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Again today I went out shopping and when I returned some hours later, I got a big surprise. We have a kitchen window installed!! Mike did it alone, in the middle of a really rainy day. I'm hoping he'll wait for help before he installs more, but this one looks so great!!!
I just needed to post this. I walked into the kitchen last week and saw this.
Last night Mike said, "We've firmly turned the corner; we are building now." That may not seem like much - and these pictures may not look like much - but he means that we're basically finished with much of the DEstruction phase and into the CONstruction phase. YAAY! Actually, we have done more construction than he gives himself credit for, but this does seem different. We will still tear down more things, but today we worked on the floor for our upstairs bedroom/study/sitting area and bath. And our heater arrived so that we can put our sweet long-suffering son-in-law to work while he's on his Christmas "vacation" here. You can see Mike at work here (well, OK, surveying his work here) but even I was able to use the nail gun and put down some boards and tar paper today.
Today we worked on the floor upstairs and progress IS being made. I was finally useful - I'm getting to be a much better nail-puller. So while Mike was out at a meeting (so HE says - likely story) I pulled nails and got flooring ready. YAY!
AND, the tree looks a little better tonight. Lots of lights because most of our decorations are stored. But where, oh where, is the angel for the top???
What could be better for people who don't want to stop and get cleaned up but are hungry for lunch? mm Zone bars!! AND tonight after we went to eat, we bought our tree. This 7+ footer looks pretty puny in the room, but since it has to share with windows and shutters, and door frames, and since most of my decorations are packed faaaar away, we'll save the 9 footer for NEXT year.
Today we moved work upstairs and began getting a floor for the upstairs part. We HAVE a floor up there but it is far from level, and it will need to be at a higher level anyway, to put in insulation, now that we've removed the old false ceilings. Mike will need to plug some holes, too. Some were made in the ceiling downstairs for water pipes or electrical wires and will be simple. Some, like the fireplace (sadly no longer with us) and the old stairs, will take a bit more work to cover up. But it will get done!
We've finished closing in the small bedroom of the rental section and you'll see Mike on the ladder working on that (Fran, see the Winshape mug?). Occasionally Michael (in the picture with Mike) has dropped in to make a little money by doing whatever Mike wants. He helped on Tuesday and got a ticket back to Nashville where he evacuated after Katrina. He will be back, but not until March.
In working on the ceiling and roof, Mike found where some of the building was still held together with the original pegs in posts instead of nails.
In working to get the roof right, he put together the "third hands" with ladders to come up with the height he needed.
This little feature seems to have been an 8 inch tile stuck on to cover a bad job of grout work. Do any of you have a spare decorative, old 8 inch square tile?
Today, after using the remainder of the bucket of goo last night, and scrubbing really hard with wire brushes, this is the way it looks.
While Mike worked all day on getting the rental-guest-room roof ready, I spent another day on the fireplace. This is the way it looked when I finished yesterday.
We've been away for almost 10 days now and we're glad to be back at work in the sunny, cold-for-New-Orleans house. Today Mike decided that there may be some additional steps that need to be taken for structural stability, and while I whined about more time, I suppose I'd rather not have the whole thing crumble under the weight of the slate roof. So here he is, surveying the place of the next work. What do you notice new?
