31 May 2016
Drove down to Vermont
Specialty Slate, arriving at 7:45 to find the Open / Closed sign in the Open
position, the doors wide open, lights and radio on… and absolutely nobody
there. Twenty minutes later, Jim Souter
(the owner) pulled in… and told me that our slate would be in next
Friday, not last Friday… and sorry for the confusion. Got back to Δ□Ο just as Tom was arriving… all prepared to lay slate on the front entry
porch. So instead he troubleshot the
phone system, coming to the conclusion that the alarm system wasn’t passing
tone to the house phones. Called Cary
Marshall, who came out at noon and determined that the alarm system wasn’t
passing tone to the phones because it wasn’t getting tone from the Comcast
router. And around we go!!!! The culprit seemed to be the new phone wire
that I’d run the other day. Sure enough,
that wire’s termination at the router was faulty, as in not plugged all the way
into the jack. Oooops! While waiting for Cary, Tom installed the
Code-required electrical outlet at the east end of the kitchen peninsula
cabinet. He and I also put in the two
security lights on the north end of the woodshed. Steve was here most of the morning,
continuing to insulate pipes in the mechanical room… and repairing a pinhole
leak he discovered during that process.
Roger and Joe Desabrais came by just as Cary was leaving and took
measurements for the custom glass walls and door needed to complete the guest
bath shower enclosure. Lit the old
campfire for the first time this season and enjoyed some delightfully smoky
burgers for dinner.
30 May 2016
A/C ran all night,
never getting the house below 73°, with the set point at
68° and the outside temperature in the mid-60’s. Something ain’t right! Apparently, when the well went on strike
yesterday, the heat pump’s controller, being a member of the same union, also
walked off the job… Called Steve
Poplawski (who happened to be the Ryan’s on-call technician today) and he
arrived at 10 o’clock. Steve put the
geothermal heat pump back to work by turning the circuit breaker off, then on
again four minutes later, and, like magic, we started getting cold water
again. What happened to the good olde
days when you’d just replace a blown fuse with a penny? Now everything is controlled by a finicky
computer chip. Spent the day schlepping
the last few car / truck loads of our stuff from Kate’s over to our new house,
then doing a thorough cleaning at Kate’s place.
Marty & Merry came up to enjoy the first (of, hopefully, many)
fabulous meal in our new house, this time featuring Bourride and Aïoli
(Provençal Fish Stew with Garlic Mayonnaise) plus Bread Pudding with Hard
Sauce. A heavenly meal with heavenly
folks in a heavenly setting!!!!
29 May 2016
Fifty gallons of
well-chilled water provides a lot of cooling.
We didn’t run out of A/C until after midnight, when the outside
temperature was low enough to open the windows.
Except for Geisha and Shlomo deciding it was time to get up at first
light, we slept well. John Williams and
Glenn Tupper arrived, as promised, at 7:30.
A little tapping on the pressure sensor pipe, a small adjustment to the
geothermal pressure set point, and we were back in the water business. Chree put in some of her garden plants in the
morning. Moved four car / truck loads of
“stuff” out of Kate’s house, and there’s plenty more to go! The entire Lapidus clan came up for a tour
mid-afternoon. Perry and Steve came over
for Sunday Sauna at Six. Lake
temperature is a whopping 75° already; lake level
is 15″ below the top of the dock. These
are values we expect to see in July, not May!
28 May 2016
So what always
happens at 6 pm on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend? You got it: the well pump controller got
sick, leaving us not only with no water, but, thanks to a geothermal heating
and cooling system that must have lots of the clear and wet to operate, rapidly
failing air conditioning… with the outside temperature hitting 90° today. The
good news is that less than 5 minutes after I called Spafford’s answering
service, John Williams called back to verbally troubleshoot the problem (which
didn’t work) and promise to be here first thing in the morning. He suggested a dip in the lake to both cool
down and clean up. Riiiiight! Did I mention that the house phone is kaput
this weekend, too, hopefully not due to the rewiring I did on Friday. James came by for an hour and used the
mini-excavator to regrade the slope in front of the garage, hopefully removing
the lake that was forming every time it rained hard. Bob and Toni Best, a husband and wife window
blind installation team, were here most of the morning installing (wait for
it…) Graber thermally insullated window blinds throughout the house. Absolutely gorgeous, all of them! Chree and I spent the day cleaning the new
house. We retrieved all of the pots,
pans, and dishes out of Delores… and (trust me, you don’t want to know why) put
most of them straight into the dishwasher, which we’ll run just as soon as we
have water again. Oh, the joys of new
home ownership!
27 May 2016
Sonny and Brandon got
started on the wood bin first thing in the morning. Steve also was here early doing his plumbing
thing, including putting in vent covers around the house. Eric returned and, in a few hours, finished
mudding the garage. James also arrived
and got to work digging all the big rocks out of Chree’s 20′ x 16′ garden,
filling the bottom of the excavation with Ploof’s Special Topsoil (aka: sand,
but it does grow grass nicely), and then topping the area off with a truckload
of all-purpose compost (APC). Expect our home-grown
tomatoes will cost about $200 each this year… Sean also
showed up, ostensibly to take pictures of the finished house, but for that
he’ll have to return another day.
