Shutters

Today Bill, our friend and carpenter, got all of the shutters for the 6 French doors up and we love them. The hinges were hand made by a man in Tickfaw, and they, like the windows and these shutters, have been sitting in the house waiting for us since some time in 2005 or before. The smaller window shutters still have to be painted, but step by step it's coming. We also have some of the electrical work finished, including a couple of fan-lights. As Mike says, these days we are seeing progress each day!

So what do you think? Shutters open?? or

Shutters closed? Which do you like?

See the great texture on the walls.

Ignore the choppy wood but enjoy the fan light!

Busy Weekend - Final

Your choice: read as you see these, or jump down 4 posts to Busy Weekend - Beginnings and read bottom-up in chronological order. Sunday, while the Florida crew were supposed to be on the 10 hour trip back home they were, instead, painting the outside AND the inside. By the time I left for church, they had a first coat of exterior paint on. By the time I came back, amid more steady rain, the outside was finished and most of the walls and ceilings were finished. By 4 PM these miracle workers had most of their equipment packed, were chatting with passers-by, and getting ready for a few hours seeing the French Quarter and crashing on the floor. Incredible guys! Incredible weekend!

Busy Weekend - Rain

Well, I thought these guys - including our two local ones, Bill and Matt - were really fantastic by Saturday morning, but then the test really began. RAIN! Off and on all day. Though we were all a little discouraged, the guys quickly just shifted to the inside of the house. Once started there, they worked like machines to finish texturing (which I'd never seen - throwing mud on the wall!) and priming the entire downstairs of the house before quitting - at 10 PM. Their reward? McDonalds supper at 11 PM. Pitiful, huh?

Busy Weekend - Friday

Thursday was spent on prep work but Friday, while prep was still going on fast and furiously inside and out, Joe began the paint with the tinted primer. A bit bright, but it surely drew the attention of the neighbors!

Mike sanding the ceilings. Ow!

Matt preps the exterior.

Joe gets primer on.

Buck sprays trim with Matt's help.

End of day Friday

Busy Weekend - Beginnings!

In the wee hours of Thursday morning Fred and Joe joined Buck, our son-in-law, coming to paint the house. Thursday morning was nice, though hot, and they began all fresh and clean. We had been unable to get all the prep work done, so these guys dived in with more taping and floating of sheet rock and sanding and puttying outside on the house.

Fred and Joe

Buck and Mike eat breakfast. Don't you love the taped windows?

Rental kitchen - before

Little bedroom - before

More progress

Today we had more help, both of the paid and non-paid kind. Our pastor and two friends from church came - one stayed all day. Then, in addition to Bill and his new helper, Matt, we had our backdoor neighbor, Tim, spend most of the day helping us tape windows. Everyone is always surprised at how long that takes. And we have - I'm pretty sure - 332 window panes to cover. Most of them are covered now and we have a dark house. They are black plastic on the outside and newspaper on the inside, and it should make painting easier to have them taped already. Mike finished all the sanding, did some power washing and did some work on the front corner of the house. We kept on mudding, and Rick from the church was really good at putting up bits and pieces of sheet rock. Bill and Matt kept putting up walls upstairs. It's all moving really fast and we're getting tired, but it's encouraging to have all the help, and it's getting exciting.

A blur! Updated

The last few days have been a blur but I have a few pictures. We have given ourselves a deadline of next Thursday to have the house ready for paint. YAY! Oh noooo! Yay because we're moving on. On no because I'm still not convinced we will be ready. But Bill, the carpenter, has a helper now. And our friend Trish came today and then, through her one contact, we had a group of about 15 teens for 3 hours! They mainly taped windows to be ready for paint. One helped me a bit with "mudding" the sheetrock, and some did other things. Bill and his helper Matt worked on the ceiling upstairs, and Mike sanded. Have a look.

A nice surprise

As Mike was doing cleanup yesterday, he noticed something that looked like brick under the dirt on the rental side where we plan to have a driveway. He began to scrape away the top layer of dirt and called me over to look. We're still not sure of how far it goes across, but he has cleaned off most of the dirt and we can pretty clearly see a brick driveway/patio/walkway in a herringbone pattern - possibly from the original house.

