Forever Home Weekend Update

Today was busy. We worked. A lot. Yet, it looks like we accomplished nothing. I hate it when that happens. There were quite a few stops and starts (duh, this *is* us we're talking about) - I started to chip out the glazing, but Zorak suggested we look at getting a heat gun (seeing as there are 11 windows, it'd save somewhere in the range of two months' work to get one), so I set that aside. Then I started to touch up the boys' window frame, but it's still too damp to work with and gummed up my sandpaper. I was going to caulk, but Zorak has that elsewhere in his mental timeline and he gets twitchy if I mess with his internal table of contents. I did watch flies stick to the dangling fly strip for a while. That was fun.

Zorak took out the seven bricks by the boys' window that were just sitting there balanced lightly against the studs -- cleaned them off, and set them back in place, with mortar and everything. I suspect they are the only seven bricks on the house that are plumb. It looks wonderful. He also rewired the porch lights and moved electrical boxes around so that now, instead of one light in the middle of the porch, we have a light above the door, and everything set for a ceiling fan on the other side of the porch.

I... um, I took one of the storm windows apart. I didn't mean to. Just wanted to get the sliding window parts out so I could clean the tracks and put some paraffin on them (so they'll glide easier). But the screws that hold the glass in also, evidently, held the frame together. The whole thing now looks like a giant Erector Set for big people, with screws and chunks of aluminum, and bits of rubber. Oh, I also stripped and cleaned one of the patio chairs. It looked like this before I got to it: OK, so it didn't really need actual "stripping" at this point. And the sad thing is that it almost looks worse now. Those weren't initially the patio chairs. That was from our dining set - wwaaaay back when there were only two of us. Then the table and three chairs made it into the school room, but this little guy has lived on the back porch for a year and a half. Not such a happy place for wood products, it seems. So, since we're likely never to take the time to shop for porch furniture (we could, but we'd rather play leap frog blindfolded on the Interstate, or try to remove excess veins from my leg with a pair of tweezers and a bottle of Jack Daniels - there are so many more enjoyable ways to spend the days), we figure we'll refinish this set and use it on the porch. *snort* I'll let you know how that goes...

We did get into town and finally, finally, finally picked a color for the porch. We went with one that wasn't even on our radar. I'm not telling what it was, because I need something to add to (er, to create) suspense about this project. Right now, I'm hovering at about 30% capacity, though, and this is all ya get. We got a color. I'm terrified to put it on. But tomorrow, on it goes.

Hopefully, tomorrow the storm window will go back together. (And I don't mean, I hope I'll get around to it. I mean I hope it *will* go back together *when* I attempt it tomorrow.) Zorak has big plans to touch-up sand and prime the porch ceiling, and then it's on to the porch itself! WOo--- *yawn*

'Night!

Kiss those babies!
~Dy