Standing in the living room and looking at the installed custom
cabinetry, Sean pointed out that the cabinet that houses the WiFi router and DVR
was sitting much too low with respect to the TV enclosure. I had to agree, the lines just weren’t
right. So Sonny and Brandon quickly
ripped out the router cabinet, put a couple of 2⅝″ shims in place, covered the
front shim with a piece of scrap drywall, and had Eric mud over the face. All done in about ½ hour… at least, that’s
the way it appeared at the time… Larry
and Earl got here mid-morning to continue installing the security system. So Larry says to me, “Do you know that the
alarm panel has to be the first connection on the phone line?” “Yes,” says I, “Cary told me that. But (dawn rising over Marblehead), let me go
check where the kitchen phone line ties into the loop.” A few minutes later I discovered that (1) the
kitchen phone was the first connection on the phone line, and (2) Sonny and
Brandon had finished the wood bin except for the very top board, i.e.,
there was still access to the inside of the wall where the phone lines were
running. Whew! After figuring out which line went where, I
reached through the gap and (fingers crossed and eyes closed) cut the line to
the kitchen phone. Then Earl and I used
that line to pull two new lines down through the wall and floor into the
mechanical room. After doing our
electrical magic, we had a new line from the router box down to the security
box and thence into the house phone line loop, including back up to the kitchen
via a splice in the cut line. Sonny and
Brandon then went to reinstall the router cabinet. After Sonny finished inserting “all” of the
lines into the 3-gang junction box that is inside the cabinet, I noted that the
all-important line down to the security panel was missing from the
collection. “Ooops,” he said, “that wire
must have fallen out…” and was now at the bottom of the wall with only two
small holes giving access 3-feet up.”
“No problem,” says Brandon, “Mr. James Bond here will use a mirror and a
coat hanger to fish the line back up.”
Only two problems with that: we didn’t have a mirror or a coat
hanger. But I did fashion a hook out of
some AWG 12 wire I retrieved from the dumpster.
After fishing around blindly for a few minutes, Brandon relinquished the
hook to Sonny saying, “A hundred bucks if you get it first try.” “Hold on,” says Sonny a few seconds later,
“I’ve hooked something.” And, as Sonny’s
and my good luck would have it, sure enough he had snagged the missing phone
wire. Mid-afternoon, with the house
getting a mite toasty (the outdoor temperature topped out at 89° today), I
asked Steve if he could get the air conditioning going. Took him awhile to figure out the wiring
(which he ended up jury-rigging), but Chree, the dogs, and I will be enjoying
cool sleeping accommodations tonight… and forevermore!
26 May 2016
Sonny and Brandon
installed the TV enclosure cabinet in the morning. In the afternoon, Brandon started work on the
wood box while Sonny did some small tasks: cutting the hole in the kitchen sink
cabinet toe kick for the air conditioning vent. I put a final coat of joint
compound on the area around the stove plug.
After Sonny and Brandon removed the bracing, I started the joint
compounding process for the wall areas on either side of the guest bath shower
panels. I also did some joint compound
repair work around three junction boxes that, ahem, needed further
attention. Steve spent the day
insulating hot water lines in the mechanical room. Dennis stopped by to check on Steve’s progress
and discuss how we are going to control the HRV. Answer: adjustable timer control in the
mechanical room with an override switch in the kitchen that will also be on a
timer, i.e., if the humidity gets too high in the house we can flip the switch
in the kitchen and turn on the HRV… but a timer will turn it off again, if we have
a senior moment and forget to do so manually.
Tom installed the 8v/16v/24v transformer I bought at Lowe’s last night
and (drum roll, please) the doorbell now is working properly. He then finished (with the exceptions of the
garage and three other minor items that I can complete) all of the electrical
work inside the house. Larry and Earl
continued installing alarm system components, including the entry keypad and
master control panel. I put the first
coat of polyurethane on the handrails and what I thought would be the final
coat of polyurethane on the custom coat hook rack I built for the mud
entry. Both coating came out horribly
(!!!!), probably due to not following the instructions for cleaning my brush after
it was used for staining the hand railings yesterday. Even though the fire was still burning (6
days after being started!), I pulled the pile apart with the Kubota and buried
the one remaining stump and a bucket-load of hot rocks. After staking out where she wants her garden,
Chree spent the afternoon cleaning the new house. The master bedroom and bath, the laundry, and
the half bath now are ready for occupancy.
Woe unto to any carpenter, plumber, or electrician who messes them up!
25 May 2016
I was at Goodro’s at 7
to clean them out of brushed nickel hand railing brackets… netting half of what
I needed. Sonny and Brandon spent the
morning installing the two hand railings that will line either side of the
staircase. After they got the railings
fitted, they disassembled everything and then Sonny coated the railings with a
very dark Minwax Jacobean stain. Ron
Highter delivered the four absolutely gorgeous custom cabinets
mid-morning. Sonny (with a timeout for
house destruction; see below) and Brandon spent the afternoon installing the
cabinets that will house the Comcast router and DVR, the kitchen writing
surface, and the hall knick knacks.
