The Last Nice Day Of the Year

The weather today was bittersweet.  On one hand, it was a balmy 71 degrees and on the other hand, tomorrow's forecast is for a high of 40 degrees and a low of 28 degrees with a chance of snow.  It's the middle of November, so 40 degrees is just about normal.  But 70 degrees was soooo nice, but in the back of your head you know that once the cold weather breaks that threshold of being cold both night and day, you are screwed.  You will not see or feel a warm day again until sometime in the 4th month of the year 2017.

It's depressing having a solid 4 or 5 months of cold weather with nothing but grey skies.  So I made the most of today and at least painted the primed shingles grey.  

Today I painted the primed shingles and also touched up some of the grey paint where I missed a spot here and there.  I had hoped to get at least one coat of white paint on the trim but 4 o'clock rolled around all too soon.  I started picking up tools and paint cans at 4pm and by the time 430pm came, it was twilight. 

I almost forget to tell you about this trim that we added. We  added a piece of cove trim where the shingles meet the deck.  This isn't something that you normally do but we have a problem with leaves getting stuck in the gap between the deck and the house.  The leaves decay and then hold moisture and rot the wood.  We are hoping that this small piece of trim stops that from happening again.  You couldn't even see the trim after I painted it grey.  We will not need this trim piece once we replace the decking and run the deck boards all the way under the shingles.

Rain is in the forecast for tomorrow. We can run wire for the two exterior lights from inside the house. The wire and switch are already in place.  We just need to install 2 junction boxes (one on each side of the patio door) and run wire from one junction box to the other.

When the rain stops we can start hanging more shingles.  We can shingle in the winter if it isn't snowing or below 28 degrees.  Twentyeight degrees is the point where coats and gloves interfere with being able to move and handle tools.

R had a helper yesterday.  Elvis insisted on laying his head on R's leg.  The day before this he wanted to lay on the shingle bundles.  

 Reuse Repurpose Recycle 

B & G's Deck in the Dark

Will it ever stop raining? Will it ever be warm again?

It was almost dark by the time it quit raining but that didn't stop us. We worked and froze in the dark.

Just about twilight time G was cutting kerf cuts into a railing post so that we can inset the support of the hand rail cap. B was sanding the edges smooth so that there are no sharp edges on any of the boards.
Once the daylight was gone we broke out the big work lights.....viola...let there be light.
The list of 'To Do' items is getting shorter. We still need to install the spindles on the two sets of steps, screw down the wide railing cap, install the hand rails caps on the steps, fill screw holes, and touch up paint.

We started work on the deck on August 4th and the temperature outside was 90 degrees and sunny. Today it was rainy and in the mid 40's. Ironic that it was nearly too hot to work on when we started and now it is nearly too cold to work on to finish.

Did it go according to 'The Plan'?

I have been so busy, I haven't even had a chance to read all my favorite blogs lately.

Thank you Sandy for the 'This blog is rated E for Excellence' award. I truly appreciate it. I have been mulling around my top ten list in my head. I almost feel like David Letterman. I will post my top ten favorite blogs this weekend. It will be very difficult. I read a variety of blogs. But thank you again Sandy.

Waaaayyyy back just before Easter weekend, I made a bold prediction of what 'we' were going to accomplish during our time off. Let's see how we did. But before I give you a run down, I want to remind you of something. It was a 4 day holiday weekend but by 3:10PM of the first day I still hadn't done a thing. Actually I think when I wrote that I was still in my pajamas. So in all actuality it was a 3 day plan not a 4 day plan.

1. Do a walk around and see how well 'The Gear' survived. Done.

2. Take new photos for future reference. I have a few new photos but it was so windy and cold that I just wanted to get warm.

3. Check for buds on fruit trees and inspect for damage. Done. Trees look good, no broken branches or apparent dead branches and all trees are still standing straight so they must be rooted fairly well. We removed the remaining stakes and twine.

4.Trim fruit trees. Done. Removed all downward growing and crossed branches.

5.Looked for signs that tulips made it through the winter. Done. They were just barely poking their little pointy heads out of the ground.

6.Work on windows. Well we did and we didn't. We worked on different windows. We had removed the 3 bottom sashes in the dining room earlier in the year. They are stripped but the glazing is like concrete. R remarked that it didn't even smell like the other glazing we removed. We both feel that it is not glazing compound because it just doesn't appear nor smell like the other glazing we have removed. So the answer to item 6 is yes but no.

7.Sort through tools and organize. I'll answer that one when I quit laughing.

8.Measure for wood for deck. Nope. Couldn't find tape measure. See item #7.

9. Buy cedar shingle bundles. Nope.

10.Load stumps. Ahhhh no...they were still frozen solid.

11.Pick up twigs and branches. Done.

12. Burn twigs and branches. Heck yes. That's how we stayed warm enough to work outside.

13.Remove center wall in potting shed. Nope.

14.Burn wall with twigs. Nope.

15.Rake leaves out of flower beds. Yes yes yes and I even trimmed 50% of the rose bushes. See garden blog for verification of said raking.

OK...let's tally this up. 15 items on the list. 7 completed. 2 were iffy. 6 were a big NOPE. Just a quick calculation (guesstimation) and I'd say that was around 50%.


All in all not too bad for a late start and brutally cold weather.