how I spent my birthday...
I got up at six thirty today, had some coffee and headed out to the big, overpriced orange box for some lumber, then swung by the grocery store and did the week's shopping, then came home and spent the better part of the day finishing one of those projects that's been hanging over my hear for years. We replaced the framing and put a bay window in the back wall of the living room years ago, but when I was finishing the outside of the wall, I ran out of recycled shingles from the original wall before I was able to do the bay itself. Since then it's had some painted plywood sheathing on it and when that got ratty, I just put some tar paper and lath on it, just to protect the wood from the weather until I could find some matching shingles somewhere. After searching every old timey lumberyard in Jersey, scouring Ebay and even stopping at houses that were being demolished, I couldn't find any that matched. About a month ago, I was shopping for some hardware at Lowe's and was looking at some roof shingles and right there, on the bottom of the pallet rack, was one sealed package of composition shingles, with the same wood grain pattern as on the rest of the house. I scapped the up and brought them home and finally today, I ripped all new trim for the bottom of the bay, installed and primed it and put on the shingles, as well as a row under the bay, just for good measure.



I managed to get all the nails set, the wood primed and all the seams caulked, but it was a bit too chilly by then to think about any finish painting. I guess I'll have to do that the next day it's in the sixties, which I hope will be next weekend. Even if the air temperature is cool, that wall gets full sun for most of the day, so the wood and shingles will be warm enough to paint. One more thing almost crossed off my list...

Here it is, almost the end of October, and my purple Hyacinth Beans are finally starting to bloom...



I think I'll go back to Morning Glories and Moonflowers next year.

Well, I'm going to go kick back and watch some Sunday night football. I'm stuffed on the pizza and walnut peanut butter cookies Mrs. SOG made for me today.

Have a wonderful evening, my fellow wanderers. Fare thee well...


wander with me...