Steve installed the guest bath toilet and wired up the zone controllers
for the radiant floor heating. Jim Ploof
dropped off his mini-excavator and skid-steer, which will be used to create
Chree’s garden later this week. Tom
arrived late-morning and set to work finishing up the electrical work. First item on his agenda was to get the doorbell
working properly. After triple-checking
the wiring, he called the manufacturer, whose technical help-desk person
suggested that maybe putting in a 24v transformer (vice the 16v
transformer called for in the doorbell instructions) might get both chimes to
work. After that, he spent the rest of
his workday installing electrical outlets.
Larry Stevens and Earl Taylor from Marshall’s alarm service arrived
early afternoon and began installing the components for our alarm system. After awhile, Earl went to Larry (who came to
me) saying, “Weren’t there supposed to be both a klaxon and a motion sensor in
the downstairs hall? There is only one
wire down there.” “That’s funny,” I
said, not laughing, “I thought there once was a security system wire in
the corner of the wine cellar nook. Oh,
Sonny! Please tear apart this brand new
wall (fortunately made of screwed-on plywood in the shop) so we can find the
missing wire.” “Grumble, bitch,
moan!” Wall hacked apart, we found the
missing wire in the ceiling over the wine cellar nook, wrapped around a drywall
screw and tied in a knot. Located and
removed the screw (making only a small hole in the once-pristine wine cellar
nook ceiling), only to find that the knot in the wire still was a
show-stopper. Nothing for it but to cut
a hole in the ceiling big enough to extract the knot. That operation was completely successful, but
the ceiling will need some serious post-operative doctoring. Kevin stopped by to give us his (choke!)
price for building our patio. Let’s just
say that it will be a very nice patio… and Kevin will not be starving to
death anytime soon. After an early
dinner, made a mad-dash to Lowe’s in South Burlington to not buy the 20
amp electrical outlets needed to complete the house wiring. All of the local-area Lowe’s are out… and not
expecting new stock for at least a few weeks!
Merde, alors, if you’ll pardon my French! But, not wanting to leave empty-handed, I
found $130 of other electrical stuff to fill my shopping cart. Got back to Fern Lake at 8, ready for some
serious slumber.
24 May 2016
Sonny and Brandon
installed the two back panels for the guest bath neoangle shower in the
morning. In the afternoon they built the
wood and cement board “foundation” for the front entry porch. Their construction will be covered by ½″
black slate, which we ordered from Vermont Specialty Slate today. Eric Mills returned to the fold this morning,
putting the tape and first coat of mud on the garage walls and ceiling. Steve installed the cartridge water filter
(that will remove impurities like iron from all of the domestic-use water), the
water softener (that will soften the heated domestic-use water), and the
hot-water circulating pump (that will ensure we have near-instantaneous hot
water at every fixture). I ripped out
(literally) the two-gang junction box that Tom installed for the stove last
week. Then I cut open the wall to put in
a two-gang junction box (lying on its side so the stove plug will fit into the
outlet without the cord being severely bent) about 5 inches further to the left
of where Tom had installed the previous box.
The drywall between the two caverns failed, of course, causing an even
bigger mess than I had made already.
Whatever you do, don’t investigate the wall structure behind the
stove! Which is another way of saying:
joint compound can cover a thousand sins.
That nightmare over, I tackled connecting the electrical wire to the air
handler in the mechanical room. Should have
been a 15 minute job; another nightmare… that lasted all afternoon. Chree started cleaning the master bath and
master bedroom, getting those spaces pretty much ready for occupancy.
23 May 2016
Bonfire still is
smoldering. Sonny and Brandon spent the
day installing all the doors that have been re-varnished recently, including the
three pocket doors and four guest bedroom closet doors. They also installed the woodstove, critically
important since temperatures are supposed to reach the mid-80’s later this
week. Steve worked on plumbing,
installing several of the zone control thermostats plus, I’m sure, other
related tasks not so readily visible.
Sean came by early in the workday to review the remaining work to be
done before we move in and give direction to his troops. He also proved that the stove outlet, as
reinstalled by Tom last week, also will not work. Back to the drawing board… Kevin Haight also stopped by to further
discuss the patio and front walkway designs and pricing (250% of Sean’s
original guesstimate, which wasn’t a small number; hope the kids enjoy the
ambiance of what was left of their inheritance). Chree and I went up to Burlington to pick up
the mechanics tool chest I had ordered for the shop lavatory, spend even more
money at Home Depot, and visit briefly with Alverta. We also stopped at the Granite Group, where
we were informed that, indeed, Kohler does not stock the glass walls and door
for their 42″ x 42″ neoangle shower.
Grrrrr…
22 May 2016
wares in Rutland while
I went up to South Burlington with Tom Morrissey to install a new coaxial cable
for the condo I own there. Very hot,
dusty work at Bed, Bath, and Beyond in the attic of the building, but
both jobs were completely successful.
Enjoyed the heat so much that I took a solo sauna upon return to Fern
Lake. Lake temperature is a delightful
63° (if you’re fresh out of a 220°F sauna) and the lake
level is 15″ below the top of the dock… which makes the water too shallow for diving
in… which is probably a good thing.
