Approaching the Finish Line

It was a long and busy weekend with many accomplishments to talk about.

Friday, my niece Samantha graduated from High School. She attended a small Christian Academy and there were se7en graduates. The whole family went to dinner and then the two and a half hour graduation ceremony. It was a little long.

We got home around ten and that pretty much was the end of the day for us.

Saturday was our annual neighborhood yard sale. This was the third one that we took part in and it was pretty successful for us. We made just south of $100.00 and got rid of a lot of crap.

What we had left over went to Goodwill on Sunday Morning and what they wouldn't take went to the Dump.

Then Susan went into "Operation: Massive Cleaning" in preparation for a visit from her sister, who is coming for a week from Iowa.

To keep out of her way, I went to work on the Landing and Bedroom doing all the little finishing touches. I wanted to be sleeping in our new bedroom on Sunday night and I was not going to be deterred by anything.







There were lots of things that tried to deter me. I was four feet short of baseboard for the bedroom. I ran out of nails for my airgun in the middle of putting in the baseboards. I ran out of beer. However, you can see from the pictures that I prevailed.
So now, we have just minor items to take care of. Most of those items involve the trim and some touch up painting. My plan is to take care of that tonight and then be able to help with Susan's "Operation: Massive Cleaning".

Working Out & Finishing Touches

Last nights' activities involved the installation of baseboards in the Landing area. Since I am not a professional, it required a great deal of effort and ciphering on my part to accomplish this arduous task.

I placed the chop saw down on the front porch because I didn't want to create a mess on the landing or risk scratching the new finish. So for every board I placed, I had to measure it and then put it in place to make sure it fit. Then, when it didn't fit, I had to run downstairs, re-cut it, run back up the stairs and then place it again.

I figure that for every board, I had to cut it three or four times. With 17 pieces, that means that I went up and down the stairs a minimum of 51 times.

I had been upset with myself for not having run lately. If I have any more nights like this, I should ripped in no time.

Everything is on schedule and I am still planning on moving furniture on Sunday.

The Home Stretch

The floors on the second floor Landing and Master Bedroom are now complete. They are not perfect, but they are one helluva lot better than they were. I am happy!

With any luck, we will be sleeping in the new bedroom on Saturday Night. Actually, no! That would be pushing it. Let's say Sunday Night.

In order for that to happen, we need some smooth sailing for the next three days. That means that the baseboard installation in both rooms needs to go well. The touch up painting on the walls in both rooms needs to go well. The Neighborhood Yard Sale on Saturday needs to go very well and then be ignored in the afternoon.

With precision timing, steely nervousness and some luck, I think we can make it all happen.

Stage C, Part B

It took us just over an hour last night to lay down another coat of varnish. Tonight will be the last coat. Then it needs about three days to completely dry before we start putting furniture on the floor. During that time, we have some minor touch up painting on the walls and the baseboard can be installed.

We have noticed two spots where there are glaring gouges that we missed when we filled with wood putty. One is right in the center of the landing floor. It's going to be covered by a carpet but we can't believe that we both missed such an obvious repair spot. The other spot is in the bedroom, right at the door. it is less obvious. It's more of a waviness in the floor, presumably caused by sanding. It just didn't stand out when the floor was naked.

It seems odd after two years to consider the possibility that this project is almost over. And yet, I'm willing to consider it!

Reflections on Polly (polyurothane)

With Stage Two (the Staining) out of the way, we were able to proceed with Stage C (the Varnishing) last night.

The whole project took us about two hours. Most of that time was spent preparing the floors. That involved a good thorough vaccuuming, followed by wiping the whole thing down with tack cloths.

To apply the varnish, we used lambswool pads on a mop pole. We started together but it went so fast that we ended up with Susan doing the application while I looked on and drank beer.

Actually, I had to mix up each quart can of polyurothane we had. We had purchased quarts because "the Depot" had a sale on them which made it cheaper to buy quarts than gallons. What we didn't consider is having to mix up a quart every 10 minutes. There's a thick goo at the bottom that must be extensively mixed in as thoroughly as possible. We used a gallon for the first coat.

With all the imperfections (Character) in this floor, I am very happy with the result. We have two more coats to put down which means two more nights of sleeping on an inflatable mattress in the Living Room.

The pictures I took don't do justice to how good the floor looks. However, here is one anyway. The urothane is still wet so it looks much more glossy than the satin finish it dries to. I like this picture because I have never seen this floor reflect anything!

The Adventures of Susan & Stan the Stainers

Both Susan and I had to work at our various and assorted extra jobs on Saturday. So not much was accomplished by us during the day. However, we got ourselves geared up to stain on Saturday night. It took us about two hours to get through 500 square feet of staining.

