7 May 2012

Except for one piece of 4½″ white trim at the top, THE NORTH WALL IS DONE!!!!  Having Bob Ross’ scaffolding to work from made all the difference between a job darn near impossible and a job that took half as long as expected, was totally safe, and resulted in minimal wear and tear on this olde body. Thank you, thank you, thank you Bob and Perry (chief procurement official and man about town).  With two shingles left to put on the final course, Marty came up the hill to invite me to a barbecued leg of lamb dinner… come right now and come as you are.  Had him take some pictures while he was here, then quickly finished the shingling and headed north at a trot.  Merry wisely had me use the laundry room deep sink to remove at least some of the grime from my hands… which will need a change of skin before turning back to flesh colored from gray.  The lamb was d-e-l-i-c-i-o-u-s… and an Otter Creek Cooper Ale slid down real easy, too!  And, surprise, surprise, we had Butter Fudge Fingers and ice cream for dessert.  Dinner ended just at sunset, so I returned to work in the waning light to put stain on that final course of shingles, then secured the worksite for the heavy weather expected to roll in tonight and persist through tomorrow.  Lesson learned: the Man Cave is so airtight that drying the shingles in there over the winter just didn’t happen; should have put the shingles in the woodshed that is, after all, built especially for drying wood.  Second lesson learned: sun and air drying loose shingles (i.e., not tightly bundled like they come from the lumber yard) causes them to warp in all sorts of interesting, but not good, directions.