21 May 2016
Bonfire still
smoldering this morning. Took two full truck
loads of cardboard down to the Leicester recycling station this morning. While Chree dusted and vacuumed the new house,
I put the final coat of polyurethane on the 11 doors that are being refinished
now. Also lightly sanded and put another
coat of polyurethane on the Ifelele railing top caps, as the finish on them was
only excellent before, and I want them to be perfect. Sometimes it’s good to be a Type A!
20 May 2016
Started the debris
bonfire first thing in the morning; still smoldering at dusk… Sonny and Brandon installed the clothes
washer and dryer. The electrical outlets
for both were, of course, at exactly the wrong height, but the acceptable
solution was simply to leave a gap behind both units for socks to fall into,
never to be seen again. After
considerable “discussion” between Chree and me over placement of towel bars and
toilet paper holders, Brandon installed those items in the master bath and put
up the towel bars in the guest bath. The
toilet in the half bath is too close to the wall to put a toilet paper holder
next to it (and placing it under the window was unacceptable to Chree), so
Chree went down to Rutland and procured a stand-alone TP holder that will fit
under the pedestal sink. A good
compromise, with only moderate scarring.
Sonny (with some minor help from me) cleaned out the garage, including
loading the Tacoma with cardboard; a second load still is piled in the
corner. Chree and I went down to
Pittsford for a delightful 44th anniversary dinner at the Harvest
Moon Café. Exquisite food accompanied by
a 2014 Bardolino from Italy that our serving person recommended.
19 May 2016
Sonny and Brandon
installed the stove, discovering in the process that one of the less
enlightened electricians (that would be me) put the stove electrical outlet in
exactly the wrong place. If that outlet
were located 6″ left, right, or lower than where it is, then the stove would
slide back against the wall (as it’s supposed to) instead of hitting the
plug. At the end of the day, Tom ripped
out the offending outlet and junction box.
Sonny and Brandon also installed the refrigerator and bored a 4″
diameter hole through the laundry exterior wall for the metal duct and clothes
dryer vent hood, the latter of which was mounted on Koma®
blocking. Boring that 4″ hole was quite time-consuming, as some previous carpenters had left a
couple of 16d nails right where the hole needed to go. Brandon also bored a 4″ hole for the pancake box to which will be attached the spotlight on the
northeast corner of the woodshed. Tom
finished installing the tile behind the vanity in the master bath in the
morning, then he and I did electrical installations in the afternoon, including
putting up the 4-light bar over the guest bath vanity. Steve continued installing and leak checking
sink plumbing. I finished varnishing the
first sides of the 11 interior doors that are being refinished at this
time. Chree and I went into Middlebury
and Brandon to do errands for most of the morning. In the afternoon, we used the Kubota to move
several piles of “used but good” lumber from next to the driveway, where they
were slowly rotting under tarps, to the big pile where they soon will enrich
the garden soil by turning into ashes.
18 May 2016
Steve beat everyone
here this morning and continued installing plumbing fixtures. We now have four (count ‘em!) working toilets
and hot water from some of the sink faucets.
So high class! Sean came by
mid-morning to talk about some simmering issues (actually, I think I was at a rolling boil at
that point) and to prioritize the carpenter’s work list. Sonny and Brandon finished installing the
crown molding in the study, then hung the 12 interior doors that will be
refinished later. While Sonny was making
another shelf for the panty and putting in a small door in the shop south wall
that will allow access to the wine cellar compressor coils, Brandon installed
the door handles on the re-hung interior doors and finished putting door /
drawer handles on the study, master bath, and guest bath cabinetry. After lunch, they installed the
above-the-range microwave oven… and would have installed the stove, too, except
that it took me an inordinate amount of time to affix a power cord (sold
separately) to the stove because the idiot electrical engineer who designed the
electrical connection interface on the stove was a certified first class
bozo. As Tom Morrissey keeps reminding
me: if electrical engineers were required to actually install what they design,
their designs would be a whole lot more user-friendly. Roger and Joe (his son) Desabrais arrived
late morning to install the glass half wall and glass door for the master bath
shower. They also hung the 27″H x 45″W mirror, with 1″ beveled edges, above the guest bath vanity. After running errands in Middlebury for most
of the morning, Chree mounted the Kubota and used the backhoe and front end
loader attachments to move the mound of debris that has been building since
last fall to the middle of our burn area.
In addition to leaning over everyone’s shoulder all day, doing some
minor electrical work, and making a bazillion phone calls, I started
refinishing some of the interior doors using Lenmar® satin finish
polyurethane. Literally 5 minutes after
Roger and Joe Desabrais departed, Dennis Senesac called to inform me that the
Kohler neo-angle shower that we bought for the guest bath seems to have come
without the two glass side walls and glass door that are sort of needed to keep
the water in the shower. And Kohler
doesn’t provide those glass sides, even though the picture Chree and I saw when
we ordered the shower clearly showed them.
Dennis suggested I contact Desabrais Glass to custom fabricate the
missing pieces… which I will be glad to
do, just as soon as Chree and I come down from low-Earth orbit.
