Construction

• Drywall

  In the last week, we’ve made a fair amount of progress in getting drywall on the walls. This is despite the chronic crew problems we’ve had.  Johnny, by far our best worker, has been hunting out at the Floe Edge now since our Floe Edge trip. Not that I begrudge him the holiday, he’s been

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• Heat Wave

  What a gorgeous day.  It was supposed to be thirteen today, which would have been the warmest it’s been in over three years.  I just checked though, and the high today was 9.  It was sunny and calm, and I worked outside all day.  It is great to be able to work in just a

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• Crew Stories 5 – The New Guy

  Well, its going to be difficult changing the name on this one.  I’ve already put Gerard’s name in the blog a few posts ago, and I know that both he and his wife read The House, so… I guess it’ll just have to be out there for everyone to see. Gerard got to work here

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• Paint Spilling Update

  A little while ago Dave figured out that perhaps to keep the paint from spilling the lids of the paint cans need to be on tight. And keeping with the construction philosophy of if a hammer won’t fix it, you aren’t using a big enough hammer, he made sure it was on “tight”. Gary was

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• Crew Stories 4

  One of the first guys that we hired, Gordon, had a definite Mr. Magoo quality about him.  He didn’t start right away as he had been finishing up a job for another fellow here in town. But he made his presence known right from the start.  We have drywall ladders that see double duty as

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• Pipe

  Gary and I started putting in the pipe for the heating system yesterday. When planning the house we settled on in-floor radient heat on a boiler system. So far it has been a large learning curve, not only for us but it also for the first mechanical contractor. Smokin’ Joe wasn’t much on new things,

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• Panelization

  The roof, is complete. It is hard to believe, but it is finally done. Yesterday the last panel was put on the spare bedroom of the B&B, and that, for all intents and purposes, marks the end of one major part of the project. The spare bedroom was kind of an afterthought. When we originally

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• Crew Stories 3 – Paul and the Gnome Door

  Going back to the early days of the project, I had so many Paul stories, I’m not sure where to begin. In fact there were so many that I began theorizing what was behind them. I don’t know if any of my theories were at all accurate, although I suspect the administration of a urine

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• Crew Stories 2

  One of the guys on the crew, Jake (do I have to say that it’s not his real name), is a study unto himself. He’s been with us off and on since early in the project, although we haven’t had him working for awhile now.  Now his big saving grace is that he shows up,

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• Awareness and the $100 can of Paint

  One of the crew, Dave (we are changing the names to protect the guilty again), is an enthusiastic young man, with no real experience in construction. He works hard though and wants to learn. If we could only get him to show up on time and everyday consistently we’d be happier. Gary describes him as

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