We Will Put In The Doorknob, And The House Will Be Finished!
That was what Emmet had to say today when we finally put the lock set and doorknob into the door. "From your lips to God's ears," Pop replied.
This week I ordered the remaining closures, as well as the rake trim that ABC makes. I picked it up Friday and took it up to the site. Laurie, Michael, Mimi and Pop came up for the weekend to help out on the house, so we also went out and bought another five gallon bucket of stain. For the record this time, we ordered Behr Semi-Transparent Redwood stain. It was a minimal guess on our part, which turned out to be right. At one point, Mimi said she wasn't sure it was the same though everyone else thought it looked fine, and when I first looked at it I agreed. The color seemed much lighter. In desperation, I went and found a dry board and put it up to the existing siding, painted last year now. It was too light, and I put it down to look for a darker piece. I found one and when I put it up we all agreed it matched the existing siding.
Saturday morning we met my family and Grandma Lana up at the house. Laurie, Michael, Mimi and Grandma Lana got down to staining. Since my family was up (Who we don't get to see nearly often enough. Would you all please consider moving to the Capital District? It's really nice here, and Wendy swears it gets less snow than where you live in the winter, though I call it a draw, overall. Our place in the mountains is a separate story.), we brought the kids up too, who were playing all over the place. I suited up to go roof climbing, and the ground crew (Wendy and Pop) made preparations for the finish of the peak.
It went quite easily, I think. I put down closure strips and screwed the peak down to one channel before where we decided to overlap the final piece to. Pop had cut the last cap piece with tin snips and flatted it out. He brought it up the scaffold, and helped by pushing the cut end under the cap I was working on, not without a little difficulty. Once you tighten the cap on one end it deforms on the other end and there is minimal space below it. We split the last section of screws, him on the scaffold and me on the roof. Once we finished it out, I climbed down while Pop stayed on the scaffold. I loosed the ladder ropes and let them out, while Pop let the ladder down. Once he had it down enough, I went to help Wendy catch the ladder. We got it down and I took off my gear while Pop took apart the top scaffold frame.
The next job was fixing the Front Door Issue, which we could use the scaffold frame for. Pop came down and after everyone broke for lunch, I headed up the scaffold to lower the frames, braces and planks on a rope while Pop and Michael caught them and reassembled them in front of the door. During all this our friends from Maine, Dave and Darshana and their kids, stopped by on their way to camp for a week on Keuka Lake. The kids all played pretty well and Dave and Darshana got the tour and then helped out for a while.
With Pop pounding on it with a 2x4 and a hammer, Dave and I lifted the door out and got it up against the container just as it started to rain. I quipped, "It always rains when we lean this door against the container." And it did on and off. In his capacity as my Carpentry Consultant, Pop suggested we let out the 2x6 by about an inch or so, in the area the door contacts the frame. This would give us a little room on the hinge side of the door frame to shim, if we crowded the strike side (handle side for those who are learning the lingo) into the let out area. Letting it out a bit means trimming off a bit of the piece of wood. In this case we cut in about an inch (between 7/8 and 15/16th of blade exposed on the saw) in two vertical lines about an inch apart on the two inches of the post that the door bears on. We then used a chisel and a 2 lb sledge to knock out the pieces of the frame in the let out area.
Pop cleared out the hole of sawdust, debris and the last batch of silicone caulk, and Michael and Dave got the door back up onto the scaffold. Wendy and I did the honors of putting it back in. We leveled and plumbed it, and nailed off the molding to the strapping with the help of Dave and Darshana. The door still didn't shut right since the frame was bent so slightly in at the middle, but we would finish that Sunday. For now, it fit much more nicely and tr hat was enough. We called it a day and went to wash up and go out for a seafood dinner that couldn't be beat.
Sunday we got up to the site, and on Michael's suggestion at dinner Saturday night, I built a ramp up to the front door out of three of the 13 foot scaffold planks I have and some scrap lumber. A 2x4 nailed to the ledger board acted as a header for the planks to sit on and be nailed into. I built legs for the outer two planks from 2x8 scraps, and added a 2x4 nailed between them under the planks to take the bounce out of the center plank and the middle edge of the planks. That worked up above, but the foot of the ramp was still very flexible. I added another 2x4 below the planks, and a 1x4 above. Once nailed off, these solidified the ramp immensely.
The job of the morning was to move some of the contents of the container into the house. After a rocky start, (Worsened by the deer flies, who were biting like crazy, the humidity, which was probably about 95%, the heat, which was miserable, the closeness of family, and me), we came up with a better plan. With every one's help, we efficiently moved much of the remainder of the contents of the container into the house.
Laurie and Michael set out for home, and Pop and I set to finishing off the door. Pop helped me draw the bent strike side of the frame up a bit using some well placed blind-head screws, and then we put in the lock set. The kids have been asking about the front door for quite a while. When they saw it was in, they were then excited about the doorknob. After getting the doorknob in and adjusted, we shimmed and secured the hinge side of the frame. At this point Mimi and Pop packed it in to drive home. Grandma Lana and the kids continued to help us for a bit before heading home. We finished out by cleaning out the container so we can have it picked up. That done, we decided to head home for dinner.
A busy weekend overall, but we could share it (and more importantly the kids) with our family, and that made it better.
