Day 94
For
about five years now, it has been evident that the outside of our house needed
paint. However there were two things
keeping me from pulling out my painting equipment – A little bit of carpentry
needed to be done in places, and (& this is the big one) the fact that I
really just don’t care to paint. 
Big expansive areas of flat wall are one
thing, but my front windows are comprised of 8-over-8 light panes, and I
remember it seemed to take forever
just to paint the inside part of them several years back. Plus, my labor of many moons ago was done
standing on a solid floor in air conditioned comfort; Balancing on a ladder in
this season’s heat while painting the exterior had about as much appeal as
selling encyclopedias door-to-door in
From
past web pages, you may recall that we were thrilled with the quality of the
interior painting being done on Big Tub by Decolores Painting. After seeking out
the company’s owner, we were equally pleased to find that the same skilled crew
of painters was available to scrape & paint the existing house’s exterior
as a task separate from Big Tub.
Additionally, since Decolores had a carpenter on call, there would be no time
wasted waiting for me to replace a few boards.
In
the picture below, while replacing fascia boards, Carlos and Dario play “swing
the pneumatic nailer” as Dario listens to the hum of the 240 volt power line
feeding the new 400 amp distribution box that Buck installed last week: 
Meanwhile,
progress continues slowly on the shower work for Dennis & Rodney as only so
many courses of vertical tile can be laid on a given day. If they are not careful, the tile will slide
down before the mortar sets up. So far
so good! They are halfway through the
task, and the results prove they know what they are doing:
Meanwhile,
back at the exterior of Big Tub, Steve & his helper produce custom fit
aluminum gutters on his seamless gutter forming machine. Although the machine’s operation in itself is
pretty cool to watch, I’m tickled that I will not have to constantly battle
leaky galvanized gutters like my dad did when I was a kid.
Most of the bricks below will be used to form steps
after the new patio is poured:
Daniel took the opportunity to catch up on his
correspondence after a sudden rain shower popped up:
To
prevent unintentional theft, we like to spray-paint our garden hoses
International Orange so as to make them easily identifiable: 
Just
kidding; Garden hoses are great for
laying out irregular shapes such as the layout of the new sidewalk to the
Friend’s Entrance. With help from a
litany of people, the winning hose layout was marked with paint to make it
easier for the concrete crew to form.
The
builder tells me a new plumber has been lined up to finish up our project. That’s good.
Exterior painting will be delayed until Decolores finishes a few jobs
that were already ahead of us. We could
possibly get air conditioning next week.
If we do, we’re moving the bed out of the living room even if the rest
of the addition is not complete – Kim’s getting tired of my midnight piano
playing! 