17 May 2016
Ron Highter showed up
right at 7 with the frames for all of the custom cabinets that he is
building. Sonny and Brandon spent all
morning trimming those pieces to fit their respective openings. Sonny also put a final coat of paint on the
sun room chair rail. They spent the
afternoon installing crown molding in the study. Steve also arrived promptly at 7 and
continued installing plumbing fittings and fixtures. By the end of his workday we had two
functional toilets (in bathrooms with no doors, but that’s just a small
technical detail), a functional kitchen sink, and a functional pedestal sink in
the half bath. Also the water heater
under the stairs was busy making hot water.
Jeff, Tim, and Pete got here about 7:30 and had finished stretching and
trimming all the carpets by mid-morning.
Chree and I spent a couple of hours this afternoon cleaning up the mess
they left behind. Tom Hobbs also arrived
early and installed the ductwork for the shop dust collection system. Now, when the planer is busy spitting out
copious quantities of wood chips and dust, those byproducts will get sucked
into a large plastic bag. Ditto when the
radial arm saw is disgorging sawdust by the bucketful. Tom Morrissey, once again, spent most of the
day working on the master bath tiling.
He put on his electricians hat mid-afternoon and installed the two
lights over the master bath vanity, hooked the under stairs hot water heater up
to electricity, and put in an outlet under the stairs into which will be
plugged the circulating pump that will ensure we have instant hot water
whenever we turn on a hot water tap anywhere in the house. (This was one of our pet Virginia house
peeves: waiting F∙O∙R∙E∙V∙E∙R to get hot water in the master bath if the supply
line hadn’t been used in the previous hour.)
Using 220 grit paper, I lightly sanded the bumps out of a half dozen
interior doors. Then I tried putting a
couple of coats of furniture paste wax on the half bath door. The door now is nice and smooth, and looks
like kaka (which is a much more refined term for doo doo). Tim Ryan stopped by at that point (seeking
much moola for services rendered last week) and advised me to just leave the
doors as they are for the moment, then take them down into the shop one at a
time next winter and apply another coat of quality polyurethane, e.g., Last n
Last® or Lenmar®, not (repeat 1,000 times) quick
drying Minwax. Sean and Jim Ploof also
stopped in bearing invoices. Spent some
time with Jim outlining the additional site work we want him to do… and
congratulating him for finishing 1st (overall, not just in his age and
gender categories) in a Spartan Ultra Beast Race that drew over 600 starters (and
only 327 finishers) down to New Jersey weekend before last. After nearly 30 miles and 9½ greuling hours,
he beat the second place finisher (who was almost half Jim’s age) by 15
minutes. Be impressed; be very, very
impressed!!!! Spent some time with Sean
reviewing recent work progress and making sure our visions for the near term
future were in alignment. The commercial
grade 30″ two-drawer lateral file cabinet I ordered from Staples was delivered,
placed in the shop lavatory (and tool storage area), and promptly filled with
assorted power hand tools… that we now will know right where to find and won’t
be tripping over on the shop floor anymore.
One small step for man…
16 May 2016
Another manic
Monday! Sonny and Brandon did some
little projects all day: got their juices flowing first thing by helping lift
and carry the 500 pound woodstove from the middle of the living room floor over
to its hearth, installed all of the closet shelves, installed a lazy susan (to
be used as a spice rack) in the corner kitchen cabinet, painted and installed
the sun room chair rail, and put door / drawer pulls on the rest of the kitchen
cabinets and some of the bathroom vanities.
Carpet installing sub-contractors to Countryside Carpet and Paint, Jeff
Gearwar, Tim Williams, and Pete Felkl from GWF Company spent the day doing the
preparatory work for installing our carpets: nailing down tack strips, putting
down ⅜″ Omafirm padding, and cutting each carpet roughly to size. The carpet has to acclimate overnight, i.e.,
come up to about 70°F, so that it will stretch properly when installed tomorrow. Tom spent much of the day redoing the master
bath shower floor tile again (fourth time’s a charm????) and starting the
vanity backsplash tiling. For the last
hour or so, he put in the sun room and foyer chandeliers and then the wall
light in the half bath. Steve returned
to the fold today and did all of the plumbing connections for the kitchen sink
and half bath (where he also installed the pedestal sink and toilet). I did a little electrical work (attaching a
plug to the dishwasher, which came set up for hard-wiring, a practice no longer
allowed by the National Electrical Code), answered a constant stream of
questions from all and sundry, thoroughly cleaned the floors ahead of the
carpet installers, did a little sanding on the interior doors, and helped Tom
hang the chandeliers. While showing off
our handiwork to Chree this afternoon, we discovered that the Green Creative
A19-E26-8.5W-4000K LED light bulbs, a boatload of which we bought as
illumination for the wall fixtures in the house, don’t seem to be compatible
with the Legrand® WSCL453PW dimmer switches that we installed, as
evidenced by the lights constant flickering.
Not good! Chree went over to
Shoreham (15 miles of twisting back roads away) this morning to fetch the
custom cushion she had made for the mud entry bench seat. Arriving back at Fern Lake, we discovered
that the fabricator had put the zipper on the wrong side of the cushion. So back Chree drove to Shoreham. While she was grocery shopping in Middlebury
mid-afternoon, the fabricator called to say the cushion had been fixed. So back Chree drove to Shoreham…
15 May 2016
Tim, Kaleb, Matt, and
Brendin held their Sunday sunrise services with paint brushes in hand. They finished putting second coats of paint
on the guest bath (using a paint appropriately named Heavenly Aromas), master
bath, and upper hall, plus touched up spots around the rest of the house that
they thought were less than perfect.