We got up the next morning and I was not very happy with the results of our first coat. We had some repairs to do before we put down another coat. The repairs required using the belt sander to remove blemishes, paint drops, and over flowing wood putty.

Once we fixed the boo-boos, we went to work putting down the second coat. This we did in much less than two hours and I was much happier with the results. The picture above shows the bedroom half way between coats one and two. I could almost argue for another coat, but that might make it too dark and then we would have to start over. The photograph below shows one of the repair areas.

The second coat filled the whole house with fumes so we left for a little bit and went to ArtFest. ArtFest is annual event held in a park with lots of artsy craft venders. I actually made a purchase of a hanging hammock, which I intend to enjoy on the back deck. Some day!

When we returned, we found the house still full of fumes (don't light a match) and the floor still kind of tacky. We had hoped to put down a coat of Polyurothane before the end of the night but that was not to be.

So, that is our goal for tonight. Get down a coat of Urothane. Then, we have to completely block off access to the upstairs from the cats and ourselves and sleep on an inflatable mattress in the living room.

Tune in to our next episode to see how we do.

Stage One Complete

The final sanding went smoothly. Get it! Sanding?! Smooth! Golly, I'm good!

We had a slight problem. The wood putty was somewhat resistant to the fine grit sand paper I was using and I didn't see fit to purchase any of the heavier grit paper.

So, Susan went off to "the Depot" while I continued sanding with the one sheet of 60 grit paper we had. I manged to get the bedroom completed while she was gone and got started on the repair section pictured below. That was the most difficult area to sand away as we had completely coated that area.

I think it looks pretty good and once it's stained and covered with a rug, it'll look fabulous.

5,000 Words Lost Forever

I left my camera at work last night so I was unable to photograph any of the progress we made towards finishing the landing and bedroom. I mean, if a picture is worth a thousand words and I could have taken just four or five crummy little pictures last night, I wouldn't have to be writing all this stuff now.

Actually, we didn't make that much progress last night. In order to complete this project in a timely manner, we are now on a schedule. Also, we really want this to be done and getting to this point, it's exciting to realize we are almost home.

I am hoping to have the first coat of Polyeurothane on the floor by Sunday night. In order for that to happen, a tightly choreographed series of events must take place at just the right time.

Last night, I did some minor repairs to a couple places on the floor. Susan did some touch up painting. We also decided that if we are going to put up Crown Moulding in the Landing area, it would be best to do it now while the floor is still un-stained. So, I painted the Crown Moulding out on the front porch and brought it in this morning. I'm having Phil install it this afternoon.

I'm renting the sander on my way home from work tonight and will do the final sanding. Then we have to get everything cleaned back up and ready for the staining.

This would have been so much better with pictures.

Filling the Gorges

We had a fairly easy night of work last night. We set about the task of filling the gaps, gouges and small canyons that is the landscape of our floor. The worst part of the floor is this 10 foot by 4 foot section I had to totally replace. You can see from the picture that we pretty much trowled putty into the whole area. I'll be taking lots of detailed pictures of this section as we progress to see its transformation. Fortunately, this area will be covered by a bookcase and a rug and anything else we can throw over it.

$550.00

We spent some money this weekend. Another way to look at it is we saved a lot more money than we spent. I have had people tell me that re-finishing a floor costs about $6.00 a square foot. That would be $3,000.00 for the approximately 500 square feet we worked on this weekend.

Of course, we're not done yet. We still have a few supplies to buy. But let's take a look at what we did!




















I would say we done good! The floors are not perfect. You can see in the after picture that section on the left that looks substantially different the the rest of the floor. That's the area I had to patch because it used to be a closet. The wood I used has a different grain to it and there is just no getting around the fact that it will not be a close match.

However, we plan to use a fairly dark stain which will help to hide the difference as well as all the other imperfections in the old wood floor.

The main thing is that we have gotten it done. Here's a good before and after shot of the crew, Mark, Susan & Stan.

Knee Deep in Sanding

We spent Saturday prepping everything for the arrival of the big floor sander. I rented an edge sander and finished all the edges. Below is a picture of the Alto-Clarke SR-7 Edge Sander and an example of what it does. I had to finish off that little corner piece with my belt sander.

I went to Home Depot bright and early on Sunday and got the sander. My friend Mark accompanied me because he just refinished his floors last year and was familiar with what we needed to get and do.

