This is therapy. Really...
Here's the old trough gutters on the front of the house, which never gets any sun. Apparently they've been leaking and I didn't know it. This is during the eight hour destruction process. I'm really getting too old to spend eight hours standing on ladders doing stuff like this, but I do enjoy it...
Even in it's current condition, it was a bitch to get these down, they were built to last forever. It's not worth trying to repair them, I'm going to have to rebuild them in the fall, for right now I'm just going to replace the first course of roof shingles, put a new fascia on and drip edge, and cheap aluminum gutters. I'll have to contend with any damage to the wall framing from the inside when I gut the living room and the upstairs bedroom. Here's what it looked like with them gone.
As you can see, I saved the return on the ends of the eaves, it was in good shape and I can repair what needs to be repaired and won't have to recreate it. That was Friday.
Saturday... merry, merry Saturday. Spent another eight hours on the ladders, using a cold chisel and hammer to cut off the old galvanized metal sheeting the formed the trough of the gutter. As with any project on a house this old (160+), every time you uncover something, you wish you didn't; the last eight inches of the roof cladding was all warped and rotting, so it has to come out and be replaced before I can start the reconstruction. This is going to add another day to the process, which is going to get dicey, since they're calling for thunderstorms on Tuesday, so there goes my attendance at the annual family Memorial Day party on Sunday. If nothing else, Stately Sad Old Goth Manor presents the challenge of mental gymnastics every time I do something like this. It's a good thing I can think on my feet and have enough restoration and carpentry experience to be able to switch gears and come up with workable solutions to little twists like this. It also helps to have a little extra tucked away in the project funds department. I learned early on that, when working on this grim old pile, you can expect everything to take twice as long and cost twice as much as in a house of a more recent vintage. It's also a challenge working with wood that is of nominal dimensions. A 1 x 8 is really 1 x 8, none of this 3/4 x 7 1/2 crap. Makes for some challenging retrofitting. That, and the lack of any straight, level or plumb walls or framing. Before this place was christened as Stately Sad Old Goth Manor, it was known as The House of Seven Angles... Well, that was Saturday. Tomorrow is shopping for lumber, more destruction, then starting to put things back together. Right now, it's Jameson's on the rocks. I think I'll light a fire in the pit tonight, if the wind dies down a bit, and pull out the old Church Warden pipe. I have some Longbottom Leaf laying around here somewhere. It will be a good pipe night. Dancing flames, good tobacco, a few more stiff drinks and some reflection on the day past and planning for the day yet to come...
As predicted, a long, busy Sunday. Hit the lumber yard early and picked up all the wood I need for the fascia, replacing the roof cladding and batter boards to support the overhang and nail the temporary gutters to. I'm going to put up some vinyl gutters for now, I'll rebuild the trough gutters next year when I reside the house. While everyone was partying it up at Mrs. SOG's sister's place, I was climbing up and down, measuring, cutting, fitting, trimming and refitting the new fascia. After I got it fitting pretty good around the windows, I spent a few hours painting all the lumber with an exterior primer so the back side of everything is sealed against the ambient moisture and the front side will be ready for finish paint to match the rest of the trim. Here's where I was painting, under the shade of one of our ancient maples...
And here's my trusty Bosch barrel body jig saw, if you're ever in the market for a jig saw, look no further than one of these. Quiet, no vibration at all, easy to grip and control, infinitely variable speed and three position oscillation of the blade. Got it on Amazon for almost half price a few years ago.
I have a lot of portable power tools, everything from a Dremel motor tool to a right angle, gear driven circular saw and one thing I've learned is that you get what you pay for. Buy the very best you can afford, and you will probably never have to replace it in your lifetime. So, anyway, back to the task at hand. After I finished painting the wood, I took a little break to let it dry and took some pictures of something other than the project...Here's our little baby rabbit, who's been graced with the name of BunBun... Yeah, I know, but he's such a cute little bugger and, since we never chase any of the animals the wander the grounds, he's become quite used to us and hangs out with us. He's only about eight inches long right now, but pretty independent and eats like a pig. Hasn't strayed into the gardens yet, seems pretty content with the clover and grass.