After packing up all their stuff, they departed just after 9 for a
well-deserved rest-of-the-day off. I did
laundry and Kate house cleaning in the morning.
Chree and the dogs arrived back from Massachusetts at 2. We spent the rest of the afternoon thoroughly
cleaning all of the rooms that will be carpeted. Perry and Steve were otherwise engaged, so
enjoyed a solo sauna.
14 May 2014
Tim, Kaleb, Matt, and
Brendin once again arrived for work at 4 am; what a great way to spend a
Saturday! They painted hither and yon
until noon. Tim used Lenmar satin
polyurethane wood finish on the Ifelele railing top caps. What a differece using the right product
makes!!!! Please cross Minwax Quick
Drying Polyurethane off your lists. I caught
up on construction finances and then left mid-morning for a run to Burlington,
picking up four special orders at Best Tile and Lowe’s. Got back mid-afternoon and (hold on tight!)
spent the rest of the day reading.
13 May 2016
Tim, Brendin, Brett,
and Jason arrived sometime in the middle of the night, well before the sun or I
got up. I felt the gentle rocking of the
earth as Tim read my note… Tim and
Brendin finished sanding and varnishing interior doors. Brendin also put primer on all the closet /
pantry shelves. Jason spent his workday
cutting in the upper hallway with the Nice Cream paint, which looks 1,000,000
percent better than its yucky predecessor, and finishing the pantry. Brett put a second coat of sunshine yellow
(actually named: full fat Vanilla Ice Cream) on the laundry walls; you will never
be depressed in that room. Brett also
finished painting the front entry door.
Jackob Bilodeau and Justin McKeighan (Black Diamond Builders) were here
all morning blowing two tons of cellulose insulation into the
attic. They put in a layer approximately
15″ deep, which by itself equates to an R‑value between 48 – 55. That is on top of (literally) 3″ of closed
cell spray foam, which provides an R-value of 18. Plus, there is another 2″ of spray foam
coating the underside of the roof sheathing.
Bottom line: the attic is insulated to somewhere around R-80, well above
the minimum R-49 recommended for this region.
Sonny and Brandon installed all of the maple interior doorway
thresholds. They then fabricated the
pseudo chair rail that will separate, at the height of the kitchen countertops,
the Nice Cream on the upper walls from the dark red (Pompeian Red) on the lower
walls in the sun room. James Ploof and
Burt Wedge spent the morning laying down and compacting a 4″ layer of stone fines (aka stone dust) onto which the patio pavers will
be placed. The first mission of the day
for Tom and me was to install a rubber boot to seal the opening through which
the plumbing vent pipe rises majestically on the north-facing roof. The only problem is that the roof was covered
with pollen (it being that time of the month), which made it slicker than you
know what… and decidedly unsafe to walk upon.
Tom, being an old hand at roof work, quickly came up with a solution. He securely clamped a 2x4 between two
of the roof seams near the roof edge, then laid one of my 14 foot ladders on
the roof with the bottom end resting against the 2x4. Et voilá, we had a stairway to the sky. Thereafter, installing the roof boot took but
a few, very safe, minutes. Brandon (at
Chree’s behest) took pictures while Sonny bravely (and, perhaps, wisely)
observed from the ground, ready to call 9∙1∙1 if disaster struck. Then Tom and I tackled installing my weather
station on the roof above the sun room.
For that foray, Tom built an 8 foot wooden ladder, kept from sliding off
the roof by using the same 2x4 and clamps as before. We also took a step ladder up to the roof
ridge with us, so we could see the leveling bubble not-so-conveniently placed
on top of the 8 foot tall weather station.
We got the weather station installed just as it started to
rain. Talk about perfect timing! Tom and I spent the rest of the workday
putting in more electrical switches and outlets, plus the under cabinet light
in the study. Just before dinner, I beat
feet down to the Home Depot in Rutland to procure another two gallons of Nice
Cream… plus another neat tool to add to my Chree’s Shlomo’s
collection: a non-contact electric current detector, used to ensure that the
wire you’re about to cut is not, in fact, about to bite you.
12 May 2016
What a totally hectic
day!!!! Started, as usual, with the
painting crew arriving between 4 and 5 this morning. Tim and Brendin finished sanding and then
putting polyurethane varnish on all the rest of the doors except for two (more)
they found had been damaged in the Great Collapse last week. Jason started painting the upper hall with
Folly (a seasick light green most appropriate for an “institution”, if
you know what I mean; but more on that later).
Brett painted the inside and outside of the main entry and shop
doors. The Goodro’s truck showed up just
before the Granite Design truck, which necessitated some shuffling of the
lumbering beasts. The Granite Design
installers put in the kitchen, master bath, and guest bath countertops, which
are absolutely gorgeous. Even better
when seen a full slabs than they looked as samples! Brian Thomas (Black Diamond Builders) arrived
with the Goodro’s truck, which was bearing tons (literally) of cellulose
insulation in compacted bale form. The
bales were on four pallets. Fired up the
Kubota and tried to lift one of the pallets off the truck. No joy!
