(More of what happened since June 2009)The heating system was finished quickly & the fillup/first run was uneventful with no leaks or problems. Lynna worked constantly getting in the landscaping and only called on me for occaisional muscle or tractor work. Our naturalistic landscape is filling in nicely and we got a lot of vegetables from my 20'X30' garden.
I got a big pile of Cedar decking from John's brother but when I built our deck, we ran out of wood & had to go back for more. Unfortunately, I neglected to note the thickness of the original stock & the new boards were about 1/8" thicker. I laid out the planks to cover the holes & eventually borrowed Jeremy's planer one hot day. Lynna caught while I fed the 12' & 14' boards. Then I completed the deck and built some stairs for Lynna, next we went through the color selection process. Once we had agreement, everything was stained and the railing painted, it looked pretty nice.
The Summer heat bothered us enough that we mounted an air conditioner in a dining nook window. It comes out in the Fall & is stored downstairs in my shop over the Winter.
We had lots of time with our grand kids and took in the sheepdog trials in Scio. Those are some smart dogs! One of the best dogs sat near us & intently studied the other dogs performance while he waited his turn.
After I got all the doors hung, I wrapped the windows with Fir then (as time allowed) re-sawed & ripped the door & window trim down from my big stash. Everytime I produced a big pile, out came the tarps & I would put on the Danish oil finish. When it dried, I would put up trim door by door & window by window until I ran out of finished wood. Then repeat the process. I expect to finish the last of the trim tomorrow. I saved the 3 arched windows for last due to their large size, the difficulty resulting from the arches and the fact that I have reached an age where working 12' up on a step ladder is out of my comfort zone. I'm quite pleased with how the dining room and Entry windows turned out. The Den, not so much and I may re-do its arch at some point. For now, I'll live with it.
Our Master Bath called for an oversize shower and we had trouble finding someone to install the glass surround. I offered the job to several contractors but was surprised when they begged off as I knew they needed the work. Eventually, I took it on myself. After all, how hard could it be?........Pretty difficult actually but relying on my "pig headed" gene, I soldiered on & got er done!
In September of 2009, we moved Lynna's mom down here from Whidby Island, WA. Originally, she was going to live with us but she really wanted her own place, so she settled for one of the cottages at the Lakeside Assisted Living center just down the hill from us. getting her moved & settled took about a month and I decided to leave the West bedrooms & bathroom unfinished until the house was more complete. (This was to change later)
