BREAK!

Daylight Saving Time began last weekend. Now I am arriving home after dark on workdays. I needed a couple more months of summer but as they say, "Time waits for no (wo)man!" so we are getting into winter and my house is not sided. The good news, the contractor finally called tonight and said they could start in December. I won't be painting after the siding is applied but that was the case, even if they started siding this week.

There are still projects outside I need to finish before the siding goes up but weekends are the only time available to work on these. Some indoor projects have been getting a little more attention though. The library is being pulled together. The third bookcase is now getting a coat of black paint and over half the paneling is up. Windows still need trimmed out and the final bookcase needs painted but this room is getting closer to where I want it.

Seasonal jobs have to be done now. The plants moved into the house last weekend, filling the south window in the craft room and spilling over into the dining room window. My "carrion plant" decided to bloom(TWICE) this year, only the second time it has bloomed in the 10 or more years that I have had it. It is a most remarkable looking bloom but it was good that it was mostly done blooming before it had to come inside. There is a reason it is called a carrion plant. It does seriously STINK!

The tomatoes were harvested over the weekend as well. The crop was not real impressive this year but as is usual, now that it is getting cold at night the vines are covered with lovely green tomatoes. Unfortunately, I am not a fan of fried green tomatoes so I am storing the green harvest, hoping they will ripen inside. Of course, large tomatoes did not appear until last month, so no slicers in red. I have no idea why I keep planting a "garden", I'm in the hole by the end of season, year after year. I hate gardening! I just want a few nice, homegrown tomatoes.

Summit!

I believe the rockpile has reached it's maximum sustainable height. One more layer of blocks

could be all it takes to topple the entire thing down into the street and driveway. As it is, I'm unlikely to be able to get my truck out until the rubble is gone.

I don't know what this stack weighs but I know the city better bring one of the big trucks to pick it up. Scooter very graciously agreed to pose on top to show how big the pile is. Actually, she found herself placed on top and when told to "sit" could not really see any alternatives anyway so she sat there.

The excavation of the back yard yielded a variety of artifacts. Dog toys, a rusty drill bit, numerous tennis balls, pop cans, pieces of old china and Ducky's ID tag were among the treasures unearthed beneath the cement. The downside, it has left a huge hole in the yard which today's rain turned into a massive mud wallow which the dogs romped through before coming in for supper.

Day 6, the hole grows!

I would not venture to guess how many pounds of cement I have stacked out by the curb now. The pile is about 2' x 4' and 3' tall and this doesn't include the 5 wheelbarrows full of small chunks and cement dust that has been deposited in the parking lot next door.

The deck boards were removed today, yet to come is removing the deck from the house. Still no sign of a contractor so who know, I may live the winter in plastic wrap. Since the siding is cement, installation could continue into cold weather but painting opportunities will soon be past for the year.

An end to this outside work wouldn't be all bad, a nice long nap in the afternoon, instead of demolition work, would be welcome but reality is, there are enough inside projects to last the next 1o years. Five rooms of flooring needs to be laid, finish the paper and paneling in the library, trim out the inside of a half dozen windows and the list goes on.

If I hold out for living until I finish all my projects, I should make at least 100. Hmm!

WHAT?

Taking "do it yourself-ing" to a new level, I started removing cement slabs from my backyard yesterday. This first involved the purchase of an 8 pound sledge hammer since I decided that handling a jack-hammer was most likely beyond me. That, a shovel, a spade and lots of elbow grease are the tools I set about this with.

I considered hiring someone to come in and take out the cement but the only company in the area with the equipment to do this is difficult to get out for "little" jobs like this. I'm still waiting, 8 years later, for them to return to repair my basement wall, a job they started then never returned to finish. Fortunately, they started by stabilizing the wall so it wouldn't collapse when they started digging out the basement and that has served to control the problem with the wall bowing inward.

Cement removal was prompted by the fact that when the basement and back half of the house was added, the backfill was not adequately tamped in before the cement pads were poured. When I moved in, 25 years ago there was no obvious problem but over time the ground has settled, dropping the cement nearest the house, draining directly to the basement wall. So far the water has not infiltrated the basement but it has been hard on the exterior of the house.

Change was needed and it appeared the only way to make it was grab a hammer and take out the cement so this is the latest job. Of course, I was aware of the fact that cement is generally hard but I was feeling confident. I've broken cement before. About 15 years ago I took out an 8'x12' slab before putting the deck on the house. What I didn't account for is how 15 years has treated me.

Now on the third day of cement removal, I have removed about 1/3 of the cement and stacked over half of it out at the curb, hoping it will be picked up when city clean up day comes next week. Getting out of bed this morning went much better than I expected but during the day I found that if I sneezed or coughed, all of my ribs hurt. I actually think swinging the hammer tonight eased the soreness but I may think differently in the morning.

What I found interesting during this project is that when I started taking out the sidewalk, I dug down to remove some dirt from under the slab to make breaking easier. About a foot down I discovered another sidewalk. At the end of the first day's work, I had a 3 foot square hole with a cement slab in the bottom of it. Obviously, at one time the yard was lower than it is now. Hmm! Maybe I could just fill it with water and toss in a couple fish.

