More staining

A year ago I finished the front stairs and I joked that I would get around to the back stairs in the New Year. Well at least I got there before this year ended.
Inspired by the beauty of the newly stained siding I finally got on and stained the back stairs. They were the most hellish job as some joker had glued the carpet to the stairs and carpet adhesive sticks really, really well y'know. I started this job with Verity's help in July. We sanded and sanded and then the humid weather kicked in so I had to leave it for a while. When it got cooler and I could open the windows I started with the adhesive remover. Several coats of adhesive remover, which you have to remove after it has worked its magic. Then I stained, and I realised that the stairs were still sticky so I stripped them again and again and again. Five different products and four months later and hurrah the back stairs match the front stairs.Two nights later Sadie fell down the back stairs and gouged a big track in her effort to hang on. The work never ends.

Beautifying

I can't get over the difference that the paint and stain has made to the outside of the house. The redwood stain has hardly changed the colour but has added a depth and richness to the siding while enhancing the variations in the wood. We opted to match the colour of the replacement windows on the windows and doors and you really can't tell which is old and which is new. A bizarre but really attractive thing has happened with the garage doors: when the sun shines it projects a shadow of the trees onto the doors - we have our very own movie show each evening. How cool is that? I presume it has something to do with the bronze tone in the paint but I'm guessing here. It certainly didn't happen with the horrible "cedar tan"

Weatherproofing

Summer is almost over and winter will be here before we know it, so we are taking advantage of the unseasonably clement weather to waterproof the house. The painter was keen to start power-washing the house while the weather was still warm and last week they washed away seven years of mold, moss and dirt to reveal the beautiful redwood beneath.
We had no idea that it would come up so beautifully - from grey to amber in two days. I almost wanted to leave it at that but I am persuaded that a coat of Cabot Clear Pacific Redwood Stain will actually protect the siding for the next 3-5 years. The staining process began this morning and already three of the twelve sides have been stained. So far so much better.
Can't wait to see it with the freshly painted windows and doors, and then we can get the roofers in to make us completely watertight.

Sticky stuff

Humidity is a real pain when you're trying to stain windows. You have to have them open of course but the inside temperature is 80F and humidity level is 89% meaning that they take forever to dry and sweat runs everywhere making the process way beyond unpleasant. In the end, although it broke my heart, I had to put the air-conditioning back on. It's September for goodness sake!
Still, I have finished nine of the windows, hurray. And I have put one coat on the back stairs. At this rate I will have finished sometime in January 2006. And I do not want to have the windows open when it's below freezing either.

More repairs

I can't believe it's been almost two months since I last posted here. It's not that I have been away or seriously incapacitated, more a case of a fantastic summer encouraging long days in or by the pool and evenings watching the sun set over the Long Island Sound. In contrast to last year when we had cool weather followed by the remnants of three hurricanes, this year has been hot and dry.
The sprinkler system chose this arid period to play up. We extended it earlier in the year and it had been running fine but it suddenly stopped altogether. A phone call to the irrigation guy and we had a bunch of advice: try the battery, the fuse and the transformer. We replaced all three and thought we had it up and running again. But walking across the lawn one morning I realised that I wasn't getting wet and I usually play dodge the sprinkler at that time. A closer inspection revealed that it probably hadn't worked since the system broke down a couple of weeks before. If it had been any other part of the yard I would have left it until the winterization but I didn't want to lose all the grass so I called the guy and he came out, did everything we had done, replaced the timer and then came up with the bad news: we needed a new valve. He's an honest guy so he suggested we get a quote for a new system on the basis that as it was thirty years old things would break down more often and it might be cheaper just to replace it. He also offered to get a quote for a new valve. Two days later I had his quote $275 for the valve installed, and the new system $6500 with free winterization (a $150 value) the first season. Guess which one we went with?
The sprinklers are working again and we still haven't had any rain, forecast is 90F tomorrow - I hope this holds a little longer as we are having the siding power-washed and stained this month and the painter likes it to be warm when he works. I'll keep you posted.

