Work Weeks 32 & 33: June Blur!
Hello! It’s hard to believe it’s only been two weeks since I last wrote. With gigs and festivals and other things every weekend, it feels like months have gone by! As I recall what all has happened here at Pigeon Manor, it’s pretty impressive for only two weeks!
Let’s start with the roof: Paul got the rot all under control, and the west side slates are finally up! Look at that dreeeeeaaaaamy slate flower Przemek (I think I got the spelling right this time!) created! I can’t wait until all the work is done on this side so it really stands out. Fun Fact: According to the internet, Przemek is short for Przemyslaw, which means “famous/praised for being artful”. How perfectly perfect!
The final copper flashing is on hold until the final sad dormer is repaired, but that will hopefully happen before my next report.
Next roof! Out front, our favorite metal roofers came back and got everything looking smoooooth and leak free with our fancy new porch roof! It’s looking fine indeed!
Once the brick repairs and pointing are done on the first floor out front, it will be time to rebuild the porch itself. For now, Nate, Isaac, Paul, Kupey, and Kevin are currently repointing and repairing the east side of the house, now that the back porch area is done on both levels. Then they’ll be back out front! In the meantime, Dave is getting the floor to ceiling windows back into shape so they open and close with ease, and Johnny made these beautiful concrete steps in anticipation of our new porch entrance:
While we’re still out front, remember when I promised that come July, the garden out front would be a riot of color?
Looking gorgeous, right?! As an added bonus, we’re now getting to know all the gardeners of the neighborhood. I tucked our houseplants in as a back border because: 1) I needed a place to put them where they won’t get destroyed with mortar 2) it’s a gentle discouragement to folks to please not trample our garden or traipse through our yard. It was vacant for so long, I think folks got in the habit of cutting through here, and while I don’t particularly mind, I do mind trash, other people’s dog’s poop, cigarette butts, and folks stepping on the low growing flowers. I’m also not a fan of angry signs, so this is a nice middle ground.
Working our way around to the back, here is Johnny’s other big project: A concrete dumpster pad!
Not too visually exciting, but everyone at UPH will absolutely LOVE not having to drag trash out to the curb once it’s in place, and we will absolutely love not having a dump trailer parked here all the time!
Ok back to the back: and the doors! Remember those double doors last time? Yeah well they are still not done. Doh! I did get them all almost entirely sanded and stripped, but then there was a delay in the delivery of the stain, and those particular doors are doing to take 24 hours for the stain, and then 5 coats of varnish, each with sanding and 24 hours cure time in between, on each side, so that’s a pretty mammoth thing that just hasn’t happened yet. I may end up saving them and doing both them and the front double doors at the same time. In the meantime, I stripped, sanded, and painted a door from the upper level!
Originally, my plan was to get all the doors back down to wood & re-varnish them, but with 13 doors, that’s total insanity (see above description requiring 10 days of varnishing per door), so painting is just as well! This is my tester door, where I decided what to do with the color scheme. Ultimately, that same green from the front is just too in-your-face on the doors. Wild how different colors can appear in different surroundings! Full grey it is! Now the trim shadows do all the contrast work, and it gives a nod to the varying shades of grey present on the pigeons that live here, since they are my color scheme inspiration! This funny little dude was watching me work. First he was up on the front roof, sliding down the metal like a slide because he couldn’t get a grip. I don’t think he’s the smartest of the crew!
I’m looking forward to having the doors re-hung and seeing the final color scheme!
Before I paint the trim out back, however, I’m the lucky super hoser who gets to pressure wash the diluted mortar mix that’s streaking down the bricks! I’m ¾ done our back. Man, is this hose heaven for those that are into this kind of thing! Tedious, but satisfying. Brick by brick, I’m getting there! The pressure washer is also removing the old maroon paint and restoring the bricks to their natural color. The aim isn’t perfection here, but charm without sloppiness.
Oh, one final exciting thing out back: WINDOWS! Our dormer windows have arrived! Dave got two of them in, and Troy will be doing the finish work on the outsides of the dormers.
Are they white? Yes. Were they supposed to be? No.
Initially, I had wanted black, so that all the attention remained on the slate roof, not the windows! But there was a difference of something insane like 12 extra weeks delivery time on black ones, not to mention a cost of thousands more, so we got white instead. Ah well. Once all is said and done, I really don’t think they’ll draw any undue attention to themselves, so I’m not too worried about it. Flexibility is 110% key with a job like this!
Before picture: Dave peeks his head out to say hello!
After! Beautiful, right? This pic also gives you a pretty good idea of the scope of my pressure washing job. Ok, that’s about it for now, back to pressure washing for me!
-Sara
PS. I’m trying to make sure the comments section is working on this blog, so feel free to leave me a comment! :)