Back to blogging? Maybe some painting too...

I now need to finish what I started just over a year ago. Painting the rest of this house. I can think of loads of other fun things to do at the weekends, but the painting needs to get finished somehow, and Lynne's studiously avoided mentioning it for months. Excuses are hard to find when the sun's up early and late, and the weather is fine.
I'm sure I must be ready to paint for relaxation - now that the Uni final project report's finished. Anyway, I just need to print and bind it now, while the academics grade my electronic copy. What a relief it is! No. Really!

One Year Ago in St. Andrews

It was a great night - just one year ago - after being at Hampden to the Scotland vs. Italy match. They beat us, but it was a great night at Aikman's listening to Fraser's band while drinking Erdinger with Heather and Hoegaarden with Paula. Just as well I didn't get started on the Leffe eh?

Familial music keeps us in the other lane...

Well, I'm back to the first lane - but I've got a foot in the
other lane too. Here's a visiting musician borrowing a handy guitar for a quick jam. The nippers were soon off to get their recorders to play along to the Mission Impossible soundtrack. There is more about this occasion.

the Other Lane, the shortest day

Today is the winter solstice - but it's a long day at work for me.
The other lane indeed. I'm back on what I once thought of as 'the hamster wheel', but I'm glad to say it doesn't feel at all like a hamster wheel - despite me choosing to commute with the masses - sitting or standing on a crowded carriage with all the office 'bots, most of whom create themselves a little bubble by plugging in their own personal audio entertainment. This is the human zoo. I haven't seen so many new strangers so regularly ! Maybe I'll start to recognise people - even start to nod to familiar faces (avec ear buds) if I start to form a habit about which part of the train to travel on. I suppose it's important to make the most of the train experience - especially when I'm on one for a minimum of 1 hour a day. A good book perhaps? Taken in 10 x 30 minute chunks a week? I could drive, but why leave our one car idle in a car park nearly all day?
Hamster wheel? I don't think so. If the cap fits, wear it - but being on a hamster wheel is not my concept of what I'm doing. The work itself is fun, and I know it will sometimes be hard, but if I can come home and do my own stuff, forgetting about it until I get back there each morning - I'll be able to keep enjoying it - to keep having fun.
Meanwhile, she who can sometimes be obeyed, is not painting - it's very cold weather - and instead is entertaining des enfants during their school holidays. It's 4 degrees outside, and I probably should get back under the doona, since there's no sense in tapping away here until the sunrise! I need to be on a train well before that anyway. A bike ride perhaps - in the dark, with plenty of winter woolies on? Maybe not. Brrr!

Front Greened

Considering this has been the coldest Autumn here since 1945ish, we actually got quite a lot done during the last month. Here's the place as of today. The bit of green on the frame around the vent is shown on the first shot. Obviously the windows, doors and brickwork need more work. Before painting them any more we need to finish stripping the tricky part of the sash window where the bottom half meets the top. To get that done properly, we need to clear and vacate the two rooms one by one. All that mess on the inside from sanding and finishing.

Front Creamed

Most of the weatherboards on the front are covered in cream now. Just the shingles, the windows and door and the fascia to do. Whoop-de-do! Lots of showers and heavy rain this afternoon. Had to work under the verandah to stay dry.

West Wall Clotted Cream

The job slowed due to intermittent showers this afternoon, but a good coat is now on the first part of the west wall. To keep moving and avoid freezing in the sub 15C temperatures, I did some filling and removed some tiles to fix a leak in the gutter near the front door during and between showers. Had to have a sleep late this afternoon. Waking up too early.
Will get stuck into it again tomorrow morning, despite poor weather forecast.

North Wall Clotted Cream

I finished the second coat of the north wall today, working 9 to 6pm with a 20 minute break. The expected rain came after 9.30pm. Lynne filled gaps on the west wall and washed it all down so it can now be painted. We need to get another 20 litre can of Clotted Cream. I also need to:
1. Fix up the mortar on the edge of the roof before the rain damages the fascia board and quad trim above it any more.
2. Fill the holes in various terracotta tiles left when the metal stays rusted away and fell off. These are sending rainwater straight into where it continues to do damage and must be stopped. Bog or caulk - that is the question...
Let's hope for fair weather before the end of this week. More photos to show real progress soon.

The Glass is In!

I'd jumped the gun on claiming to be a glazier. I'd also underestimated the time required to remove the old glass safely and get the rebate (glass surround) cleaned up and ready to fit the new glass. When this was done, fitting the actual glass was easy. Lynne did the putty part of the job (very well) and I did the glass handling and sprig insertion. What a team! So now we have a closed off window (after one night without glass in place).

This morning, we primed the remaining bare wood on the west wall and fascia board, then spent the afternoon putting the top coat (clotted cream colour) onto the north wall. Tomorrow we will complete the first coat on the north wall. It is a lot faster to paint when the temperature is below 15C and the sun is not shining directly on the surface being worked on. I'll get up early enough tomorrow to confirm that this is true.

Coooolld!