We ended up returning the sander almost immediately because we couldn't get it to start. It had a short or something in the electrical system. When we got it back to the Depot, it ran fine. The guy suggested that it might be a power problem on my end. I told him I had new wiring with 20 amp breakers which he agreed should be okay.

We swapped out sanders, he re-set the time, and we were off again. This time, the sander operated within normal operational sanding protocols.

So, our early start and subsequent stalls had me sanding the floors by 1:00PM.

We realized almost immediately that we would have to put down some stripper first to get the best result.

Susan dashed to the Depot while Mark and I continued working.

As of today, the bedroom is entirely stripped and ready for sanding. We are all very sore. Susan and Mark will continue stripping the remaining portion of the floors while I rip into the sander.

We hope to have everything sanded by the end of the day.

Well, enough of this blogging. I have work to do.

Countdown to Sanding

We are really zooming ahead now. We have accomplished a lot this week and I attribute our efficiency and speed to one thing. The end of the Network Television Season. Now that all our favorite shows are into re-runs, we have stopped watching TV and concentrated on getting this project done.

As of now, Saturday morning, we are planning on sanding the floors tomorrow. We are going to spend the day completing little touch up projects we need to do before the sand starts flying. I will get the sander this afternoon and we will be ready first thing in the morning.

We still have a lot of nails and staples to get out of the floor. Everytime I think I have gotten them all, I find more. When they carpeted up here, they didn't waste any expense on nails and staples. That carpet was NOT going to get away.

I am getting very excited for this to be over. I can't wait to see this floor with a fresh coat of stain and varnish. I think it will completely change the look of the whole room.

And then Susan won't like the color of the walls.

Painting Painting Painting

There's a good early morning shot of the landing with its new coats of paint. Susan still isn't quite happy with the color. She wanted something in a biege tone and this looks more yellow. I don't care one way or the other. The main thing is that it is complete...and we are not changing it. Now we have just a little touch up and then the sander comes out and we do that floor.

There I am on top of my $400.00 ladder with my $19.95 Wagner Power Pump Roller preparing to paint the walls with my $100.00 bucket of paint.

Not that I'm counting. No, wait! I am counting. That's why I'm writing this blog. To count and account of wazzup!

Painting Change Order

Well, I had the first coat up on about three quarters of the landing when Susan decided that she didn't like the color. It was too yellow. We bought the paint several months ago and before we started, Susan thought it was too light. So we trundled it back to "the Depot" and had them re-tint it.

Once she realized that it was now too yellow, we decided that we will buy a new bucket and start over. That's much cheaper than having her agonize over the color being wrong for the next several months until she decides to change it.

So, we went to work putting up Cincinnatian Hotel Dominica, which is a much lighter, mellower yellow, as you can see in the picture above.

Last night, I had to do some of the edging in the stairway. That requires getting waaaaay up high on the ladder in very precarious positions. I got all my edges painted when Susan realized that I had grabbed the wrong paint. She had poured a small container of the Way-Too-Yellow paint and I thought it was all the new paint.

I thought it was going down kind of dark but I just figured it would match up when it dried.

The Comedy of Errors continues.

A Friday in May

This entry is going to be a progressive kind of affair. I have taken the day off of work in order to accomplish some tasks around the house.

I have already gotten up and got in a two mile run around the park. In a moment, I shall shower and then begin the day in earnest.

We shall start with a series of pictures of the landing.

The picture at bottom is what we accomplished last night. It looks like it is going to need at least one other coat, but it looks pretty good.

Okay on to the next task.

5:32PM I managed to make three trips out to the dump today. While I am happy with the amount of crap I hauled away, I still have a ton of crap to remove. And I think a ton is an actual factual amount. I have a lot of clean up work yet to do with this little area at the back corner of our property. It seems the previous owner has used it to dump leaves and grass clippings for a loooooooong time. As a result, there is a very nice composted mulch back there that is littered with chestnuts from the yard. It's going to take me a while to get it all out of there.

Once again, I have bitten into a project that is a LOT more to chew than originally anticipated.

I think I'll go make some beer.

Another Task Crossed Off the List

The master bedroom ceiling is complete. It took us a total of about se7en hours to apply ten 18 foot panels of wall paper. Broken down, it was two hours on Tuesday, two hours on Thursday and about three hours yesterday. We had to do a little bit of minor repair work to a few seams, but for the most part, we are pleased with the results.

Now we have to get up some crown molding to hide the wavy edges and we are finished with the bedroom...except for the floor.

The only other major task to complete now is painting the walls in the landing.

and then the floors.

In other project developments, we started some work on the deck. We had a wheelchair ramp attached to the deck when we moved in. It has been great to have when it came to moving large, unweildy appliances and/or furnitures into the house.