“How much does that stuff weigh?”, he wonders. “Thirty-five pounds a bale”, Brian
answers. “So, how many bales are on a
pallet?”, he asks. “Thirty-six.” “So each
pallet weighs over a thousand pound?”
“Yup, sounds about right.” “Well
I can only pick up 800 pounds with this tractor…” So we offloaded the truck by hand, thereby
ensuring that everybody had plenty of exercise to start off the day. After unloading the cellulose, Sonny and
Brandon worked the rest of the morning fabricating and installing closet
shelving, then Sonny finished that job in the afternoon while Brandon put the
handles on all of the kitchen drawers.
Sean arrived after the Goodro’s truck departed, with Kevin Haight
following soon thereafter. The three of
us discussed the details for the patio installation, the front walkway
construction, and Sean’s proposal for a hardscape area in front of the garage
(because, as everyone knows, Chree and I are made of money). Mid-morning, Jim and James Ploof pulled in
with their small excavator and bobcat loader.
They removed a fair amount of rocky fill from the patio area, then brought
in a load of road gravel to smooth over the remaining rough spots. That gravel was spread and compacted to form
a slight downhill grade (⅛″ per foot) so that
water on the patio will flow away from the house. Tom ran up to Williston in the morning to get
the bullnose tile needed for finishing the master bath shower. He got back late morning. Our plan had been for Tom and me to put the
rubber boot on the plumbing vent where it penetrated the roof. When Sean and Tom took a look at the vent
from the ground, they said it was only sticking through the roof by about 8″. (Good eyes! Measurement later showed that the actual
exposure was 7″.) I looked up the Residential
Building Code requirement: the plumbing vent is required to extend 6″ above the maximum expected snow accumulation on the roof, not to exceed
7 feet. So I cut off the much too short vent
pipe in the attic, cut a new piece of PVC pipe to length, and glued it back
on. Our plumbing vent now extends 30″ above the roof. By the time that
work was done and lunch consumed, the roof was too hot to work on. And, of course, it is supposed to rain
tomorrow! So I spray-foamed the bejesus
out of the underside of the vent roof penetration… and we’ll try to get the
rubber boot on before the rain starts.
Chree and the dogs left early afternoon for her monthly Devin fix. Tom did a little tile work in the master
bathroom while I was putting the fourth coat of varnish on the maple
thresholds, then he and I did some more electrical work, including running the
missing wire for the garage interior lights.
That required using some wire mold (an ugly, prefabricated, plastic
channel that hides a wire running on the surface of a wall) because there is no
way to snake a wire through the garage walls at this point without some major
deconstruction. Tom and I also installed
the spotlight on the northwest exterior corner of the house. After work, I found that Seagram’s 7, mixed
with just the right amount of Canada Dry ginger ale, really does slide down
very easily. This evening, left a note
over in the new house where Tim will find it upon arrival tomorrow
morning. It begins, “Even knowing that
you will hate me forever for this,…” and asks him to repaint the upper hall
with the Nice Cream that was used in the sun room, kitchen, and living / dining
room. Earthquake to follow…
11 May 2016
A
very eventful day, which started off with the lights going on over at the new
house shortly before 4 am. Tim
and Brett both decided to get an absurdly early start on their workdays. Why, you ask, was I awake at that hour to
observe the lights going on? You’ll have
to ask Geisha about that. She must have
figured that if she couldn’t sleep, than neither could Chree nor I... for the
second night in a row! Kaleb, Matt,
Brendin, and Jason arrived at the marginally more civilized six o’clock
hour. Tim varnished doors and the
Ifelele railing top caps; Brendin sanded doors for Tim to varnish; Kaleb and
Matt applied Macaroon Cream (amazingly, it looks just like macaroon cream) to
the lower hall walls, then Kaleb painted the half bath with Nature’s Gift (a lovely
medium green); Jason finished putting Chantilly Lace on the last of the trim;
and Brett started painting the inside of the exterior doors. When Tim wasn’t using the varnishing room, I
put a second coat on the maple thresholds in the morning and another just
before dinner. Sonny and Brandon worked
on putting in the cleats for closet shelving all day. Tom and I installed switches, outlets, and
lights in the kitchen / sun room area, including the two pendant lights and the
wall sconces. We also put in the two
puck lights that will illuminate the glass shelves in the upper hall and the
two swivel can lights that will provide accent lighting to the woodstove. Chree spent an hour before lunch installing
Anderson window hardware (the cranks that open / close the windows and the
levers that latch / lock the windows closed).
Dennis Senesac showed up unexpectedly mid-afternoon to appraise the
plumbing and HVAC work status. He
assured me that Steve will be back next week to continue that work, which will
be complete by 2 June. Ron Highter came
by late afternoon to take measurements and discuss design details for the four
custom cabinets he will be building for the house. Ron also took away all of the remaining
Ifelele to use in building some of that cabinetry. We got an email from our buyer’s realtor
saying that our Virginia house appraised for exactly the agreed upon sales
price. We be smilin’!!!!