Too humid for me

he past week has been so humid it's been horrible: grey skies, dripping trees and the occasional violent thundershower to liven things up. We haven't seen the sun in so long we've forgotten what it looks like. Even walking the dogs in this weather leaves you melting and breathless, so we've severely curtailed outside work.
The other reason that we are not chopping down trees or clearing undergrowth is that Steven broke the loppers taking down a maple and I can't summon up the courage to go to the Home Depot and buy another pair. HD is too big, badly laid out and the lighting is terrible so I go into it as little as possible, which is still way more than I want to.
I have spent the time when I should be outside enjoying the sunshine painting around the new windows and touching up the walls here and there. Thanks to central air I can do this any time, and I feel guilty that it's taken me several months to get round to it. In my defence I can say that it is fiddly work and I was hoping that a painter would come and do the job for me but that doesn't seem to be happening.
We now have nice new asphalt on the cul de sac side of the property that matches the asphalt the village put in on the road last autumn and the neighbours on the other side have paved their drive too. I don't think our drives need doing yet but they are a different colour from every other piece of road around here, and I guess it's something we will have to do before too long.

Apologies to the neighbours

Late spring and early summer here are marked by the sounds of power tools being wielded by contractors and landscapers as everyone races to get the heavy stuff completed before the heat and humidity set in. We haven't any really big projects to do before autumn but we have managed to get quite a few small jobs completed: the rotten window sill has been repaired and as I chopped back a huge holly and arborvitae we have a better view of the west side of the property. The landscaper spent a whole day pruning and trimming all the shrubs so everything is clean except for the north side. I spent an hour pulling weeds there and have the poison ivy scars to prove it.
I also cleaned out a piece on the NW side about 10' x 10' that I wanted to plant up, but we discovered that the irrigation system wasn't working on this patch so I had to get the guy out to fix it, otherwise nothing would grow up there. I want to put in some sun-loving plants as this area is always sunny whereas most of the rest of the yard is filled with shade tolerant plants. Hopefully we can go to the nursery to look this weekend.
We had the bloc party and decided on some priorities for sprucing up the road. The electrician came and ran a new line from our yard to the lights on the cul-de-sac, and they look great, too. I suggested that he put in some lights at the turning circle up the court and they ran with that idea, I think it may be Christmas every evening up there: sparkling! Now we are waiting for the paving crew to asphalt the road and then I guess I'll have to lose my trees because they do block the lights a little. I'm feeling better about the idea (and, neighbours, I'm sorry I was a bitch about chopping them down) but I'm still waiting to see what they want to replace them with.

It feels like summer

Winter has finally left us and it has turned hot and humid here. We spent Memorial Day in the pool, which was a little chilly but it felt like a very American thing to do. We also barbecued and sat on the deck at the Beach Club to watch the sun set. A very satisfying day all round. We've also accomplished a few things that have been on hold whilst the weather has been so bad: fixing the pond was the major achievement. I was expecting to have to buy a new pump or at least a new cable for the old one but when Steven and his father got it out of the pond and cleaned it it worked first time.
Actually, it worked a little too well: they decided to clean it in the kitchen sink and I arrived just as they plugged it into the socket and water shot 6' in the air and soaked the ceiling and most of the floor, too. So I got a scrubbed floor and ceiling out of the deal; luckily they missed the light fixture by a hair's breadth. It took another couple of days to clean out the accumulated soil and debris from the pond and to angle the flow from the waterfall so it circulates back but I think it's done now and it is very restful to sit on the patio and listen to the water trickling down the rocks.
I have pruned two enormous holly bushes to about a third of their original size and replanted the rhododendrons that were dying off under the hemlocks. I hope they like their new homes. I also uncovered an entire rockery on the southern corner of the south drive, which was a totally unexpected and pleasant surprise. I got Steven to reset some of the stones and it's waiting to be replanted in September.
The final thing was to tackle the kitchen window sill that was completely rotten. We couldn't do this until I had pruned back the holly and the evergreen (above)that were right against that wall. Taking it down dramatically increased the light in the kitchen but also exposed a lot of rotten wood on the sill. I dug out a piece to see if I could fit a "dutchman" but it looked too big a job for me. Then Steven and his father had another go at it before declaring it a workman's task. So today I have a man replacing the entire sill and hopefully we can manage to keep the rain off it and stop any further damage.