But it takes up a three foot swath of lawn space in an already small backyard.

Half Way to Hell

Wallpapering a ceiling is no picnic. I think it would be the perfect torture treatment for Enemy Combatants. You put them in a room with a 13 foot ceiling, that's textured, and about 120 feet square. I think by the time they got the first panel up, they would want to start talking.

We achieved our goal of three panels in place last night but it was not fun. For some reason, we had a hell of a time getting the first panel lined up properly. By the time we got it up, my arms felt like lead weights.

But, we are half way across the room now and plan to finish up on Sunday.

In an unrelated developement, I shut down the furnace yesterday. Next I will drain the radiators and begin the process of removing the last two upstairs so they can be painted.

Purchases & Progress

This past Sunday, we bought a bookcase for the landing. We have been looking for a while and did not have much luck finding one that we liked enough to pay that much for. Susan was in a local Discount Mart and found a really nice one for $100.00. It was a Merchandise Return to Costco. It has some damage. There's a crack in the woodwork on the spacer between the two sides. We think we can fix it.


That remains to be seen.

Tuesday we started wall-papering the ceiling in the Master Bedroom. We managed to put up two panels of paper. Considering the amount of time it takes to get everything in place just so you can do the work, and then the Comedy of Errors in figuring out what you're doing on the first panel, completing two panels is great progress.
Tonight we are shooting for three panels. That's the halfway point.

STAND BACK! Something momentous is about to happen.

I am setting a goal!

The Landing and Bedroom project (which extends to the stairway project) will be completed by Wednesday, June 20th. That is five weeks and 6 days away.

The Word for the Day is atribilious. Ill-tempered, grumpy, melancholy.

Construction Material

When working on a project, no matter what it is, I have found that the most important accessory you can carry with you is a good cold beer. Being a home brewer, I prefer whatever it is I have in the keg. Today, it is SJB2 Honey&Spice Beer. It is one of my favorite recipes and is one of the beers on which I regularly get good reviews from friends.

I am writing about it now because, after many weeks, I finally have this beer pressurized to the right amount. It has been waaaay too foamy and it requires several days of fidgeting with the pressure to get the balance correct. One must also sample the results of the fidgeting and then fidget some more to make the required adjustamencations.

Anyway, the result is this nearly perfect pour which I offer in photographic evidence. Now all I need is a project to work on. Fortunately, there are plenty of those.

Finish Work 01

Now that we are getting down to the Finishing Work of our project, we spent a few days trying to decide how exactly to proceed. We are down to painting the walls, wallpapering the bedroon ceiling and sanding the floor. After that, it's trim work, touch up and we're done.

We didn't know whether we should sand the floors first or paint first. If we sand first, then we don't get all that sanding dust covering the newly painted walls. If we paint first, then we can be sloppy about the painting, letting stuff drip and drizzle where it may, and then wipe down the walls with a vaccuum and tack clothe after the sanding.

We chose the latter and I think it was the right choice.

We began painting the bedroom yesterday and it looks great! I'm going to get the second coat up tonight and in the next couple of days while Susan works on some of the wood trim around the doors.

In the meantime, I have posted some pictures that show a progression of one of the bedroom corners.

We've come a loooooong way, Baby!

Spindles, Ballusters, & Rails

What a difference a Spindle makes. I'm not going to say much and let the pictures do the talking.

I guess I should point out that I combined three pictures into a low resolution file that pretty mush looks like crap. Let me see if I can add one good looking high rez photo.

Ah, that's better. Now I have to get back to work!

Staircase Update

We made some significant progress last night and all we really did was get started. But remember, a journey of a thousand staircases begins with but a single stair.

We got the main post into place at the bottom of the stairs. Then, we more or less got the rail into place. We are using the old rail because it is a nice wide, substantial piece of wood that is no longer available in the same style. Because of all the new regulations and codes, stair rails are much thinner in order to allow a hand to securely wrap around it.

With the rail in place, this allowed us to cut and place one of the new balusters. I think they are going to look great.

Small Update

I haven't written in a while so I thought I had better get something on here just to keep current.

Work on the house is progressing at a snail like pace but we are very close to starting to sand the floors. That's our next big hurdle and I'm hoping it will go semi-smoothly.

I have been playing Racquetball with my friend Rob for a couple of months now. It is our one little workout regimen. Rob has been regularly beating me since we started playing. He is quite a bit better than me and his stamina is far superior to mine. I'm just soooooo out of shape.

Anyway, I finally beat him yesterday. I thought it was important to get it down with a date in a place where I can refer to it often. . .since it's not likely to happen again soon.