The library window is almost done. The trim on the outside, all new, is finished and primed. It has a sill now, before there was only a 1x4 box around the edge of the glass, narrow edge out. The frame is still there around the glass but after cutting a 3/4 x 3/8 inch strip out of the side of a 1x4, the trim fit right down over the frame, hiding it in trim consistent with the other windows.


The inside isn't trimmed out yet. The inner glass, which I added shortly after moving into the house, had to be removed to clean the space between the glasses. When I originally installed this glass, I did not seal all the tiny gaps as well as they needed to be so over time, spider weds developed between the glass panes. Besides sealing the space well, that space was reduced from 2" wide to 3/4" wide by the removal of one set of stops, leaving just the one thickness. This was painted white so it would resemble the vinyl windows through the rest of the house.


The film for the window arrived Monday and was installed Tuesday. It is interesting, up close it is not so impressive but when you stand back several feet, it has a nice look. Definitely provides privacy from that side, there is no way to see anything but light through it, which is what I was hoping for. The size of the window just did not lend itself to curtains or blinds. I had no interest in making it look like a wider window as that would mean forfeiting valuable wall space. This seemed like a good alternative.

The night view from outside is pleasing, the chandelier creates a pleasant golden glow in the upper window. Once the inside of both windows are trimmed and the curtains rehung on the big window, I can spend my winter evenings in my library, writing more blogs about my house project.

Meanwhile, inside.....

With the passing of the autumnal equinox and days now getting shorter than nights, time to work on the house after the paying job is almost nil. In just 5 weeks, the time change will make for even less, in fact by the time daylight savings time ends, I will be arriving home in the dark. Not a good thing, considering the siding has not started going up yet.

Meanwhile, since it is now dark by 7:30, I have turned to working on the inside projects in the evenings. The new covering has started going up on the library walls and is quite pleasing. It goes well with the map colors on the ceiling and accent wall.

I added a new bookcase, one of those inexpensive, put together yourself types, in black so it matches the computer armoire. Instead of using the cheap cardboard back provided, I used pieces of the wall paneling from window holes to back it. This makes it look like open back shelves against the wall. I also added a "crown" to it so it would match the old bookcase I already had in the room. This was such a simple little project, I was surprised at the difference it made in the look of the piece.

Once the paint has time to cure, the books stacked on the floor will go back in the old bookcase then the third set of shelves can be emptied and painted. I've ordered a roll of window film which has a leaf pattern on it. It looks much like the pressed glass I used in the center of the front window. It will be applied to the fixed window in the library which is 16 inches wide and 70 inches tall. This skinny window does not lend itself to a lot of different treatments so this decorative film looked like a good fix and will tie this window to the front one.

A die hard bibliophile, my relationship with books began when I was barely out of diapers. I would pester anyone in reach until they would read to me and by the time I was 3 years old I could "read" my favorite book "The Hide and Seek Duck". Mind you, this was way before Sesame Street or "Hooked on Phonics, in fact, this was before my family even owned a TV. If you must know the truth is, I actually had the book memorized and believe me, a reader did not want to try to skip parts because I WOULD know!

When I went to school and really learned to read, the die was cast, I was destined to love books for the rest of my life. Being an introvert by nature, I relish my private time and need seclusion regularly to replenish my spirit. Books have always fit into this time, being companionable without expectation. When I discovered the public library, I was in awe. To see an entire building devoted to books was amazing and over the years I spent a lot of hours wandering among the aisles of books. Now I am going to have my very own library, complete with a crystal chandelier. Very decadent!

Moving on

I think this pleases me. It isn't perfect, a good eye will quickly pick out the errors but the overall look isn't bad. I'm more than half way through the stripping and wrapping portion. I'm actually rather proud of myself, although I am in my third summer of renovation, completing as much as I have was no small task. The best part, all the work has met a standard that I consider acceptable. Some of it is just plain good!


The house should be significantly more energy efficient when I finish everything. The first step was putting new windows all the way around, replacing old, wood sash, single glass windows, many of which had gaps where the sashes met. Aluminum storm windows helped but were not enough to stop the cold winds of a northwest Kansas winter. The last few years I resorted to putting plastic over the inside of the living room windows and when the wind blew, the plastic would "breathe" in and out with the gusts.



The other big factor should be the house wrap I am adding. Over half the house had no wrap at all or totally useless wrap. This shield long ago lost all it's protective properties, looking and feeling more like a child's construction paper that was soaked then dried out. I have occasionally kept my bill from the gas company, which lists fuel consumption for the prior 12 months so this coming winter I will be able to compare to last year to see if the difference is obvious.
On a positive note, I have actually encountered very little termite damage, although there are definitely termites in the area. I have found them from time to time when a log or board is left lying in the yard for some length of time. Apparently, much of this old yellow pine which is used almost exclusively on the original part of the house, is not very tasty to the little bugs. I have found a few boards that they have attacked, probably less than a half dozen, but no active sites.

The front of the house is starting to look naked now, with over half the siding removed. The trim is off the window and will have to be rebuilt as I did not get it done the way I want it the first time. There won't be much time to work on it during the week since days off will be severely limited in the next month or so. Two other workers are out on medical leave now so it will be hard for anyone to take time off unless it is an emergency. Of course, if it starts snowing, THIS could be an emergency.