The sun shone for about 25 minutes today - and I nearly missed it. I basked in this brief natural warmth for as long as it took me to get the letters out of our fence-mounted post box. So, no work on the boards or anywhere else outside today. Tomorrow is a public holiday for Anzac Day - predicted to be fine weather and 20C. It would be a shame to miss the chance to make some progress again, but both my children are marching in the parade this year - so I'll be there to see them for the morning at least.

So, now I'm a glazier too

We cracked a pane of the bedroom window. $110 to have it replaced by a pro or $17 for the glass cut to size. For $93 I can be a glazier for a couple of hours. I'm learning all the time! Ela brought us some fresh chestnuts. She's so kind. She says I'm right to be my own glazier. It's great getting moral support from the neeburs. It makes the effort seem appreciated and more worthwhile somehow.

West Wall In Progress

The cold weather and April rains have not stopped the front wall from being painted. The primer was put on in an evening session last week. It was a weird, balmy night, and I painted with a spotlight until 10.30pm. We took several 'progress' photos from the same spot. I love the 'stop-motion' effects showing the different times of day, stages of work, lighting conditions and so on. My blogging skills don't yet allow me to show these - but I at least know how it could be done.
The daylight shot shows the oil-based primer all done.

Winter's Here

The rainy days of April are here. The Easter/Passover weekend here is wet and cool. Hoping for a better day tomorrow. On the office work side, I had a job interview yesterday. It went quite well, but it was only the first of four I'll need to do to get into that company as a consultant. Meantime, I'll be working on some other options, but I won't go into any detail about this here.

Just another pic in the wall...

The wall, close up and paint-free (well, this section at least!) I wish we could just leave the wood looking like this, but it wouldn't last very long before turning a very unpleasant shade of grey. I love the warm look of this type of timber. So inviting, and so much work to prepare well before just painting over it again. If only..... There was another way.

Is this the way of the blog?

Running out of inclination, or not inclined at all. The unread blog must be an untended blog. Without activity, there is no story, without response there is no dialogue, and without dialogue there is no point. Is there?

This picture is me working at 5.2m above the ground! I'm priming the boards before the weather gets to them, and before we decide that the eaves boards (behind my head) all need to be replaced.

It's over a month since the last post and several things have slowed me down on the renovation trail:

• Applying for office ('real') jobs (on the hot days mainly).
• Unsuitable weather for the job (too hot mainly).
• Fiddling with fridges and freezers inside (new purchases).
• Being at Port Fairy Music Festival (I suppose we did need a holiday).
  
• Feeling crook (or was it just feeling lazy?).
  
• Finding stuff that needed more repairs (like the NW corner at the roofline).
  

Enough of these excuses! To get this done soon is becoming a pressing issue, as funds start to dry up and we approach wetter weather in April. One last excuse (break) is that I'm off to my brother's wedding next week - so that'll be some more (9) days off.

I've got to finish the prep/patching before I go on my little jaunt. Then Lynne can do some filling and painting while I'm away. She seems to get on with things more quickly when I'm not here.

End of week 6 - stocktake

• Monday: tried to finish off sanding north wall (old section). Ended up by filling nail holes and cracks. This was a mistake. We're supposed to prime it all first, then fill the gaps and spot-prime over that.


• Tuesday: put primer onto whole of sanded area. Now needs filled!


• Wednesday: Took a look at the south wall. It is in better condition than the north side, showing that sunlight is more punishing than rain and wind on the painted wood. Worked the phones to get the best price on our new fridge and freezer. Distraction from progress on house. Went out and ordered F/F. Removed overhead cupboard to make way for fridge arriving.


• Thursday: Spent day at Uni - no renovation work done by me. Lynne sanded and painted over patch on wall in fridge recess, rearranged cupboard contents and worked on fly wire door preparation.


• Friday: Forecast 34C today. I'll start on the south (shady) side. Could come inside and work on freeing sash windows if it gets too hot.

Weather is fine and no excuses

I started on the front (west) wall and the bedroom window yesterday. Not much progress, and we had to chop back the weeping cherry tree to get in with the ladders properly.
More progress today - I really need to get started earlier in the day though. After more finishing off bits I had missed, the north wall is mostly sanded back to the bare wood. I had to stop myself from 'just doing a wee bit more...'. The nail heads need to be punched below the surface - Lynne has started on this. We washed it down with the power washer (thanks to J&D) and tomorrow the primer will be applied, followed by a lot of filling and probably more sanding followed by the top coats. There is also at least one weatherboard that needs to be replaced. Maybe I could try... We need a carpenter anyway.
Showed Bill&Ela the state of progress. They seemed impressed with the back area. Ela asked about the condition of the south wall. I was reminded that I had intended to 'survey' it first to check the overall condition before finding a carpenter. Maybe a job for tomorrow if Lynne wants to paint in peace and quiet.
I'm convinced I'm being too fussy about the quality of the finish. More pressure!!!
LITOL home

Weather is back in charge

On Wednesday it was too warm. I did some work on the West side, but very little visible progress.
Yesterday it rained on and off all day.
Still, I did manage to apply for a job while staying out of the rain. A chance to get some academic reading done too!

