We got some more varnishing done today and I bounced around the neighborhood doing a variety of things. We removed the park sign from the posts today and man oh man, was that a heavy mofo. There were three of us and we did an okay job of getting it to Mac's front porch, where I will install the decal.
While I was doing that, Susan suggested that we close the pocket doors in the living room, block off the door into the TV room and somehow block the hallway. This reminded me of the backstairs discovery I made when Susan told me about the backstairs. It was pure genious on my part...the part where I listened to her. I keep wondering when she is going to figure out that I married much better than she did.
This picture doesn't show the blockade very well and of course, it remains to be seen if we have really outwitted the cats. They are crafty little mammals and usually figure out a way past our previous blockades. I guess it won't be too bad to have cat paws and cat hair permanently infused into the varnish.
Clearly, we have completed our task of staining and only now have to complete the varnishing over the remaining three or four days of the aforementioned Holiday-ish event, thereby completing our project on schedule and on time and with limited run-on sentences.
We really only have about seven or eight steps to go and then the newel post at the bottom. Then we can begin varnishing which we anticipate will take at least three coats. Once that is done, we have the arduous and tedious task of painting the balusters. I think we are still two weeks away from calling this a done deal. And that is an optimistic two weeks at best.
Also in keeping with Memorial Day tradition, the sun came out tonight just in time to set.
She also got a good start on the railing and the newel posts on the upstairs end of the stairs. I guess one might call that the landing if one where so inclined. Below shows the right side newel post with a fresh coat of stain while the left side newel post needed some attention from me in the trim replacement department.
While Susan held the stain brush, I held the chop saw and brad nailer to inlay the trim around the Main Floor Newel Post. This picture makes it look much better than it actually is. Thank God for wood putty and lots of it.
I mentioned earlier that I had to replace some trim. The posts upstairs had some missing pieces and this one showed below on the mid-landing had been devastated over the years by railing reconstruction and then more reconstruction, ending finally with our re-purposing that started three years ago.
Tomorrow we will continue with staining and wood puttying and assorted other unforeseen things that will pop up along the way. It will be a short day for us as we have a Barbecue to attend in the afternoon. Our progress tomorrow will govern our evenings fro the rest of the week. It's a good thing that all our TV shows have finished for the season. It's time to get to work on the damn house!
One of the difficult parts of any project we undertake is the cat problem. We have had painted cat paws decorate our floors. We have had cat paws in wet grout. We have cat hair floating about at all times...that's a given. But Susan devised this clever barricade that we believe will work for us. That of course remains to be seen as the night goes on.
Susan has started us out on our first day pretty strong. She completed the first leg of our journey and got from the top to the middle landing.
Below is a picture from this morning and from after Susan finished for the day. She did all this today while I was working my second job at the bar. Now it is my turn to accomplish something while she works one of her second jobs...or is it her third. 
Now let me take a moment to talk about what a tunnel visioned bonehead I can be. I was thinking I was going to have to put a ladder up to the balcony so I could get to my clothes and then we would sleep on an air mattress in the living room while we allow the stained stairs to dry.
I surprised Susan with it on Mother's Day and she thought it was pretty cool.
And here it is after the paint job.
Mac had a painter friend of his stop by and hose the whole thing down with some nice fresh green paint. Now we have to get the main part of the sign removed because we are going to cut a vandal proof Plexiglas cover and then apply the pretty new decal. Here is the decal laid out at work trying to get flatter.
On an entirely different note, I had to go up to Sandpoint on Monday to finish a decal install. I had forgotten to include one little part of a decal when we shipped it up with the installer. So I drove up with another guy from work. It took about a bit more than an hour to drive up, about half an hour to apply the decal, and then we decided to goof around town before making the return drive to work.
I kind of like my styling shot with the sun right behind the flame/navigation light.
We got back to town just in time to go to lunch.
After about half an hour, I was able to bust away agood portion of the stump. Unfortunately, I cut a couple parts of the chainlink when I hit it with the shovel. It was hot and soft and probably cut pretty easily.
Spokane has 27 Neighborhood Associations throughout the city. We live in the Emerson Garfield Neighborhood. I was chairman of Emerson-Garfield last year. My reign ended last month. Now I am the secretary and the only reason fer that is eyam the goodest speller we gots. Not gud with gramer, but speeling eye can doo.
All in all, we were very pleased with the turn out. We filled nine of those dumpsters. I think they hold 30 square yards of waste.
Susan and I ended up picking up some stuff from a very nice older lady who lived outside the border of our neighborhood. I didn't realize it until I looked a the map this morning. Anyway, no biggy. 
