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.