I should also add that I recently turned 50. No presents please!

Another Accomplishment

At this rate, the house will be finished 40 years after I'm dead.

This weekend, I worked on the Master Bedroom Closet. I found this modular closet system by a company called ClosetMaid. It's a pretty cool set up and I have half the closet done already. I had to go back to Home Depot three times before I got to where I am, but I am happy with my results thus far.

I have a couple more pieces to add and then it will be done. I'm most pleased by the amount of storage space we have in there. I wasn't sure it was going to be as practical and useful as it seems to be turning out. And all for less than $300.00. Of course, my original plan had it costing about $200.00.

Remodeling Re-Continues Again

It took until the Fourteenth of January but we are finally back to working on the house. Today we did some more priming on the ceiling and walls upstairs and I did some patch work on a nasty hairline crack on the stairway wall. It will be a few more days before the patch is complete. I want to take my time letting the various layers of plaster dry completely before I apply the next layer.

Once the patch is finished and I am satisfied that there are no more little cracks to deal with, we can get the wall primed and ready for painting. This project is dragging on too long. We need to get it done and get on to the next project.

I just did a little blog search and it appears the last time we did any work on the house was back around November 12th. So, if you consider that we only work on the house 10 months out of the year, I think we're doing okay. Susan would disagree.

Happy New Year

It's 2007 and Susan and I rang in the New Year at the Spokane International Airport.

We have just returned from 10 days in beautiful Des Moines, Iowa. Why? Because when you think Christmas, don't you naturally think Des Moines?! Me neither. But that's what we have been doing for the past several years and will keep doing for a few more years to come.

Des Moines is where Susan is from and her Dad, Gordon and Sister, Margaret live there. It has been the only long distance trip we make for the last few years. In the past, we drove. You can get from Spokane to Des Moines in 22 hours and 37 minutes. That's pretty grueling though, driving straight through and changing drivers every 4 hours.

But yesterday's marathon flying session took us all day (Over 13 hours) and we feel about the same amount of fatigue as if we had driven.

Now, to be fair, we only spent a total of six hours in the air. The rest was spent in various airports around the United States, which are lovely facilities to pass through, but who wants to linger there.

We started our day at Des Moines International where we had a civilized departure time of 11:20 AM. We went smoothly through check in and security and the plane left on time.

We knew in advance that we had a three hour layover in Cincinnati. When we arrived, it had turned into a four and half hour layover. This posed a problem for our final connecting flight into Spokaloo. They were able to get us onto a later flight so that seemed to solve that problem.

After many hours of beers and nachos at "Max and Edna's", we made it on board Flight 1541 to Salt Lake City. This was our longest and best part of the trip. We had first class seats, right up in the front row. We were able to recline in spacious comfort, drink copious amounts of alcohol of all kinds and watch a movie, "Scrooged".

When we finally landed in Salt Lake, we had about 40 minutes before our next flight which turned into an hour and a half cuz we don't got no plane.

That earned us a $14.00 food voucher which we spent on "beer and nachos."

When it came time to board, they threw one more monkey into the wrench by informing us that there were possible weather issues in Spokane and we might be landing in Pasco.

Fortunately, the weather cleared and allowed us to land in Spokane and get out of the airport by 11:30. That gave us time to stop by a friends house who was having a New Years party. We were both beat but we wanted to be festive for the New Year. The party must have been moved because when we drove up, Carine's house was dark and there were no cars in the street.

So, we came home and arrived just as everyone within a 200 mile radius found the illegal fireworks they had left over from the Fourth of July. We each enjoyed a shot of Peppermint Schnapps, enjoyed the artillary and went to bed.

May auld acquaintance be forgot...blah blah blah

How to Draw a Holiday Window

After nearly two weeks of painting, we are almost done. As of today, we have two and a half Skywalks left to paint. The half is because I have one skywalk that Susan and Laura have painted snowflakes on but I haven't got any skating figures up yet. I'm going to take care of that tonight.

In the meantime, I thought it would be nice to describe the process of creating beautiful Holiday Window Scenes for fun and profit. Mostly profit!

Start out with a window and some kind of design. When one is painting skywalks, it is not hard to find a window. Suddenly, they are everywhere. You see them in your sleep after a while.

I use tempera paint. That's the water based paint that comes as a powder that you used in Grade School to paint posters and other students. It cleans off very easily with soap and water. But be warned, If your window is exposed to the elements at all, a good rain will really mess up your artwork.

