Painted into a corner

As I probably said (just checked & yes, I am repeating myself), there is a fairly inflexible

sequence to the way houses are built and renovated. Before floors and trim can go on, the place must be painted. We are now at the painting stage and it's definitely crazy-making -- not necessarily for us, but for our painter.

Back in April, I told our general contractor that we would be painting everything in a Benny Moore colour called marble white. That is no longer the case - we have gone wild with colour. Bedrooms are blue and green, the pantry is flaming red, one bathroom is a bright gold, and we are driving our painter, Ingrid Hartsink, crazy.

Bruiser takes a stroll on our new deck.

The idea of having a nice neutral background throughout was very sensible. But then I became a Benjamin Moore colour book addict. With all those choices, suddenly off-white became, well, boring! It's totally necessary in the main room, where a jumble of highly colourful paintings, persian rugs and furnishings will all have to lump along together. But those colours and their seductive names, like Greenmount Silk and Summer Harvest, did me in and now for anyone who visits it, our farmhouse is likely to deliver the visual equivalent of electroshock.      

While the painter is hard at work, our construction crew has taken off after installing doors and locks. It's not like they haven't got lots to do -- the deck must be finished off and it sure would be nice to use steps instead of a concrete block, e.g. -- but other jobs urgently need to be done before freeze up. It takes a very rainy day indeed to get them back here and working inside, instead of running around the county pouring concrete and doing framing. Next week, however, they are all ours -- our contractor is going fishing and wants them doing something simple like putting in our flooring, while he's away. 

Not a bowling alley - the deck across the back of the house.

Meantime, almost every day we conduct a tour for friends, neighbours and occasionally even perfect strangers who drop by and want to see the manse. Should start to charge! And, as the weather gets cold, the heat is on to get into the house. Note to self: phone kitchen guy and tile guy and do some creative nagging! My squeaky wheel routine is about to get underway.

Work speeds up when there's a chill in the air

There's an appreciable nip in the air these September mornings. It's invigorated our hardworking team of young guys. Although the crew managed to keep up the pace even in the sweaty depths of a steamy August afternoon, now they've doubled it with the cooler weather and the end of the job in sight. Yes, our old garage covered in ancient insulbrick has been rejuvenated with the last of the siding. The construction team has now turned their attention to one of the final chores, completing the decks. This is  a new Trex product, Accents, that is wrapped in polychloride vinyl, not my favourite material but seeing as it will prevent problems like mold and staining etc. and involve NO WORK to maintain, we will manage to overlook this small environmental crime.

When the crew goes, I will miss them, their cheerful can-do attitude, real applied concentration on the job, friendly smiling faces and colorful language. In fact it is from them I have learned the amazing versatility of the work F**K, which, it seems, can be used, not just as an exclamation but a verb, adjective, noun, adverb, a gerund... you get the idea!

This coming Monday the painter starts work on the inside, following the departure of the drywallers and the mudders who filled in the cracks. Or, I should say, "mudder" since it was mostly one solitary older man with a moustache covered in finishing compound dust who put in 12 hour days working from daybreak until after dark with the aid of a work light.

I'm in awe of the work ethic of most of the tradepeople who worked on our project., starting usually at 7.15 and knocking off at 4 or later with only the shortest of breaks for coffee and lunch. The attitude was summed up by our lonely drywall finisher, who said, "when work comes along, it's take it or lose it." Like most, he was going on to another job on a tight deadline.

The final stages of outside work included a major mess made of our lawn by trenching for the new hydro line. I'm now re-planting all the peonies that had to be uprooted or else get squished by machines or heavy work boots, but the grass is a project for next spring. Local stone mason Pat Secord has done a fine job of the surround for our wood stove. In order to get this stove put in, however, even though our wood stove installer is certified, and the stove is certified, I had to get yet another "permit", which should roughly translate to "tax grab" in any language.

So... once the painting is done, the floors will go in, then trim and doors are installed, and, provided our kitchen guy comes through, who knows?  We might be into the house and out of our trailer by the end of September (and pigs might fly.)

Top photo: The Michener ranch in almost finished form. 
Second pix: Bob shows friend Mike O'Kane the progress since his last visit.
Bottom, the guys working away on the deck.