Up On A Roof or Down In The Basement

Steve was Up On A Roof (I hear James Taylor singing in my head). He went up to do some tuck pointing around a few bricks, and fill in a gap where one was missing.  Since we had the chimney height reduced last year,  he has been wanting to get up there and fix that last gap.  The chimney is blocked off and not used for anything, so it's just basically for decoration. Someday, if we ever were to redo the roof with metal,  we would probably take it down completely.

The chimney is pretty ugly. Originally, I had been thinking that since the bricks don't match in color, it would be nice to just paint over each brick surface with my red paint on a roller and make everything match. But once he got up there he said the lower darker red bricks are much rougher and will be harder to paint, compared to the lighter bricks above. 

So instead, he is going to parge over the entire surface with masonry cement and paint the whole chimney solid red. It's going to warm up later this afternoon so he will work on it then. For now, he took care of wire brushing down any loose spots and dirt. He gave it a light scrubbing with a degreaser and he will let that dry.

While he was up on a roof, I was down in the basement. Well, almost. I gave a fresh coat of paint to the bulkhead doors that lead to the basement in the newer half of the house. They had gotten slobbered up when Steve was painting some of the white trim and siding up above, especially the soffits--- he got some drips that landed down on the bulkhead. So it needed a new fresh coat of my red paint anyhow.

I never wanted the bulkhead in the first place. 

That's the whole reason why I got the bedroom window!

See, we made a deal. Last year Steve wanted to rip down the regular shed type entrance to the basement that had an upright door and a roof, etc  I thought it was fine the way it was.  

Here is the blog post about that process:  and-walls-came-tumbling-down   I didn't like the idea of the bulkhead cuz you have to lean over, open up the slanted doors and walk down into it like going into a bomb shelter! LOL. So if he wanted to put on these bulkhead doors, the deal was then the space left over on the wall I could have the big window in the bedroom. So he got what he wanted and I got what I wanted --- and it's finally done! 

Well, almost.

This morning, right before we were making breakfast together, he took out his ladder and the two red shutters that I had already painted for the bedroom window.

While I was watching him, I was standing on the patio looking at the surface and texture of the new siding we had put up. This isn't plain old vinyl siding. It's called LP Smart Siding and it has a beautiful texture embossed into the wood strips. It's put on a strip at a time just like regular old wood siding but it lasts a lot longer. I like it so much better than vinyl siding. I like looking at the natural texture of it where it looks like it could be real wood.

Anyhow, back to Steve. 

Zip Zip Zip in no time flat he had both of the shutters mounted on each side of the bedroom window.

Now we just need one more set for the bathroom window. They will be 74 inches tall and not as common as the shorter ones. I have been watching the ReStore shutter bin for a number of months, and haven't seen any that tall. 

Here is the East side and back yard that we did this year. New siding, new windows all around and the screen door, along with the patio stones and rain chain. We fixed and painted the foundation surface too. The bulkhead doors are the same color as the shutters and picnic table, just the angle and light make them appear brighter.

We didn't find any shutters on our last stop at the ReStore in Marinette. But he is going to Green Bay today with the neighbor to do some other shopping. He will stop and look at the ReStore in Green Bay. But if they don't have them he might just bite the bullet and pick up a full price set at Home Depot! Can you imagine that? Paying full price? At the ReStore we usually find them for $5 each. At Home Depot it'll cost about $60 or $70!

Okay, back down into the basement for me. I had a few more bunches of my coleus that I had dug up in the yard and some that I had rooting in glass jars in the window in the kitchen. Time to get them planted for the winters retreat in the safety of the basement. I keep enough plants growing all winter in the south-facing windows. In the Spring, when the danger of frost has passed, I am able to transplant them outside again

This year, Steve made it easier for me to water the flowers in the basement. I used to have to carry buckets of water down from the kitchen each and every week, all winter long. Hauling buckets of water from the kitchen, through the She Shed, through the side door, outside through the snow, then lean over and lift up and go down through his dang bulkhead doors, down the steps and into the basement. Now, it's so much easier because he added a laundry sink to the basement. Not only is it good for watering my plants, but it's right there for washing out paint brushes and roller pans and even to bathe the dog.

I have some painting of the trim to do to finish out the inside of the bedroom window. Also the big wide old original mop boards can be put back into place.  We are recreating the top crown and egg and dart trim for the top of the new window, as well as the top of the new closet trim.  Then it will match the other window and both doorways. 

So that's it for our home improvements today. Like I said, Steve is off to Green Bay with the neighbor for a couple hours. I will finish up this blog and get my own stuff done.  I might get in a couple hours of quilting or weaving.

This evening we're babysitting three of the grandkids so I have a list made up of fun stuff to do after we pick them up from school.