Mrs. SOG was out shopping yesterday and bought a new piece of garden art, the spitting image of BunBun... here it is, huddling under one of my Coral Bells in the back door garden...
And, just one more... here's my fancy purple witch ball, surrounded by some light violet bearded iris, some campion, Speedwell and Coral Bells, with our crazy Crape Myrtle in the background.
We never know if it is going to live through the winter, or if it's going to bloom or when. A few years ago, it didn't leaf out until mid June and flowered in September. Last year, it had flowers in June. This year, it leafed out early, but no sign of flower buds yet. Anyway, I did go back to work and got the new fascia up. Looks pretty good.
Monday is going to be panic mode day. I have to rip out all the old cladding along the edge of the roof, install the new cladding and at least get some roofing paper on it, since they're calling for thunderstorms on Tuesday. I guess I'll have to finish it on Wednesday or Thursday. I also need to mow the damned lawn, it's up to my ankles...
Well, I never got to my pipe or fire last night and I'm too beat to contend with either tonight, so I think it's a few snorts of Jameson's and watch the end of the race at Charlotte and then off to bed. Gotta get an early start...
Well, it's Tuesday. I spent Monday up on the ladder for nine hours. Well, almost nine hours; I also spent a few hours hanging off the edge of the roof cutting off the first foot of cladding with a circular saw. Nothing like high altitude acrobatics with dangerous power tools. Spent the rest of the time fitting the new cladding and nailing it up, keeping my right eye on the West, as they were calling for thunderstorms in the early evening. After I got the cladding up, I put up some roofing paper to protect everything from the impending rain and tacked it into place. It's a good thing I did, as we had a heavy shower in the middle of the night... at the same time I was writhing around on the living room floor with a muscle cramp in my right let that was so bad I almost passed out and I did throw up. I can handle a lot of pain; I was up and walking around the afternoon of the day they sliced my knee open and cut out one of the two knee caps I was born with. I was up walking around the same day the cut out my gall bladder and the same day after they fixed a huge hernia. I've weathered shattered bones in my arm and wrist with no issues, but those freaking leg cramps I just can't handle. I've never felt anything like that in my life. I keep stretching out and bending my legs all the time I'm working on the ladder, but it never fails. Well, that was Monday and Monday night; Tuesday was supposed to be thunderstorms all day, so I didn't plan on working outside, but it turned out to be a nice day after all, so I ended up mowing the grounds and trimming and cleaning up debris. I guess Wednesday will be back up on the roof, putting down a layer of plywood, then shingles, then the batter boards to hold the gutters. I still have to rebuild the returns on the ends of the house, but I can't do the Eastern end until the cable guy shows up Friday morning to move the drop. I'm not messing around with that.
Well, a cheeseburger and a jar of stout are calling. See ya tomorrow...
Well, now it's Monday... here's a recap of Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday...
Wednesday and Thursday, I finished the carpentry on the eaves of the front of the house, ripped off the first course of roof shingles, put in some plywood sheathing over the first row of board cladding, put on roofing paper, replaced the first course of shingles, added some aluminum flashing, put in the starter strip and finished reshingling the eaves, after I installed forty feet of trip edge... Then I spent several hours cleaning up debris and stacking it in the driveway so when the dumpster shows up on the 14th, I can load it in, along with all the other twenty eight years of accumulated crap in the barn and the spare rooms upstairs, including furniture, our old bathroom vanity, fun junk like that. Thursday night I sat under the star filled sky, drinking Guinness, smoking my pipe and hoping that the Ben-Gay I slathered all over my thighs and calves helped hold off the onslaught of cramps that I was sure were coming. Luckily, they did not...