Now the neighbours are swarming

As if we didn't have enough to contend with dealing with those pesky bees, now we have the concerned neighbors too. Not concerned about us, you understand, but increasing their property values.
We live on a corner property and it's a beautiful site - lots of trees, azaleas, rhododendrons and spirea along the main road and hostas and conifers along the cul-de-sac. The entrance to the cul-de-sac is not signposted and it's easy to miss; which is annoying I suppose if you live on it. Apparently this is a problem that those neighbors want to remedy, and soon. I'm kind of laid back about the issue: it's a test of my visitors' ability to problem-solve and their desire to find me. But obviously it's grinding away at some folks nerves.
The entrance is in fact marked by two pillars with lamps on them, one is on my property and one on my opposite neighbor's. The lamps don't look as if they've worked since 1970, although there are wires coming from them. I tried changing the bulb and turning on all the switches in the house but nothing worked. My landscaper thinks they may both be wired to the other property, but who knows? The entrance is also marked by four Arborvitae, large scrappy conifers that builders put in because they are cheap and form a screen really quickly. Before we moved in the neighbors stealthily removed the lower branches of these and some junipers that were beneath them, a move that apparently did not go down well with the previous owner.
Anyway, we have been approached to see if we could cut down the four trees on our side and replace them with a beautiful bed containing at this point I know not what. The plan will be revealed by the neighbor who owns the tres chic garden centre at a bloc party this weekend but I know a sign with the house numbers on it figures in it. The idea was sold to me as something we will all benefit from, as our house values are sure to go up. We also need to re-asphalt the cul-de-sac before it becomes a hazard to motorists. So I am waiting to see how much this is going to cost me before I consider it as we have other priorities this year. I see the urgent need for paving the road, and it would be nice to have the lights working but as for the rest - chopping down my trees? Bloody cheek

Killer bees

Actually, not killer bees, more chewing, gnawing, pesky bees. We have carpenter bees: they look like bumble bees but instead of hairy backs, they are smooth and shiny; they don't sting (often) but they like to hang out on the redwood siding and chew little holes in it. They chew a hole in, turn at right angles, tunnel down a few inches and exit through a new hole. Hooray, they don't do structural damage, boo, they leave the siding looking like swiss cheese!
We have spent the last few weekends experimenting with various insecticides in an attempt to rid ourselves of the little critters. I wouldn't bother but they make a lot of noise while chewing and this freaks me out, especially as they are by my bedroom window and they chew throughout the night. We could call in te professionals but apparently killing the buzzing ones requires time and patience and that translates to lots of money, and it is quite easy to kill them yourself. You need either powder insecticide and a baster or a spray with a long nozzle to poke into the holes. I was also told you could spray them with WD40 and that should be easy as it comes with a target nozzle but it didn't kill any bees although the ones flying around didn't squeak at all.
The powder worked well where we could get it directly into the holes,and there were a few dead bees beneath the holes the next day but some holes were too high under the eaves to reach and the gnawing continued. Then we tried a spray and had some limited success. If we got it into the hole it worked but often we couldn't be precise enough. Then the spray attachment snapped off so I drove to the hardware store to buy a spray bottle to transfer the poison. By this time I was pretty mad so I picked up three different brands of aerosol insecticide, all specifically for carpenter bees and drove home to perform a little experiment.
Brand A when sprayed directly on a bee rendered it dizzy enough to fall to the ground where I could stomp on it. Brand B seemed to have no effect on the bee except to make it shinier but Brand C had a dual use: if sprayed into the hole, it foamed up, leaving the hole covered and causing the bee inside to groan horribly; when sprayed in the direction of the bee the product caused it to instantly fall lifeless to the ground. Instant gratification and our product of choice for the future. And there will be many more opportunities to use it as they are still chewing in a couple of hard to reach places.