10 May 2016
Tim, Kaleb, Matt,
Jason, and Brett started, as usual, at crack of dawn. Brendin arrived mid-morning. Tim sanded and varnished another set of
interior doors. Brendin worked on
preparing the Ifelele railing caps for varnishing. The painters painted, finishing the study and
living / dining room and getting a first coat on the sun room and kitchen. Turns out the new paint color we chose for
the study (Concord Ivory) is in the same color family as the master bedroom’s Petal
Tip (renamed: Passionate Purple), so at least they don’t clash. (And, yes, you see both colors immediately
upon coming in the front door.) Sonny
and Brandon worked all day making a new set of door thresholds out of some
beautiful (and beautifully expensive) maple that Goodro’s procured for us. I put a first coat of varnish on those
thresholds at the end of the day. Steve
spent much of the day in the attic, extending the plumbing vent stack up to and
through the north-facing roof. He also
extended the radon abatement piping over to the same locale in the attic, where
it will be capped off until needed (hopefully never). Tom and I worked on the electrical
installation all day. All 51 of the WAC
DISC 4000K surface mounted ceiling lights now are installed, and most of them
even are controlled by the proper switch.
Chree and I went over to the house at dusk; she came away much impressed
by the lighting levels and switch placement in each room. A great big double WHEW!!!
9 May 2016
Tim
got here this morning at 4 o’clock. Yes,
4 am!!!! Said he couldn’t sleep so he
figured he might as well be working. He
sanded eight of the interior doors (to a mirror smoothness!) and then applied
the third coat of varnish to their first sides.
The rest of the Ryan Quality Painting crew (Kaleb, Matt, Jason, and
Brett) got here, as usual, at 6. They
got most of the rest of the trim repainted and continued color-coating
walls. We’re pretty sure we like the
Nice Cream (which should be called Churned Butter) on the sun room, kitchen,
living, and dining room walls. Pretty
sure… Sonny and Brandon spent the morning sanding the boards destined to become
closet shelves. Brandon continued that
activity in the afternoon while Sonny started installing HardiBacker®
cement board on the walls behind where the guest bath neo angle shower is being
installed. Steve continued plumbing the
de-super heater tank. I installed
ceiling lights (and a few switches) all day, except for an extended break wrestling
with selecting window blinds… and a new paint color for the study. Janice Denu and Bri Desautels arrived at 9:30
with window blind, carpet, and paint samples.
With the exception of the study, the process of selecting blinds was
relatively painless. Unfortunately,
reaching consensus in the study took Chree and me a loooong time and was fairly
ugly. We finally agreed on Concord Ivory,
a much more muted orange, verging on Dijon mustard yellow, for the study
walls. It’s got to look better
than Squashed Pumpkin, or whatever the name was of the prior selection. The question is: how much better???? Tom Morrissey stopped by early afternoon,
only to find out what was going on, he thought.
I immediately put him to work troubleshooting electrical wiring
issues. He quickly pointed out that the
reason the miscreant shop light wasn’t working was because I hadn’t connected a
couple of wires. Ooops! By his normal 5 o’clock quitting time, we had
completely finished the electrical work in the two guest bedrooms. After dinner, Chree and I went to see a
wonderful performance by Amaryllis, a local group who sing madrigals. Might have been even better if I spoke
Italian…
8 May 2016
Sunday, Mother’s
Day. Jason and Brett worked from 6 ‘till
noon repainting trim. I started
installing ceiling lights while they were here.
After lunch I tackled some too long overdue updates to our personal
financial accounting. Chree returned
from Connecticut a few minutes after Perry, Steve, and I headed down for our
weekly therapeutic and social sweat session.
Finally having clean potable water immediately available at the sauna
sure is nice!
7 May 2016
Jason was here well
before 6 and spent the day (Saturday) painting trim. Tim arrived a little after 7, while I was
putting a second coat of varnish on the closet hanging rods, and he spent a
couple of hours mudding the interface between the Ifelele top caps and the half
wall railings. I took the Tacoma down to
the Leicester Town Garage to recycle the load of cardboard completely filling
the truck’s bed. George Denton, the
recycling person, was not happy to see the present I had brought him,
but allowed me to unload with assurance that (1) I was a Leicester resident and
(2) this was personal vice contractor waste.
The people waiting in line behind me while I unloaded (and unloaded, and
unloaded) also were less than pleased.
It’s a good thing I don’t have a “D0UG” vanity plate on my
truck… George and I had a lengthy,
amiable conversation, at the end of which he said I could bring a second load
down today. So I returned to Fern Lake,
filled the Tacoma’s bed with cardboard yet again, and returned to the scene of
the crime. After that, I ran errands in
Brandon, buying eye bolts at Aubuchon Hardware and making sure the Hannaford
grocery store won’t go out of business anytime soon. Returned once again to Fern Lake, I tried to
mount the Wen air filtration system box on the shop ceiling, discovering that
the eye bolts I had bought for that purpose were too short. So another round trip to Brandon ensued. Air filter installed, leveled, and fully
operational, I spent the balance of the afternoon putting up kitchen
lights. The lake level is 14½″ below the top of the dock and the water temperature already is up to an
almost-swimmable-if-you-are-hot-enough 57°F.
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