Friday, it was my turn to play Captain Power Wash... I went to the local equipment rental place in Freehold, where I am known with great and genuine affection as "The Pump Man" (another story for another time...) and rented the biggest, meanest looking piece of water spraying machinery they had, loaded it into the pickup and brought it home. I hooked it up to the hose, fired it up and proceeded to blast untold years of accumulated grime, gunk and mold off the front and back porches, sidewalks and foundation, and, for good measure, the concrete pad under our oil tank. Then, since I was having such a gay time, I washed the east and north side of the house, which had taken on a hazy grayish green look from the accumulated road dust and mold from never getting sun. I also removed a fair bit of paint from the shingles, which is no big deal as we're going to paint the dump so it looks good for a few more years while I build up the funds to rip it all off and replace it with cedar clapboard siding, like it should have. I also washed (removed paint from...) all the trim on the front of the house, so we can repaint that now, as it was getting pretty grungy looking. By now I was soaking wet and primed for more power washing, so, for good measure, I did the cedar picnic table, I mean, if you can do a wood deck, why not a wood table. I'll be sanding it smooth and varnishing it this weekend, 3000 psi does raise the grain a bit... Still not satisfied, I turned the sprayer on Grillzilla, which now looks like new and, thankfully, does not need new paint... I thought I had run out of things to clean, when I spied The Titanic, our 13' fiberglass canoe sitting next to the barn, so I dragged it out into the yard and gave it a go. It went from a dark, dirty grey to a nice bright white again. You can even see the painted on faux birch bark effect again. Now I won't be embarrassed to take it out on the lake any more. By now, the novelty of playing with high powered water was running thin, so I dragged the machine back to the rental place, shot the breeze with the guys there for a while and came home and cleaned up. By now it was starting to cloud over, so I decided to hang and relax for a while. I watched the truck race on the tube, then crashed. Saturday loomed...
Saturday was on and off thunderstorms, so I spent the day running errands, hitting the paint store, hardware store, post office, the recycling center, and vacuumed out the truck. Since it had started to clear out a bit by the afternoon, I also gave it a bath, which, according to lore and scientifically proven fact, does more to draw rain from the sky then any cloud seeding or itinerant rain-maker can do. It poured. It was a good test for the new work of the front of the house, no leaks and, once I get the gutters up, no more water cascading down the front of the house, although it does offer a somewhat tranquillizing zen waterfall effect... ever the romantic, I am...
Saturday night was spent in a semi-zombie like state in front of the idiot box, watching yet another race. I guess I'm sort of a red-neck goth at heart. I do love the old go-fast, turn-left stuff.
Sunday, the day of rest... yeah, right. Up early, I did the grocery shopping (yet another great form of therapy for me). Came home, put everything away, went out and knocked about the gardens for a while, deadheading the spent flowers, fluffing up the mulch and hanging with Bunbun the bunny. Damned little guy has no fear of me at all. We became good friends during the week. I also bagged up the half yard or so of mulch that I had left over, I'll be needing it soon, Mrs. SOG wants an evergreen and Hosta garden on the west side of the house. No rest for the wicked...
I dragged out all the debris I bagged up to the front for the garbage men to pick up on Monday morning, I have to remember to give those guys something sometime, they never leave anything I put out there, no matter how heavy or un-garbage like it might be. I goofed around for a while, took a shower and sat down and watched yet another race, knocked down a few stouts, has some turkey sausage and sauerkraut for dinner and hit the rack. Back to work on Monday, which is the day I'm writing this five day recap.
I have to confess, by Wednesday, the glow was off the rose, so to speak, so I didn't take any more photos, except for this one on Friday afternoon...
Goth as Carpenter... you know, I think if I let my beard grow, I'd allow that I might look a bit like GuyK...
albeit, I don't think my scraggly patch could run a close third to that chin warmer...
Well, like I said, it's Monday. Went back to the grind today. Sorry to say, it's like I never left...
Came home tonight and started dragging stuff out of the living room, number two on my "honey-do" list. I will take pictures of this remodeling project, it's going to be a doozy...
I'm going to go chill for a while, then to outside around ten-thirty and spy the ISS and the shuttle. I watched the ISS last week go over in a crystal clear sky, it was the brightest thing in the heavens. You can find out when it's going over your neck of the woods here.
I do have to say, I am feeling a lot better, both physically and mentally. I love carpentry and woodworking, it puts me in a better place. It's nice to look at something and know that it came to be from the workings of your mind and sweat of your brow.
Well, my dear fellow wanderers, I bid thee a wonderful eve and peace be upon you.
'night...
wander with me...
Labels: i wander...
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home