A few more repairs

The visitors left and we had a great time with them but before the next lot arrive we have some maintenance to take care of. One of the shower faucets started leaking and we bent the shut-off valve trying to turn it so that's a plumbing job. I phoned today as there are a couple of other leaky pipes in the basement and was told I will have to wait nine days for the plumber to call! Good thing it's not a serious leak. I still haven't heard back from the irrigation people about turning on the sprinkler system so I guess I will have to call them again.
The other pool guys have opened the pool and repaired the leak but told me under no circumstances to turn on the pool heater without getting the oil guy out to look at it. So today I phoned and he was here within an hour. However within an hour and a half he gave me the bad news: an animal or animals had lived and possibly died in the heater and the damage was considerable. It probably wasn't worth repairing and a new one will cost $4500. It's apparently more expensive to put in a pool heater than a house heater! Who knew?
As the price of oil has risen 30% since last year I guess we will be doing what we did last year - not heating the pool!

Cleaning up

The first of the season's visitors arrive in a couple of days and I really wanted to have a coat of paint on the walls and the windows stained but the delay on the installation has put paid to that so I'm opting for a spring clean instead. I got Stanley Steemer to clean the carpets and Bob to wax the parquet and it has really spruced the place up. I was amazed that all the stains just lifted right out of the white carpets, and at $100 for three rooms it was a really good deal. Getting the floor waxed was even cheaper but I learnt that I am supposed to have this done every 6-8 weeks. As the dogs slide on it for at least a week after the waxing I could spend more on vet's bills than floor maintenance. Anyway, it looks great so I might get it done slightly more often than every 8-9 months, which is where we are at now.

Window woes

Tax season is crazy time here. Every year from January to April 15 the media relentlessly presses the message: the government has your money and you need to get it back or they government wants their share of your money. If it's the latter, you hold on to it until the last possible moment: 11:59 pm on April 15.
My misfortune was to hire a contractor who owes the government money. Of course I didn't know this when I hired him last November, when he was interested in getting the work and told me it would cost nothing to install the windows. I didn't know it until January when he installed the windows and told me his accountant said he had to buy something or he would have to pay the IRS. Taxes are paid on income earned in 2004 so it didn't register much with me anyway, what's done is done, it's good to be successful, I naively thought.
His mistake was to turn up at 1:40 pm, finish at 3:40 and expect to be paid because "it was tax day" even though he hadn't completed the work. He gave me the bill and said "your painter can sand down the skim work". Alarm bells went off so I examined the windows. Bits of insulation were hanging out of one window, another had nail holes that hadn't been filled, another shavings all over and all had uneven plaster all over the frames. I told him he wasn't finished and refused to pay him until it was as good as the work he did last time. (At $500 a window it had better be excellent work. I'd already paid him for 11 windows and he'd installed 13 so I didn't think giving him the rest of the money was an incentive for him to come back and make good.)
I tackled him about the damage on the two windows from last time that he'd promised would be taken care of and he firstly denied all memory and then when I told him that I'd contacted the wholesaler about it he got partial memory recall. He phoned the wholesaler, who is sending a rep out to look. Then he asked for $1700 for today's work as he had sorted out the problem. That is way more than we agreed for the job in the first place so I refused. I was clear: no money until the work is completed to my satisfaction; I don't know that the window people won't say he did the damage and must pay. Where would that leave me. His idea? Give him the money, and go after his licence. I don't think so.
He phoned me later, he was "hurt" I was keeping the money back. It implied I didn't trust him. That's rich coming from the man who told me he wasn't going back to one client because she was too difficult.

all hands on

2:20 pm is when the contractor turned up, so I thought I'd let the dogs in the yard rather than have than cooped up in the kitchen, when I opened the door there was the pool guy and his help fixing the leak. Yee ha it's spring.