This week I ordered the remaining closures, as well as the rake trim that ABC makes. I picked it up Friday and took it up to the site. Laurie, Michael, Mimi and Pop came up for the weekend to help out on the house, so we also went out and bought another five gallon bucket of stain. For the record this time, we ordered Behr Semi-Transparent Redwood stain. It was a minimal guess on our part, which turned out to be right. At one point, Mimi said she wasn't sure it was the same though everyone else thought it looked fine, and when I first looked at it I agreed. The color seemed much lighter. In desperation, I went and found a dry board and put it up to the existing siding, painted last year now. It was too light, and I put it down to look for a darker piece. I found one and when I put it up we all agreed it matched the existing siding.
Saturday morning we met my family and Grandma Lana up at the house. Laurie, Michael, Mimi and Grandma Lana got down to staining. Since my family was up (Who we don't get to see nearly often enough. Would you all please consider moving to the Capital District? It's really nice here, and Wendy swears it gets less snow than where you live in the winter, though I call it a draw, overall. Our place in the mountains is a separate story.), we brought the kids up too, who were playing all over the place. I suited up to go roof climbing, and the ground crew (Wendy and Pop) made preparations for the finish of the peak.
It went quite easily, I think. I put down closure strips and screwed the peak down to one channel before where we decided to overlap the final piece to. Pop had cut the last cap piece with tin snips and flatted it out. He brought it up the scaffold, and helped by pushing the cut end under the cap I was working on, not without a little difficulty. Once you tighten the cap on one end it deforms on the other end and there is minimal space below it. We split the last section of screws, him on the scaffold and me on the roof. Once we finished it out, I climbed down while Pop stayed on the scaffold. I loosed the ladder ropes and let them out, while Pop let the ladder down. Once he had it down enough, I went to help Wendy catch the ladder. We got it down and I took off my gear while Pop took apart the top scaffold frame.
The next job was fixing the Front Door Issue, which we could use the scaffold frame for. Pop came down and after everyone broke for lunch, I headed up the scaffold to lower the frames, braces and planks on a rope while Pop and Michael caught them and reassembled them in front of the door. During all this our friends from Maine, Dave and Darshana and their kids, stopped by on their way to camp for a week on Keuka Lake. The kids all played pretty well and Dave and Darshana got the tour and then helped out for a while.
With Pop pounding on it with a 2x4 and a hammer, Dave and I lifted the door out and got it up against the container just as it started to rain. I quipped, "It always rains when we lean this door against the container." And it did on and off. In his capacity as my Carpentry Consultant, Pop suggested we let out the 2x6 by about an inch or so, in the area the door contacts the frame. This would give us a little room on the hinge side of the door frame to shim, if we crowded the strike side (handle side for those who are learning the lingo) into the let out area. Letting it out a bit means trimming off a bit of the piece of wood. In this case we cut in about an inch (between 7/8 and 15/16th of blade exposed on the saw) in two vertical lines about an inch apart on the two inches of the post that the door bears on. We then used a chisel and a 2 lb sledge to knock out the pieces of the frame in the let out area.
Pop cleared out the hole of sawdust, debris and the last batch of silicone caulk, and Michael and Dave got the door back up onto the scaffold. Wendy and I did the honors of putting it back in. We leveled and plumbed it, and nailed off the molding to the strapping with the help of Dave and Darshana. The door still didn't shut right since the frame was bent so slightly in at the middle, but we would finish that Sunday. For now, it fit much more nicely and tr hat was enough. We called it a day and went to wash up and go out for a seafood dinner that couldn't be beat.
Sunday we got up to the site, and on Michael's suggestion at dinner Saturday night, I built a ramp up to the front door out of three of the 13 foot scaffold planks I have and some scrap lumber. A 2x4 nailed to the ledger board acted as a header for the planks to sit on and be nailed into. I built legs for the outer two planks from 2x8 scraps, and added a 2x4 nailed between them under the planks to take the bounce out of the center plank and the middle edge of the planks. That worked up above, but the foot of the ramp was still very flexible. I added another 2x4 below the planks, and a 1x4 above. Once nailed off, these solidified the ramp immensely.
The job of the morning was to move some of the contents of the container into the house. After a rocky start, (Worsened by the deer flies, who were biting like crazy, the humidity, which was probably about 95%, the heat, which was miserable, the closeness of family, and me), we came up with a better plan. With every one's help, we efficiently moved much of the remainder of the contents of the container into the house.
Laurie and Michael set out for home, and Pop and I set to finishing off the door. Pop helped me draw the bent strike side of the frame up a bit using some well placed blind-head screws, and then we put in the lock set. The kids have been asking about the front door for quite a while. When they saw it was in, they were then excited about the doorknob. After getting the doorknob in and adjusted, we shimmed and secured the hinge side of the frame. At this point Mimi and Pop packed it in to drive home. Grandma Lana and the kids continued to help us for a bit before heading home. We finished out by cleaning out the container so we can have it picked up. That done, we decided to head home for dinner.
A busy weekend overall, but we could share it (and more importantly the kids) with our family, and that made it better.
posted by SKelly | 10:18 PM
1 Comments:
Ugh... I feel like such a heel getting all geared up to get up there in the beginning of June and now here we are at the beginning of August.
How many more weekends left do you suppose? It just won't feel right coming to a party after not having helped out for so long. I need to get there for one more weekend at least. The house looks like you can camp right inside it now, eh?
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