I didn't worry about securing it because the dump location was only three blocks away. I think I could have gone higher but I ran out of debris...& that's okay!
The Hallertau is at 105 inches. It is in a similar state and the progress looks encouraging.
Once again, this report was sponsored by Beer. Get some!
As we were working, this guy pulled up in a big ol' Dodge pickup. He walked over to me and asked if we had any plans for the arborvitae. I said we really didn't have any plans other than to have them and keep them. He said he would trim them for $50.00. The last time I had them trimmed it cost $700.00...so I was obviously interested.I took the day off from my Bartending gig to do some community minded work in the park.
This is the sign at what we, the residents consider the entrance to Corbin Park. It is located in the middle of the park at the end of Washington Street. The picture above was taken a while ago but I think it is good enough to click on and enlarge and read. It describes the origin of the park when it was a horse racing track and fair grounds.
You can see that it is rather badly beaten up.
When the area became an Historic District, the home owners association built and installed the sign. When the decal was printed, they made five or six. This one is number two and it was applied over number one so it was really a number two kind of job removing it.
I had arranged to do this with Mac, a guy who lives down the street and is largely responsible for the Historic District becoming reality.
We used a vinyl buffing pad to remove the decal. It's a wheel you put on your drill and then you spend two hours running over the whole sign area until you are really really tired and grimy and have a sun burned neck. (I always burn early in the season because I forget about sunscreen)
Anyway, we finally got it cleaned off. We still have to repaint the sign and we are looking for some sort of way to make this one a little more vandal proof. I think we are going to lay a plexiglass laminate over it.
We do have a lottery going to see how long it takes before this sign is hit with graffiti. I said three days. Mac says by the end of the weekend. Ted, our third neighbor to help on this project and whose ass is shown above had no opinion.
As you can see it is a massive trunkal portion of the tree. It brought down a crap load of branches and major trunkal portions of wood like material. It came from the empty space in the picture below.
There are any number of ways this chunk o'wood could have fallen that would have caused devastation and major power outages...to us. It turns out that our God fearing ways are paying off in weird and mysterious ways because it fell in the direction that caused the least amount of damage. It brought down the power line that feeds the Carriage House. No big deal! We can live without power in the Carriage House for now. It brought down our Cable TV line. Again, no big deal as we have Satellite. A huge branch end up leaning against our large kitchen window. No broken glass. There is some slight damage to a rain gutter and the chain link fence that Susan hates.
I stepped out of the house around 5:45 to begin my cleanup and my neighbor Ted came around from the alley. He said he saw it happen. He was in his driveway about 4:00 and he heard this big crack. He looked over just in time to see the whole thing attack my chain link fence which Susan hates.
It is a tree that I don't really care for and eventually want to remove it. Grass won't grow underneath it and it takes up the limited amount of backyard space we have. But once a year, for about two weeks, it produces these lovely little rose-like bouquets. They really pretty...but only for about a week or two.
This method would have worked great had I enough lighter fluid to keep the fire going. I didn't want to use gas because I don't want to be in the news under the "Stupid People" section.
Here is a better picture from the front porch of the light yellow she painted on the door. This matches the walls in the stairway and the upper portion of the walls in the entry.
I have been enlisted to help in a neighborhood project concerning the Corbin Park sign. It is located at the end of Washington Street as you head north to the park. It is a decal that has been applied to the sign that was silk screened by a local company years ago. At the time, they had five of them made and this is the third one.
As you can see from the picture above, it has seen better days. It is time to remove the old and apply the new. I met with a guy named Mac who lives down the park. He has the new decal and we tried an experimental tool to remove the old decal. It's a drill attachment the will remove the old vinyl. It will work great for our purposes except that the cordless drill we were using is not powerful enough to do the job. We are going to have to arrange with one of the near by homes to borrow their electricity for a while. I think a have enough extension cords to reach the sign...depending on the neighbor who gives us electrical permission.
Here is a picture of the parking strip along Wall Street. I show this picture because this is the best it will look for the rest of the year. I have a very difficult time properly watering this long thin stripe of grassiness and it dries out quickly. Here, next to the Farm Truck, it looks like a long thin park. A park for worms perhaps...or spaghetti...or snakes who like spaghetti.
I need to actually wire the thing now and I have a little more work to do on the base you see it sitting on. Nothing major...just some shaping and sanding. We now have about $75.00 into this light. It stands about 18 inches tall and we think it will look totally bitchin' when it is in place at the bottom of the stairs. It's not going to provide a lot of light but that was never goal.