Reconstruction

The snow has melted, the sun is shining, the roadsweepers are passing back and forth in front of the house removing the last of the sand and grit: winter is over, spring has arrived. You know it's spring here because you can't hear the birds over the noise of the lawnmowers, leaf blowers and chainsaws. Landscapers trucks are blocking the roads as everyone tries to repair the ravages of the last six months.
And early birds have contractors out re-roofing or at least reattaching all those shingles that blew off during the gales. I have lined up workers to come this week and next to fix the pool (so far, no show), re-wax the parquet floor and steam clean the carpets. The window people delivered four large replacement windows for the dining room and our bedroom, but not those for the ones the contractor damaged when he put them in (now why I am not surprised about that?). I have been waiting patiently (ok impatiently) for the contractor to install them and he rang yesterday to say his guy would be here at 9:00 am to start taking out the old windows and he would be here soon after. Guess what? It's after lunch, all the windows are out and the contractor still hasn't shown.
Why don't contractors say they will turn up when they feel like it, with only half the materials they need to finish the job, and that they will try to charge you twice what they originally quoted? That way you would never feel let down, disappointed or scammed, which is what I am feeling at this minute and it's getting mighty chilly, too. After some glorious weather, there was frost on the roof this morning, so it's not a great day to be sitting with four gaping holes in your house. Well at least it's not raining.

Recovering

It's been almost a month since I last posted here, mainly because we haven't had anything major done on the house in that time but also because the kids were home from college last week and before that I was too sick to sit up and type. Well, I could have typed but the risk that I would sneeze all over the screen and clog up the keyboard with phlegm was just too great.
The cold was a total bummer and lasted a good three weeks. I caught it from Steven just before we were due to go to the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas and we were forced to cancel two hours before the plane left. I'd been looking forward to this for years and the fact that I have most of the music downloaded from the SXSW podcast doesn't even begin to make up for missing it. I began to feel better the day we were due to fly home, now that's irony!
The upside of the whole nasty experience was getting our new kitty, Jefke. We had already dropped off the dogs at the kennels and the cats at the vet's office where they board when we are out of town so we decided to leave them there while I was delirious so I could get some rest and Steve could go back to work and not lose his vacation allowance unnecessarily. When it was time to pick the cats up Steve thought I should go along for the ride (the fresh air would do me good he reasoned) and sit in the car while he sprung the kitties. However I had to get out of the passenger seat of the Jeep in order to get the carriers from the back and i thought I might as well go and help carry a kitty. Big mistake. We opened the door and there was the assistant playing with an abandoned kitten. Then the persuasive marketing sell began. He would be a playmate for Cassis our year-old cat, Cassis would then stop tormenting Midge, our sixteen year old senior cat, we could have him on a trial basis, he was already neutered etc, etc. I tried to explain that we had nothing to carry him home in and no room for another cage in the car but it turned out they had a cardboard carrier I could balance on my knee. So we left with four cats and he and Cassis chase each other all over the house, great fun, especially at 5:30.
Next day Steve picked up the dogs, on his own.

Decor(um)

It always feels good when you can add something to the house that is decorative rather than necessary. Last week was Steven's birthday so I bought him a large painting and in a sort of BOGO way I treated the den to a smaller one too. They are aboriginal paintings from Queensland, Australia. One depicts the Myths of Uluru and the smaller one is a Cod Fish. We have placed the large one on the sandstone wall, both because it was a large bare space and because I think the dot painting needs to be in a sandy setting reminiscent of the earth. The Cod Fish I couldn't resist because it is black and red, which are the colours we used in the den.
I think they look awesome, but I am not sure Steven shares my enthusiasm. One reason I picked Australian Aboriginal art is that with the new roof we have to put on the house this Spring I am pretty sure we will not be going to Australia as planned to celebrate our wedding anniversary. I thought this would be a nice way to get in touch with Australia but maybe I put way too much thought into this present?



