summer solstice

Things are much better now! That last post really sounded whiny - and you know I heard the study on NPR that said the most unpleasant sound in the world, bar none, is a whine. Sorry.

Things are better. First of all I took 3 days off for Live Oak and listened to great music all day and night, watched birds and squirrels and bugs, heard the sounds of happy campers all round, and no construction noise!! Plus, I guess I missed the worst of the noise - generators and air guns for putting in the roofing nails on one side, and chipping out the stucco on the other side. Where the 2 parts of the house got joined, and where they had to demolish to build the new roof for the garage, all has to be stripped off, re-papered and re-chicken wired before the actual stucco gets applied. By hand, I am told. More than one coat. But some say they can't apply the stucco til the drywall is up and nailed on the inside of the walls - and inspected before the nails can be taped over. Others say do the stucco first, so it dries slowly (it is, after all, cement), and the drywall gets screwed in, anyway. There seems to be some confusion about the order of things, so, while the stucco job will probably take a week to do, it may or may not be for a while. The crew is busy stuffing in the insulation between the other stuff, so it is ready for the drywall, if, in fact, that happens first.

But other stuff happens at the same time. We have a roof now; it has skylights in place (haven't tested for leakage yet). The gas Franklin Stove for the bedroom was delivered and the connections are in place. It looks more like a house every day!

Now come the hordes of sub contractors - stucco installation, painters, tile installers. The stucco people are sub-contractors: they come in, do the job, and split. not connected to the outcome. Dave, the painter, and your next best friend (yes, there's a story to that and, no, I won't tell it), came by with a helper and painted the rooster tails, fascias and eaves under the new roofs. The trim will be forest green; we are still deciding the paint color for the outside walls. So far, we're leaning towards a yellowy-orange-ish shade.

With the construction crew work winding down, it seemed a good time to have a party for the guys who did all the dirty work up to now, including coming out in the (literal) middle of a Saturday night when it poured down rain (not once, but twice) to put (more) better covering over the holes in the roof(s), and mopping out the garage where it flooded. Hotdogs, hamburgers and beer. A few neighbors came too, and it turned into a great driveway barbeque.








Things are much better now. And, it's officially summer!!