I started this process by free handing my design from a picture, but I found it was much faster to create a large stencil on butcher paper and then trace my figure using a white China Marker...a grease pencil.
This year I found a water based Spray Paint that cleans off as easily as the tempera. I spray the image with paint as evenly as I can and then roller it out to fill in the gaps. Because of the free form style of this particular design, I don't have to worry about staying within the lines. In fact, the over spray adds a nice touch to the design.
Once I've got the whole image filled and it has had time to dry, I come back and hit it with some highlights. It's just a line that I paint down the leading or trailing edge of the image that helps define an arm or leg and makes the image a bit more interesting.
Finally, I outline the image in white. Again, the style of these figures allows me to be inexact with the outline.

Now that I have the system down, I can paint 12 different figures in about three hours. I usually finish before Susan.

So there you have it . . . a complete guide to Holiday Window painting. Don't even think about invading my territory.

A Reason for my Absence from Blogging

I haven't posted anything here in a while because Susan and I have been busy with another project that has kept us out of the house. . .almost completely for over a week.

As a Starving Artist and Cartoonist, I have always looked for new and different ways for me to express myself in Art and make a buck while doing it. I have been painting Holiday Windows for over 20 years now. It's a great way to make some extra money just at a time of year when I can really use it.

Susan and I have had a deal going with a local Real Estate company for the last few years to paint some Christmas characters on office buildings and one of the skywalks downtown.

This year, my name was referred to the office of the Downtown Spokane Partnership, which is a local booster organization that promotes downtown. There is a big Ice Skating Championship coming up in January and they wanted to promote that in a fun way that would also help decorate up the downtown area.

So they asked us to paint a wintery skating theme in ALL THE DOWNTOWN SKYWALKS. For those keeping track, there are 15 skywalks downtown.

We started painting last Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, and we have been going strong ever since. To date we have completed 11 skywalks. I don't care to divuldge the amount of money we are making in this process other than to say it will be a very Merry Christmas.

The Final Leaf

Did I say 28 bags of leaves. Ha Ha HA! I could have made it to the Dump in one trip if I only had 28 bags. I ended up making two trips. I hauled a total of 47 bags for a grand total of 1800 pounds. The part that really gets me is that after all the rain we've had, I probably paid a tidy sum of cash to haul and dump 700 pounds of water.

But at least that chore is done for the year. Thanks to my friend Jerry for the loan of his Gas Guzzling Chevy Mombo-Cruiser Deluxe.

Now we can move on to other more pressing jobs. Remember the house. We were doing some remodeling on the house. But now that we are entering the Christmas Holiday season, that will take a back seat. . . . . again!

As an artist, one of the good paying side jobs I have been doing for years is painting Holiday Scenes on windows of local businesses and the occassional house. Susan and I have been doing just enough the past couple of years to give us some extra spending money at Christmas.

It appears we are going to have a very Merry Christmas this year because I have just landed the gig of painting in ALL the skywalks downtown. If you've been keeping track of the skywalks, there are 14 of them.

There is a big skating competition coming to town in February and they want to hype it as much as possible. That will be the theme we will be carrying through the whole downtown skywalk system. Did I mention there are 14 of them?!

Yard Maintenance Part Deux

Susan and I have completed the Leaf Pick Up Program for this year. It took most of Sunday and it didn't help that the wind was swirling around us with Gale Force Intensity. You rake a pile of leaves and then before you finish stuffing them in a bag, they are spread out across the lawn again. Now I have to spend another Sunday hauling my 28 bags out to the Compost Pile at the Waste to Energy Incinerator Plant.

Sunday Morning Fun

One of the nice features of living next to a city park is that there is a certain "Entertainment Cache" that one would not ordinarily expect. There is always the crazy antics of the various animals in the neighborhood. The squirrels here are quite active, somewhat friendly, and always very entertaining when the cats are stalking them. The cats think they are being cleaver and stealthy and the squirrels know where they are at all times. I've never seen a cat get even close to a squirrel.

This morning as I let the cats out and grabbed the morning paper, I noticed this guy out in the park. He was in his early twenties. He was unusual because he was wearing nothing but his pants, hanging low enough on his waist to expose his underwear and a bit of butt crack. It has been raining for days and it can't be more than 40 degrees right now, so this is definately an odd sight. He's kind of walking aimlessly through the park and then stops and then walks in a different aimless direction.

Suddenly, a darts over toward the edge of the park where he sees a shoe. He puts it on and stomps into the intersection where another shoe sits. Further up the street he sees a clump of something that I assume is a shirt. At that point he is out of my view. I didn't really feel like walking off the porch in my bathrobe and slippers to further investigate. Then I would be the odd sight.