Life in the Other Lane

Life in the Other Lane is the original blog, now hosted here.
It's not really the 'slow' lane - because I've no idea how fast I'm running without anyone visible to measure myself against. After 4 months of being off the hamster wheel, there is almost no-one in my weekly life who looks anything like familiar to me in my former 'working for a living' life. Maybe it's time to start working back towards the old life. I still don't feel massively enthusiastic about it though.

Life in the Other Lane

Life in the Other Lane was once hosted here.
This blog comes back to life after over a month of silence and a change of host site. The back part of the west side is painted and finished. The front part (older wood, multiple layers of paint and much higher wall) is now fully sanded. Almost the whole area is back to bare wood.

From the vantage point of my second new ladder in 2 months, I discovered that new timber is needed to replace the beam holding up the facia boards on the gable end. This will require builder and carpenter intervention.
I also found dry rot in the southwest bottom corner. Another builder/carpenter job.

Bill lent me a disc sander. Tony provided a second 2.4M ladder and some 'stop rot' stuff. Thanks guys.

From the other blog site

Taken from former blog hosting site:

West Side Story - Posted at 21:14 on 2005-12-29 by Alf
Tried to get the west side (front of house) door prepared for painting before Christmas. No such luck. Just got the door paint all stripped off today, and some more sanding is still needed, as well as stripping and sanding of the door surrounds and at least one window. None of the this allows for the pressing need to get a serious ladder and make progress with stripping the front barge boards, shingles and weatherboard replacements. Carpentry skills and ladder endurance tests are on the near horizon.

Weather drives progress - if you let it! - Posted at 19:19 on 2005-12-15 by Alf In summer, the days are often warmer and sunnier than is healthy for spending more than a few hours outside. Despite several very warm (above 30C) days in the first half of December, the back of the house is now finished. Standing in the garden, the place looks great! This allows us to see progress in a well-used part of the house while we are relaxing. This could be called a 'quick win'. The West (front) and North sides are now being prepared and pressure washed. Today was 33C, so only 3 (early morning) hours were put in outdoors. We can't claim to be 25% complete yet, because: The East side is the short side and the house is much longer than it is wide; Access will be more difficult on the long sides; The time needed for wood repairs will be higher on the other three sides - all of which are part of the original house (before the rear extension was built); Completion of the front depends on when we can have a new bedroom window made (to order); We now expect to spend more than planned on sub-contracting carpentry work. Christmas is coming, and distractions abound. However the focus will be maintained to ensure steady progress over the 'holiday' season.

Jammed mulcher and broken bolt - Posted at 19:05 on 2005-11-30 by Alf The mulcher jammed solid late on Monday, despite being treated very sympathetically. On trying to remove a plate to clear the jam, a bolt head got mashed and now needs to be removed with an extractor. The tool recommended at the shop is not biting the inside of the (now drilled out) screw. I have broken my 4mm bit in the process and am now jammed myself. I need to come up with a new way to solve the jam and the damaged bolt. This is all a bit of a bummer, since I'd nearly finished mulching the severly pruned tree cuttings on the north and south sides of the house - most of which we'd chopped back on the Sunday afternoon. Today is St Andrews Day - but there was no haggis.

Getting in the swing - Posted at 19:04 on 2005-11-28 by Alf I suppose I need to get used to sitting down for 10 minutes a day and updating the blog. I've been working better (getting more done) recently. We even showed some neighbours the back of our house today. The part we've been concentrating on so far. As of today, the weatherboards at the back are washed down (thanks to Bosch power washing equipment on loan from friends) and ready for their first coat. We did no painting today though, since we had to mulch up a whole load of tree branches we chopped down to make space for painting the South wall. More pruning has also been done today, and my hands (and neck) are sore from shoving branches into the electric mulching device. My ears are a bit numb too. It's a noisy business.

The Place I Left Behind - Posted at 19:43 on 2005-11-19 by Alf This is the idyllic location I left behind in Scotland: The motorcycle in the foreground is my brother's BMW R65. The background is the local sailing club (my friends and family for my last few months there). The shot is taken from the front door of my former flat. This is what I have 'willingly' given up!

Raison d 'etre - why I am writing this blog - Posted at 19:20 on 2005-11-19 by Alf
This is about me learning to blog, learning to reflect and to share and to keep me thinking beyond the everyday activities I am involved in. It's a way of getting beyond just 'being in my head' and working on home renovations while considering my career resumption options. The blog is also a journal of what and how I am doing with renovating my house. It is a 1926 California Bungalow (i.e. weatherboard). It needs a major repair and clean-up after 12 years of being very 'lived-in'. The major work is on the outside - wood repairs, surface preparation, painting. The project started on 10 November, when I started scraping and sanding paint off the fascia boards above the back door. The first full week was an exercise in slow progress, with a mix of warm sunshine and a hot day. The weekend brought rain, and I decided to take a break to let me start afresh next week. I found that it is hard to estimate how long jobs will take. I also learned that I am probably too fussy about quality to get this job done in an acceptable timeframe.