We also have blinds in our bedroom now. Steven went to London for a conference and stopped by Habitat to pick up these incredibly cool silver blinds that look like gossamer. Customs gave him a bit of grief as he had to carry two 6' tubes back to the US: they wanted to know if there were no roller blinds in the US. Of course there are but they are all disgusting, old-fashioned and vinyl. Anyway, they are up now and the bedroom is almost done. Plus our neighbours can no longer see right through the house into our room in the winter. We'll get some blinds for the downstairs bathroom so guests can take a shower without shocking the new neighbours next door but once the leaves are back on the trees it isn't urgent as they provide a natural screen.

Patience is a virtue...

But not one I ever subscribed to. We are still waiting on the second delivery of windows, including replacements for the dinged ones. I hope they can get those in this month as we have visitors April-June. It's frustrating because I would like to get the window frames stained and obviously I can't do that until they have replaced the damaged windows. This also means I can't paint the walls and we have two cans of Benjamin Moore bronze beige eggshell (which is a sort of gold colour) that have been sitting in the garage since November.
We got one quote for the new roof and it was very reasonable, that is it was half what Steven was expecting and a quarter of my worst fear estimate. I am still waiting for the other two guys to come and quote but the weather has been so awful that they couldn't climb the roof to look at the damage. We have had snow since early February and cold temperatures too but, touch wood, we haven't had anymore leaks. I think this is because we have had no ice damming since the January cold spell but also because the temporary flashing the contractor but in place is holding up really well.
We were sent a bunch of free airline tickets by American and as we have loads of Marriott points we have decided to take two cheap as chips minibreaks to get away from the dreadful weather. We are going to Austin, Texas to the SXSW festival this month and to Nashville in May. So it will be all about the music for the next couple of months and that will be it for vacation this year. We will summer here, Steve plans to take two weeks off and spend them in the pool and watching the sunset on the beach. Of course, we have to fix the pool first........

Big, fat bummer

On closer inspection the crew did not do such a good job on the windows. The plastering looks good and the windows themselves seem to be great quality BUT when they installed them they managed to damage TWO of the nine. How the f*** is this possible I asked. The first window the contractor showed me he said was damaged by the delivery guys. So I asked the wholesaler who said they would swap it, it was still in my garage, wasn't it? Well, no, the contractor showed it to me when he had finished installing it. I have told him it has to be replaced.
Then the installer slipped off the ladder carrying another window and fell. The contractor assured me the window was ok. At the time I was more concerned about the installer, who was thankfully ok. But the window has two dings in it. If they were wooden windows they could be filled and painted but they are aluminium clad and the edges are really roughed up. They were also very expensive because they were custom made so there is no alternative to replacing both of them. Extremely frustrating.
Worse though, when they took down the blinds by the chimney in the great room there were a couple of cracks I wanted them to plaster over. Unfortunately one crack was wet. Not good. The installer ran up the roof to get rid of the ice and the contractor offered to come back and run some flashing to stop the leak when the rest of the ice melted. He came back today to put up the flashing over the gutters but the edge of the roof had peeled away with the ice dam. So we have to get a new roof this year rather than next or the year after. Big fat bummer.

Spackle, sand, repeat

I am thankful that we had a good crew to put in the windows because the rot in my office was more extensive than we had first suspected. Both the header and the sill support were totally eaten through (I could poke my finger right through the latter) and someone had patched the side already but not with the correct beams, so we could have potentially lost that end of the house at some stage. Now we are secure right down to the foundation.
All the windows are in now and the ones upstairs look really good. I am gradually getting used to the ones in the den, too. From the outside they all look lovely and immediately the house looks more cared for. Of course fixing one problem gives a hundred more and the area around the windows had to be spackled and sanded and spackled again. So now we have to paint. I hadn't really thought about colour for this room as were weren't originally going to change these windows.
We also have molding on the stairs at long last and they look fantastic now. I got the guys to change the baseboard under the bookcase to one that matches the other baseboards in the house. I still have a laundry list of jobs for them to do by the time they finish tomorrow afternoon. These guys are obsessive about cleaning up after themselves and seem to vacuum every five minutes. I think they are sweeping up more dog hair than spackle and sawdust though. They are about to take down the vinyl blinds in the great room that are double-height and I will be celebrating when they have gone. Then it's just the flashing around the house and we should be golden.