Trim - Tasks - and Time with Family

Steve got up this morning and decided it was time to start trimming the inside of the new windows. It was rainy and icky outside, so there was nothing for him to work on out there. 

He got out all of his tools.  It was measure measure measure, in-and-out in-and-out to the power saw in the garage to cut each little board.  He had to figure everything out so each piece would all be symmetrical and perfect. He would write down the measurements on his little clipboard, but he didn't always remember to take it with him out to the garage. Good thing he still has a pretty good memory. 

He pre-treated all of the knots with Zinsser shellac spray. Otherwise they will eventually bleed through the paint, even after multiple coats.

Attaching the trim boards is pretty easy with the little air powered finish nailing gun. He has this little portable tank that he can fill up with air from the big air compressor in the garage.  Binney does NOT like the nail gun, whatsoever. She came over to give it a sniff out of curiosity before he started. Once the 1st nail was driven into the wood, she scattered for the hills!  (and hid behind our bed)

Putting the trim on is like the final dressing on the window project.  He really wanted to get this trim in place.  It makes kind of like a "picture frame"  around the beautiful scene looking out into the backyard. It was bugging him to get a move on, and I had to move his stuff around to make him breakfast and take a break. 

Once he had all the wood into place, and then he caulked all of the little cracks and seams. That way, when it's painted with the white paint, you don't see all of the dark cracks and seams where two pieces of wood meet. I had to wait a little while for the caulking to dry before I could paint. He uses a paintable latex caulk that doesn't take too long to cure. 

Out came my little favorite roller and painting tray. I like those little 4" rollers instead of a wide brush. I still use a narrow angled brush to cut in the little edges in go along the edges of the window. But the roller seemed to leave a nice smoothly painted surface without any bristle marks from the brush.  It was getting rainy and dark, so I was loosing my natural light for painting the first coat.

While I had a pot roast in the pressure cooker for dinner, I was able to get the 1st coat of paint on all of the new wood trim.  I do enjoy painting, and this was such a small job, that it was done in no time. 

I think that it sure looks nice and neat. Steve did a very good job trying to make both windows appear the same and to have a nice little ledge and reveal to frame in the windows.

I can't wait until the 2nd coat is on and dry. Then the grand kids can line up my little blown glass paperweights all along on the sills.

~~~~~~~~~

Yesterday was a good day. I spent some time with my sister. As of writing this blog post, she now has 6 doses of her radiation completed. She only has 4 more to go. 

My goodness, I love her so much!!!

 She is so brave to go through all of this.

I brought her some goodies and things to help make her comfy.  Her husband has been a champ to run and get things and keep her on schedule for all the sessions.  He has been through cancer himself, so he knows what she needs too.

After our visit, she needed to go back to the hospital for her next dose of radiation. We left there and drove up to Door County, Wisconsin to spend the rest of the day with Steve's dad, Paul.

He had prepared us a wonderful lunch of baked chicken, baby red potatoes and carrots. It was delicious. He is quite a cook for 88 and a 1/2 years old~ 

Next, he had a list of projects that he needed a hand with. He made a pretty good supervisor while Steve took care of power washing his little tractor.  

This beautiful flowering crabapple tree needed a couple dead branches taken out. Steve took care of it rather quickly and we carried the branches back to the burn pile. Things are way too dry right now in Wisconsin to do any burning, best to wait for another day.

Pops Pfundtner got his little raised garden cart already planted for the summer. Three different colors of peppers, some tomatoes, and I believe he also said green beans and a few other things are planted as seeds. He also took care of getting some tomato cages adapted to fit in the cart and protect the tomatoes from the harsh Door County winds.

It was an absolutely gorgeous day, sitting out on his backyard deck. The wind chimes were clanging as the breeze was blowing. There were birds flickering here and there. All of the trees were in flowering bloom as well as spring flowers poking up everywhere.

After all of the work was done, they needed to sit down and play a hand of cribbage. It was a tight game and getting competitive towards the end, but Pops pulled ahead and finished with a 3 point hand to win!

It was a long ride home, and we were glad to spend a wonderful day with Paul. He has such energy and ideas and great conversationalist. I love spending time with him. We did a couple little things on his computer, and he is very well adept at handling all of these new modern technology things. He takes it all in stride. I am quite proud of him.

After we got home, we ran a little errand out to our daughter Heather and son-in-law Jesse's house. They have the most absolutely beautiful magnolia tree in full bloom in front of their home. Little Whitney posed to be the little "Magnolia Blossom Queen"--- Just look at those beautiful eyes!

As we went to bed last night, we were thankful for family and all of us trying to help each other along the way in this journey we call life. On Saturday, my siblings are going to gather here while we watch my mom's live streamed memorial service from Florida. It will be a sad day, but it will be a good day for all of us. We need this.