We've Been Very Busy

We have been so busy that I sometimes forgot to take photos. But as R reminds me....."People don't need to see another photo of a trailer full of wood." He's right.....but don't tell him that!

I've lost track of the number of lawn trailer full of twigs, leaves, and branches that we have picked up so far. Far too many and far too many left to be picked up. We basically stayed outside on all the nice days picking up branches and raking out flower beds. We knew colder weather was coming so we made the best of the good days we did have.

We cut down two semi dead tall cedar trees that were on the back property line. Once they were down we were able to see why they were dying. They were completely rotted out in the center of the trunks. We haven't a clue as to what caused the rot.

Once the trees were gone we then had access to clean out the dead branches, empty walnut shells, and old leaves that have piled up over many many years. We then decided that we might as well get started on the dismantling of the old pool.

Sometimes in the past, probably whenever they decided to decommission the pool, they broke up the floor of the pool to allow rainwater to percolate into the ground. So that leaves us with removing the pool decking which is cement embedded with slate and removing the 10 inch wide cement pool coping (ledge/edge). We plan on using the slate to repair the slate walkways that need to be fixed through out the yard. The cement ledge/edge we will store because it would make great steps or a top for a retaining wall.

We can knock in the walls after all the slate and ledge removal is complete. In the meantime we removed the 24 inch high chain link fence that surrounded the pool. I wonder what the thinking was behind a 24 inch tall fence? R is making a scrap metal run in the next week and now is the perfect time to get rid of it. FYI for all you scrappers out there.....scrap metal is high right now and will soon go lower once summer arrives.

When the weather got cold again......we went back inside where we were back to stripping and sanding. We sold the two poplar doors that were too tall and are patiently waiting for the new door to arrive. The only reason I am patiently waiting is that I am waiting for some vintage ball top hinges to arrive so even if the door does show up we cannot install it until the hinges arrive.

I should finish up stripping the staircase tomorrow. That project went fairly fast because the paint was on top of varnish. The only hiccup was when I run across old carpet tacks that need to be removed. It was very difficult to get a good photo of the entire staircase because it is slightly spiral. The staircase will still need to be sanded and the treads will be stripped with citrus stripper because they will need to be stained and sealed. The rest of the staircase will be painted white with the handrail also stained to match the treads.After tomorrow I will have to make the decision of whether to move back to the living room and strip the baseboard and fireplace mantel or move on to the dining room OR finish the casement windows so when the weather gets warm enough to paint outside the casement windows are ready to go back into their openings. R is voting for finishing the casement windows.

The other day I was on the road as the sun was setting. Wow the sun was huge. There was a heavy haze so it filtered the sunlight just enough so you could see the entire outline of the sun.

Continuing the Sun Room Exterior

Waaaaay back last year we started to restore the casement windows in the sun room. The windows were in terrible shape and required a lot more work than what we originally thought. It seems that the windows were held together with the many thick coats of paint they had received over the years. This is a photo of the windows after we removed the paint.The paint covered rot, cracks, loose muntin bars, and loose tenons. Through the power of glue and wood epoxy we were able to bring the casement windows back from near death. This is what the windows look like on the back side of the sun room.One of the other problems with the sun room was the nonconformity between the three sets of windows on the front and back of the sun room. Also the windows were not trimmed out in the same fashion as the rest of the house. Notice the two different sizes of windows in the photo above. The photo below shows how the windows throughout the house are trimmed out on the exterior.So first on the list to remedy this was to rebuild the window jambs so that the windows could be mullioned together. Here is a photo after the shingles were removed but before the new jambs were installed.The photo below shows the new jambs and the start of the sill repairs.We also needed to rework the sills to make it appear as one long sill instead of three small sills. We not only added wood between the three sills but also about four inches to each end of the sill. We cut down a 4 X 4 post to the correct thickness plus about 1/16th of an inch so that we could sand the piece to the exact size once it was in place. Wood glue and a hidden nail held the piece in place. When all is said and done....R will add a small bracket underneath and hidden from view to reinforce the patch. FYI....that is not the hidden nail but an old nail that we could not remove so R countersunk it so we could putty over it.We then trimmed out the windows in the same fashion as the rest of the house trying the best we could to keep the same reveal. The trim measured 4 1/2 inches so we needed to rip about an inch off a 1 X 6. We then used the discarded piece to build up the one edge to give the illusion of a 2 X 4 1/2 which is what is used on the rest of the house. I then sanded off the sharp factory edge on the new wood to make sure the new work blended with 72 year old wood. Once all the trim work was complete we could start shingling.

This is where we were at in the project at the end of the day on Friday. Saturday was beautiful and set a new record of 66 degrees a perfect temperature to shingle. Did we shingle..no....we went to a racing banquet so R could receive his Rookie of the Year jacket and his trophy for 10th place in the Michigan Traditional Sprints Racing Series. He is probably the oldest known Rookie of the Year in captivity....LOL. At the ripe old age of 57 he competed against guys in their 20's and 30's with years of dirt sprint car experience. R on the other hand was coming off the asphalt and use to racing modifieds. So we started shingling on Sunday when the temps were barely 50 degrees. Brrrrrrr

We were able to get approximately 1/3 of the shingling completed today before we ran out of daylight.

We are not looking forward to shingling the area where the sun room attaches to the house. I see a lot of customs cuts are in our future. Grrrrrr

Sun Room Exterior Renovation Underway

Last week we started the renovation of the exterior of the sun room. We work one day and it rains and we work 2 days and then it rains. It's frustrating because it is either raining or the wind is blowing so hard it is difficult to use the heat gun.I've been taking photos every day but the change is not that noticeable. At this point we are busy just fixing and correcting problems such as rotted wood and stripping thick layers of paint off the trim. We believe this sun room was not original because you can see exterior cedar shingles between the addition and the original house. We were surprised that they did not remove the shingles before building the addition.R did a little concrete repair to the cement sill. A small chunk had broken off so he replaced the remaining piece and filled in the remainder with concrete. Prior to the repair he removed nearly all the paint and then used the sander to feather the few remaining pieces of paint.

The next step is trimming out the windows so that they blend with the rest of the house. Hopefully this will look better than what was there...which was nothing but a tiny piece of trim molding.

The renovation was put on hold last weekend when we took a short road trip to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for Pole Day. We had garage passes and really saw some very interesting things, probably only interesting to gear heads but interesting none the less. I really liked the Radio Flyer wagon in Dario Franchetti's pits....before you ask.....no I did not see Ashley Judd. I did see Dario.....as a matter of fact I was about 3 feet from him. Very tall. Back to the wagon...isn't it cute??? You would be the hit of the flea market pulling this filled with antique goodies. The crew member we talked to said they paid 3k for it.After we watched Helio Casteneves (2 time 500 champ and Dancing w/the Stars champ) win the pole with over a 224 mph attempt we drove down the street to The Union Jack Pub for prime rib. Cool sports bar with antique stained glass windows used as partitions and antique lighting hanging from the ceiling. The bar also had some great racing art work. R said they had a yellow sprint car behind glass by the women's bathroom. Don't ask.....I have no idea why he was hanging out by the women's bathroom.