Electrical work

The last 4 days have been spent on getting electrical work finished - or all the pieces that can be done before the sheetrock is completed. There were frustrating moments when most was finished and we found that in order to separate the power to two halves (ours and the rental side), we'd have to have an inspection - and that it would be on different rules than the old ones to which we were returning the wiring. So, with Mike G. agreeing to stay on for a couple of extra days, they began again. Saturday they worked in bad heat, humidity, and 2 bad thunderstorms - outside, soaked to the skin. But they finished today and Mike G. will have a short night and head home early Monday. We had dinner at a
Cajun restaurant with food so good, he licked the plate!

Only one picture

We now have only half a house of electricity - YAY! That's good because Mike G, electrician from Buck's team, has sorted out the two sides of the house and we will go through an inspection before the electric coumpany can hook us up. While he worked on that, Bill and Mike worked on getting siding and soffit finished. Take a look:

Moving along

More pipes have been sweated, more floors laid, and now siding must go up. Mike G., the electrician from Florida, has arrived to hopefully finish his work - completely. And more walls may go up before the week ends. In the meantime, Mike has to keep moving along with his preparation for all the classes he will be teaching. FOUR. That's an awful lot for a new teacher who is also doing adminstrative work. But he will get it all done, I know. In the meantime, see below some of what's been done.

Big beams went up in 3 rooms to make things more structurally solid.

We think that all the copper pipe is finished by now. LOTS of pipe.

Lots of pipe was under the house. He rigged up this dolly with tools and 2 ropes so that he could send out things and I could send in things. :-)

This is my favorite floor. See how the wood runs one way in the small room and perpendicular in the kitchen?

Siding was going up at 8:30 last night - and the rest of it is going up now!

I think they DID work

I thoroughly enjoyed my two week intensive class in a particular type of music instruction called Orff Schulwerk. Never mind. While I was gone Mike, with the assistance of our carpenter neighbor, Bill, did their own playing around. They even had one day of help from a volunteer group who was working here through our church. Here are a few of the changes.

Lonesome Bill at work.

We have some new walls.

And some new floors.

LOTS of new copper pipes - courtesy of the internet trained plumber, Mike.

Whew!

Mike, Fred, Buck and Mike G.

It was an intense 4 days; these guys just don't know when to quit! The twists and turns of this old house, along with the wishes of the owner (especially the female part of the two) made a lot of the work really more of a challenge than anyone would ever have anticipated. But this bunch never flinched. Buck never stopped figuring and thinking when presented with impossible conflicts; Fred kept cutting weird pieces and making them fit; Mike G. gave up some touring to keep working; Bill kept working with the "foreign" crew, making friends while doing whatever he was asked; and Mike worked every step of the way plus before and after. We came away with most of the electrical finished, FRAMING finished in closets, small bath and shower in our half, large bathroom (Buck's ONLY 4-day bathroom!) and kitchen. Still always more to go, but since I am now in a class in Baton Rouge for 2 weeks, neither you nor I will know what is going on. Mike and Bill plan to keep any progress (or lack thereof, he says) to themselves. So don't expect an update for a couple of weeks.

WUURK!

The cry around the house as each new job is begun is "wuuurk". Our own Buck with 2 of his crew, Mike G and Fred, are back to join Bill (from last post) and Mike to blitz the house once again. It's a mighty lively place! And to top it all off, the water board decided to fill some small holes in the neighborhood sidewalks yesterday. Before 8 AM they were here with a front loader, big flatbed truck, dump truck, a couple of pick-ups and a crew of 7 with several bosses coming and going. That was BEFORE the concrete truck came. I couldn't help but contrast the 7 guys working on our 1 foot square sidewalk hole with the 5 inside the house doing a dozen different jobs at breakneck pace.

We have upstairs closets framed in and the big bear - the upstairs bathroom - was finally conquered. Due to all sorts of space issues, the engineering of that room is a small miracle. And the beauty of it is that it will all seem so effortlessly planned and have everything I wanted, only better. Kitchens are both being worked on - electrical and plumbing work nearly finished - and an extra shower being added has added to many headaches but is on its way now. Mike began his work day at 6:15, working on ducting since we now have both air conditioners working. I have no kitchen sink any more, and the coffee pot is in the bedroom (I wanna be like Vicki!!) but wow, is it worth it!

Just a few shots.

Mike began his day at 6:15 while others slept. He quit last night at 11:00. It's HIS house!

It's hard to tell, but the washer area, under the skylight, is sunken, as is the tub. Kewl!

One of the upstairs closets - full of more wood.

Kitchen wall framed.