I can only surmise that this guy has been dumped in the park by his friends after a night of extreme alcoholic consumption and then, being the good friends that they are, strip him of most of his clothes. Ah, to be twenty and stupid again.

I'm not feeling terribly bright this morning myself. I went to a hockey game last night and then to the re-opening of a local bar that closed 15 months ago due to a fire in the building it was located in. We had a few beers and I'm feeling them now.

By the way, Susan did some priming yesterday. We're ready for a second coat.

The Efficacy of Power Tools

The weather dried out enough on Sunday for Susan and I to get out into the yard for some much needed Grounds Tending. We decided to leave the leaves until Halloween was over in order to create the proper "Autumn Atmosphere". Unfortunately, it rained like Noah all week long and left us with lots and lots and LOTS of wet, decaying leaves.

I had been looking forward to this Fall and the Leaf Eradication Procedure because earlier this year, I had obtained a Power Leaf Vaccuum. I have had only a couple of opportunities to use it and it seemed to work pretty well.

Well, I can tell you that it is totally useless if the leaves are plentiful and wet. We had both those things going for us. I tried using my lawn mower as well but once again, if the leaves are plentiful and WET, it too is useless.

It all came down to manual labor, which Susan was doing all through my attempts to use power tools.

The front yard is complete and we have many bags of leaves. I would estimate that we must have about 120 bushels. That's pretty good for a .24 acre parcel of land. Heck, in Canada, that would be over 700 hectars of maple leafs. (Is it leafs or leaves?) Now we have to wait for the leaves to fall in the back and side yards. Then we will do it all again.

I'm trying to remember why we moved here.

Post Halloween Depression

I would like to say that we've been working on the house but that would be a lie. We have just been winding down from Halloween. Today was Garbage Day and I was able to get about five or six of our 27 pumpkins into the garbage can before it was overflowing. Sunday is our one day off together so we will be doing the bulk of our Halloween Clean-up and Decoration Stowage at that time. I also have a crap load of wet leaves to rake up. "Sunday is going to be fun", he said with his voice dripping with sarcasm.

Well, at least Halloween is out of the way for another year and now we can concentrate on the house...and Thanksgiving....and Christmas....followed by New Years, Valentine's Day, Ground Hog Day and St Swithins Day. Perhaps I should consider becoming a Druid. Do they have holidays to contend with?!

Halloween Statistics

The early returns are in and all the numbers indicate that it was another big year of Trick or Treating around the park. The only way I can keep track is by how much candy we start with and how much is left at the end of the night. I ended up with none. The first kids started showing up just after 5:00 and we were turning people away by 7:45 P.M. That means we had gone through over 700 pieces of candy in less than three hours. It seems hard to believe but the traffic was pretty thick all night long.

Officially Historic

I thought it was time that I got an official picture posted of our Official Historic Marker which officially proclaims to the world (or at least the people walking by) that this house is on the Official Register of Historic Places. You know, I think that George Washington once slept here. I can tell you for sure and quite officially that I have slept here.

All of the houses around the park are on the Register and most of the houses have this same plaque posted somewhere near the front door. We haven't had one and just recently purchased it as a Wedding Anniversary present to ourselves.

Stairway Update

Let's talk about what little work IS occurring here at the Ranch. We have been working on the stairway. We are kind of stuck on exactly how to proceed. At some point in the past, the bannister was changed to raise the handrail. In doing so, we have two different spindle designs holding up the bannister railing. I would like this to be uniform but we have had very little luck finding spindles that match the ones we have and like. That leads us to the possibility of having them made. I will not go into all the details, but I think we have found a guy with a Duplicating Lathe that will manufacture the 30 to 40 spindles we need. What we don't know yet is the price and that will be the deciding factor in whether we preceed that way.

Here are a couple of pictures to see our progress. On the left is the stairway that we started with. On the right, is the stairway as it is today. You will notice that we have removed all the wallpapering on the wall. That's where we have been skim coating and all that remains now is a little touch up of a couple of areas that insist on cracking and then some more primer.










The most dramatic feature is the wanescoating going up the stairway. We are going to cap it with railing and then stain it the dark walnut color.

You can also see that we have been trying to sand the steps and remove the stain. The problem is that the stain doesn't want to be sanded. We've got it a little on the sides but it's holding strong in the middle of the steps. I can't wait to see it when we're done...if we ever get there.

Research Project Results

I pretty much struck out yesterday with my research project. I went through all of the Sunday Spokeman-Review's for 1909. They were in the habit in those days of printing pictures of newly completed houses. It was amazing to see huge three story houses built for $5,000.

