bollox, and sheep, and not getting things done...

so, decided to write a bit. it's been almost a year with the house, and almost as long a hiatus from this here blog.

let's see. over the winter, after finishing the upstairs apartment renovation, i haven't done an enormous amount.
i installed an electric water heater, which has proven to be awesome. shut down the boiler in march, and have been having nice toasty water. i was worried with the tenant taking lots of baths that the electric bill would surge, but somehow, freakishly, it's been cheaper with her there for the past two months, than when i was alone over the winter.

most recently i rewired the garage, bringing in a new 50amp sub panel, with new underground feed from the house. the garage now has 3 20 amp outlet circuits, and new overhead lighting. a separate switch awaite the installation of outdoor sconces flanking my nice accordian doors.

there' s been some upheaval with the porch. i finally got around to doing lattice - bought 5/4 red cedar and milled it into 7/16" strips. installed it all, oiled it, and got most of the trim up. then the town rolls through and tears up the street. they're doing a new curbed sidewalk, much higher and wider than before. the result? had to yank out my nice stairs which took me probably two weeks to build. now my grading is all screwed up in front, and i'll have to toil a good while to retrofit the old stairs to the higher landing (chopping off a tread, maybe salvage the newel posts, railing is likely salvageable). got the guys to dig out the yew stumps, finally, but the dumped the dang things in my yard - about a 5 ton pile of roots and dirt sitting there that is way too big and heavy for me to do anything with.
meanwhile, the lattice is getting destroyed by all the rain and mud and dirt splashing up on it.
i need to get a gutter on the porch, plant some grass, and put the stairs back in, then maybe pressure wash the lattice.

been living in the house, sleeping in the back wing, plugging along OK.

wanting to finish the porch really badly, and get on to more important things like re-roofing the garage, which is leaking badly. also in store for the summer, is structural foundation work to the back wing, and some stone work along the driveway. it's unlikely i'll get to painting the place this summer, i think.

that's about it.
stay tuned. maybe i'll do another post in a few months.

Railings and Such

Well, railings have been back on for a few weeks now. I've been mostly busy upstairs getting the apartment ready. Pictures of this work are soon to follow...

Before working on the railings, I first repaired my previous corner post bottom repair which was too out of plumb with the rest of the post to forget about. This took a half a day but n ow looks fantastic.

I also went around and had to "pad" five out of six posts with PT shims and a boatload of glue.
Then, with some leftover flooring and a router, I bullnosed one edge, ripped 1/2" strips, and had a nice little shoe molding to trim around the posts. I'm glad I did this in Mahogany, because it sort of blends into the deck and won't at all be a distraction to the design of my 3/4" framing offset to have the trim line up with the post.

As for the railings, I scraped and sanded them all in the driveway, primed the underside, made a bunch of small repairs to spindles and such with galvanized nails, predrilled pocket holes for fastening, and then installed them all. Much to my amazement, they all went back into place perfectly, except for the NE corner where it met the house, because I had adjusted that post into a more plumb position. I wound up having to trim a bit off the railing, which is much better than having to add.

The stair railings I built in place to match exactly what was there before. It's sort of an angled adaptation of the straight railings. I did this all with 2X6 rippings, the miter saw, pocket hole screws, and gorilla glue. The railings are amazingly strong.


Hallow's eve, posing with my semi-retarded pumpkin carved in great haste.
Note the 12º beveled rail I made, complete with side kerf to match the others.




If you look closely, you might make out the molding around the posts. They cover up all kinds of horrors and look really pretty. The 4X4 newels still need to be trimmed in like fashion, and also cut down to size for the finial. My friend Kevin is turning me two finials on his lathe to match the one that sits on the 6X6 newel for the side stairs. Pictures soon.


Yay! Need to get that dumpster hauled away now. I plan on setting my neighbor up with the old staircase, as hers are totally falling apart.

Stay tuned for shots of upstairs progress.

I also hope to get the lattice and trim on the porch within the next month or two, but not a huge deal if it waits until Spring, maybe.