Bless my Boyfriend

While I went to Yarmouth yesterday, Greg went to the cottage and put the remaining boards up the stairs, which looks amazing! He easily fixed a problem spot where the wall was 1" out of plumb...It would have taken me hours to get it right. After I got back, I got busy preparing the East end wall upstairs for boards....I had to make room for nailers for the ceiling boards, so that meant getting on the top step of our 8' ladder and scraping foam insulation off the studs...I hate ladders, but have to do it, right?

Anyway, after much prep of the wall, we started boarding from the middle outwards so that we got the shiplap board at the peak, just right. Greg is fast at measuring, making patterns, and cutting, because, as he said: "This is what I do all day long." So, we are well on our way to finishing the first of the very hard walls today and having a good start on finishing the Master Bedroom walls and ceiling over the next few days. Perfect.

Sore!

Oh my, 10 hours of hauling boards and walking up and down the stairs and up and down ladders has made me very sore! I went to bed last night around 10:30 and slept soundly until about 4:30, never moving once....that hardly ever happens to this very light sleeper! It feels good actually.

It is almost 6am and I am off to Yarmouth to pick up the other finish nailer that I bought on Craig's. Greg is working at the cottage all day for the next few, so I thought it was best for each of us to have a gun so we can work independently, or together with longer boards.

I see the end in my mind. I decided that July 10th will be my deadline to have the whole house done and in rentable shape. I will have an open house at that point and invite the neighbors and friends to come see so that they can spread the word.

Finally got in the work groove and finished two of the five foot walls in the master bedroom. I figure that once I get the groove on to do the end wall in that room, It should take me a day or so to put those boards up. The ceiling doesn't look as bad as I thought and I think we could probably have one side of that room done in a day, I figure two and a half weeks of one person boarding to finish upstairs, with another week to do the hallway and stairwell. We are on schedule as far as I can see.

I am having one of those days where I feel I cannot do anything because I am all thumbs. I am getting increasingly frustrated because I am not an angles and math guy, so measurements do not come easy to me. Feel that I am wasting materials by measuring and cutting and not getting it right. It's just been me here for the last two days and yesterday was a total loss, save for my cleaning abilities. Greg says he'll be here for the next three of four days, so that gives me solace that we can get the downstairs ceiling up.

Ugghh

Our Adventure Downeast Pays Off

I got a call from a friend on Tuesday asking if I might want some of her mom's old wicker for one of our cottages. Yes, please! I said. The only catch was that I had to drive to Brooksville, ME and could I come the next day as she and her brothers had sold the house and were cleaning it out. She assured me that the wicker was old and "really sturdy." She said there were two chairs that I could have a party on, they were so sturdy. I figured we were talking old rattan, but I was game and Greg wanted to come along too, so adventuring we were going to go! We also had an errand to run in Trenton, ME where we dropped the prop from the boat off to be cleaned and polished.

Well, as you can tell from the photo above, we did alright. Seven pieces of vintage wicker, all in the Bar Harbor pattern, including two large arm chairs, seen below.

and two smaller arms,. as well as two slipper chairs and a round table where my friend's mother used to place her champagne cocktail at night while she watched the osprey circle over the cove below their house. We also scored some newish wicker bedside tables, an aray of fireplace tools, including a 5 foot tall twig broom that I wanted for Little Bohemia .

We also went dumpster diving and came up with a few other pieces of new wicker for use outdoors here at our house. Rain does terrible things to wicker, so the plastic stuff works great outdoors.
I asked my friend to give us a price and told her point blank that whatever she said, I would counter offer. She said $300....I said $200 and we agreed on $250 plus we helped them haul a huge and heavy sofa bed out to the dumpster. What I think is also cool is that the large vintage wicker console table that came with Sunnyside is also a Bar Harbor pattern and matches the chairs. So, besides three beds and a couch, I think we are all set with furniture for Sunnyside!....oh right, I still need a dining table and chairs.

Lots going on at the cottage these days. We finished boarding the downstairs walls, save for the exterior walls of the bathroom as we have to install the grab bars first and then add the pink insulation for a sound barrier. I worked all day yesterday and was just calling it quits at 4pm when Seth (no relation) came in. He worked for about four hours and wrapped the outside of the stairs with boards to complete what I had been working on. It looks great, The kitchen area really just came right together, so I am really pleased.

I had the monitor heater moved on Monday. It was right in the area that I had chosen for the kitchen table, across from the open kitchen, so I had them move it to the big wall in the new addition. The previous owners left us a beautiful vintage wicker console table with a glass top that will fit right over the heater, essentially making it disappear.

Yesterday, a friend on facebook offered me 6 vintage wicker chairs out of her mother's house in Brooksville. We have to get them out by the end of the week, so we are going off on an adventure today to pick them up. Funny that Brooksvillle is directly across the bay, not more than 10 miles as the crow flies, but it will take us over an hour and a half to drive there!

Pictures soon my pets, I promise.

UPDATE:
Ok, I couldn't stand it, so I had to go see what Seth (no relation) did last night and to take photos. WOW is all I can say, I am very excited to see most of the downstairs boarded. Once we clean up the detritus from working like dogs over the last week, the place will be spectacular. If we wanted, we could have a finished downstairs by next Wednesday...that means bathroom tiling done, pink insulation installed, and exterior bathroom walls done as well as a working bathroom and possibly a working sink area.

First, the front doors and the parlor

This is the wow effect for me, the kitchen area done. Makes a huge difference!

The stereo is now where the heater used to be. This will be the dining room area

And finally, the new living room and the place for the heater, which some day might actually be a fireplace wall.

In the airport coming home after an unsuccessful weekend of auctioning...actually, there is one more lot coming up to bid on this afternoon and I will do it by phone while driving home from the airport. I was the underbidder on a set of fantastic 18th century watercolors scenes of the Battles of Lexington and Concord done by a young man between the ages of 14 and 16 when he did them. I might have gotten them, but discovered they were glued down to another piece of paper sometime in the early 20th century. I found this out right before the auction, so I was the only bidder to figure this out...I lowered my bid by what the conservation would've cost and ended up not getting them.....oh well. This afternoon I am bidding on a folk artist's self portrait done when he was 19 years old in Portland, Maine. It is signed and dated on the back of the canvas.

Anyway, while out of town, I found another Paslode finish nailer on Craig's list. I think we will need it. The person who listed it is contacting me after I land in Portland and will meet me somewhere near the airport. It was a good deal and I saved over $150.00 from buying a new one.