Anyway, I was not able to find any pictures of our house. Then I went to the Museum to look through the collection of historic photos they have. Supposedly, they have the complete archives from Libby Photographers, THE major photographer from the early years in Spokane. Well, I found the collection to be pretty sparse. It was much better organized than I had been led to believe, but again, no picture of OUR HOUSE. I'm sorry to be selfish here but that's what I'm looking for.

The Heart of the Problem

We've had a bit of a setback in working on the house in the form of health issues. My health issues. I woke up Saturday morning with a familiar discomfort in my chest. I woke up Susan and told her it was time to visit the Emergency Room. This feeling has been building for a while and I had an appointment to see my Cardiologist on Monday for a Stress Test, but my body couldn't wait.

I had an Angioplasty procedure on Sunday and they placed a stent in one of my arteries. Now I'm as good as your average 80 year old and I have a week off from work.

This is not my first brush with heart problems. I think it's boring to talk about so I'll just say I had a mild heart attack about 12 years ago, followed by a double by-pass about eight years ago.

So now I feel fine (except that I wear out easily) and I have a week off. I have done a few little projects around the house but nothing that requires a lot of exertion. Today, I'm going to the museum and the library to do some research on the house.

My main goal is to find a picture of the house around the time that it was built. The museum has a large haystack of photographs from the that time. The trick will be in finding this needle.

Busy Social Season

It's tough when you have a lot of remodeling to do yet you have a rigorous social schedule to juggle as well. That's where we are right now.

Halloween is a big Holiday for Susan and I so it's a good thing we moved to a place like Corbin Park. Halloween is a big deal here. It's not that a bunch of the houses get all decked out. A few do and we are one of them. However, the park has somehow developed a reputation as a good place to Trick or Treat. I think parents have developed that rep because it's easy for them to drop their kids off on one end of the park and then they go around the park and the parents are done for the night.

We had over 600 kids last year. We know that because our next door neighbors kept track. I know that because, at one point, all I did was stand at the door and pass out candy to the continous line of monsters, fairys, pirates and ghouls streaming up and down our porch.

We also have planned a Halloween dinner with a group of our neighbors for the night before Halloween. This will be a party for the adults. It will be a progressive dinner at three different houses. Susan and I have offered up ours as the Dinner House. Before us is the Appetizer House and after us is the Dessert House. We put invitations out to every house on the park. I haven't heard yet how many people have responded but I expect that it will be the same small group of partiers that attend all these types of functions.

We were busy last weekend with a trip to Canada for our Anniversary. We drank a lot of wine and spent a lot of Canucks, the offical legal tender of Canada. Their prices up there are much higher than in the states. Gas costs almost four canucks a gallon but they sell it by the Celsius so it is hard to convert. Their wine costs lots of canucks so to soften the blow, we drank about a kilometer of wine.

I guess what I'm trying to say here is that we haven't done a lot of work on the house lately.

What's Under the Stairs

I spend a lot of my remodeling time looking at the way things are in this house and asking, "Why is this set up the way it is?" Then I start to tear into it and I discover why it is the way it is.

Just such an episode arose tonight while working on the stairs. I have known for sometime that the bannister on the stairs is not the way it was originally built. I think it had to be raised to a certain level to meet code when this house was converted into a group home. They did what they could to make the change, make it look okay and do it for as little money as possible.

The details of what has been done to the stairs are way too complex for me to describe here so I will go with pictures.

On the left is the staircase as it was when we moved in. On the right, is the staircase after tonights endeavors.

You can see that the wonderful woodwork and trim was covered by a sheet of wood paneling that was then wallpapered.

Return of the Blogger

I haven't written anything on the house in over a week because we haven't done any work on the house in over a week so there was nothing to report on the house for over a week so consequently, I haven't written anything on the house in over a week.

That all changed today when we commenced to painting. To be more specific, we commenced to priming. We have to get everything primed before we can start our next step, floor sanding. That will create a tremendous amount of messy dustiness and we want the walls sealed before the messy dustiness gets everywhere, including our nooks and our crannys.

Here I am in the stairway after finishing todays priming. We ran out of our 5 gallon bucket of primer before we could finish the whole landing. I got the whole ceiling done and most of the walls. I have to finish the walls in the stairway. I was able to do that little bit of wall above me with the last of the primer. I'll be getting another 5 gallon bucket tomorrow. The bare drywall really sucks up the primer. I still have to get primer on that back hallway on the right and the wall out of the picture on the left. That wall is a bitch because it is soooooooo tall...over 16 feet. That's where my special $400.00 ladder starts to pay for itself.