced and badly proportioned compared to the one on the left. I hate it, and I'm going to remake it. They will never match because the actual dimension of the windows are different. What I'm going to do is take that column of big center panels of glass in the right hand window, cut them in half vertically, and then move the resulting skinny panels to the outside columns. That way it's more balanced, and you won't notice cheater skinny panels as much.

On a nice day, I went outside and cut brush, because that's what you do in the winter. It's been such a screwy winter the sap was running. This is before.

This is after. Only 3-4 wheelbarrows full, but sight lines along the road are much improved. This will never be a groomed area - I think I'm going to throw milkweed, aster, and goldenrod seeds down here, that way I can just mow it down in the late fall every year. I may stash a few redbuds behind and along the wall.

The last thing I did was also done in a state of sort-of desperation. I'm reaching the end of my rope living in perpetual construction. Other people can turn it off and not see it, but I can't, and no amount of trying will allow me to be able to willfully ignore it. So, despite not having the replacement windows, I started on the living room, washing the ceiling. That's the grunge line between "clean" and not.

Gosh, I do love Benjamin Moore's Muresco.
So flat. So conceal-y. Those are the wires for a light fixture that I will address in another post.

Then I decided to prime the wall with the mantle. This wall a) has no windows, and b) I always intended to be an accent color, so why not?

Ta Da! Accent wall colorized! Just ignore the dumpster fire in the reflection.
But... I thought it was going to be darker...

Oh. Because I thought it was. I grabbed the can from downstairs that I thought I had painted the master bedroom - "Van Deusen" blue. I forgot that I chickened out at the last minute and went with the lighter "Van Courtland" blue.
I thought I was putting on the top color in this chip chart. Big difference.
*Shrug* really - It's a ton better than it was, and if I want to take it darker in the future, I can. Easier than trying to back out to a lighter color.

So that's what I did on my winter vacation.
Doesn't feel that monumental, but it's something.

Plans for this year:
• Get the windows in and the dang living room done. (Minus the floors. Those will have to wait.)
• Get the bathroom done. Please, please let the bathroom be done.
• Pony up and just get the front step done.
• Rebuild the platform over the well.
• Finish the house sills.

Anything else is gravy, frankly. I want to continue hiking, maybe get a dog, trade in my car for something that isn't a money-guzzling turbo, and plan out my gardens a little better. That's it.

Happy new year!

Wait, what?
Don't you be getting any ideas.
I'm the queen of this castle, lady.