Year 2, Months 8 & 9: We Did More Stuff!
Greetings! It’s been a little while, but hooray and hoorah, we’ve finally got some stuff completed and some decent things to share! First of all, if you recall, once upon a time, I discovered that in 1875, there was a fountain in the yard. Well, 148 years later, and you can put the fountain back on the map!
AMAZING, right!? It’s so fresh and new that we didn’t even see it at night with the spotlights yet! I feel like I’m not really doing a good job conveying just how much I am excited about this fountain. I’m, like, reallllly exited. I’ve been dreaming of this day for soo long, and it’s so fantastic, even more fantastic than I thought it could be, thanks to Kevin’s genius idea of tiling the pool, and me finding really awesome Portuguese tiles, which remind me so much of our trip to Portugal a few years ago. It’s so bright and festive and also old and just..wow! Thanks to Ronnie for digging the hole, and Paulie for doing the preliminary cement work, and a very special thanks to Casey, who did all the tiling and conduit work and helped us assemble this masterpiece of falling water! And now….moving on to the fabulous Victorian garden fence:
Another fantastic teamwork adventure! Shawn got it from Dave at the Inn. Ronnie welded tabs on the posts, I did the painting, and Casey and Kevin installed it. Bravo, everyone! Suddenly it’s really looking like SOMETHING around here, right!? And WOW did the garden plants explode in a riot of colors and shapes!
Here’s a cute little patio thingie Kevin & Casey worked on. It’s the PERFECT place to keep my giant plants out of the full sun!
We had some Paulie sightings early on in the summer, and he helped get the front all ready for stucco (he helped with the back too, but we’ll save the back for later!) The stucco is now applied, so it looks like this (after a rain! it’s lighter and less splotchy dry):
Originally I was going to paint the remaining cement, but it matches the stucco so nicely, I said “Nah”. Why add jobs to the list when it looks terrific the way it is? And once these front beds really start coming in, no one will be paying attention anyway. I’m reminded of something my friend Kriss once told me. She said, “No one looks at your crown molding unless they’re wondering if they’re supposed to be putting up crown molding too.” I think of this quote often, as I think it’s a very great metaphor whenever I’m dealing with projects on a large scale like this. It’s so important to not get caught up in tiny little perfectionist details-otherwise you’ll never ever get finished! And the overall effect is the same. So don’t worry about the crown molding being perfect-no one will notice anyway! Focus on the feel when you come into the room!
And now, around back: Some stuff got done!
The pigeons are really, REALLY gone now! And we have a new storm door and awning! Unfortunately, the awning actually made the leaking into this doorway worse, because the water drips off the roof, hits the awning, and shoots down the gap behind it. So we’re probably saying goodbye to the awning this week and figuring out something else so we don’t have to use towels in the doorway. Hopefully there’s just one more day of work on the repointing here, and then we can move the scaffolding around to finish the tiny east side wall, and then the grand finale, the west wall. That’s the goal by October!
Once they’re done playing with mortar, in this corner, it will be time to re-install the original hardware store doors! I’m doing a twist on them. Instead of having glass inserts, I’m using copper flashing and punching a design in them! My new copper punch hobby is loud as hell, so I haven’t gotten as far as I’d hoped for at this point, but at least the wooden doors themselves are well protected and curing in the meantime. I stripped, sanded, filled, stained, and varnished them. The stain went BOOM and brought out all 163 years worth of use. I love it! Then I varnished the dickens out of them with Epifanes, just like I did the front doors. I used their matte finish for the final coat instead of gloss like out front. Mostly because I had it, and I ran out of gloss, and it’s $50 a quart. But I like the matte sheen! Here is the before, when things were a total hot mess out back. Note the only glass panel was the wrong size. Fun fact: That’s now the transom above the side door on our front porch!
And here is the current situation:
The plan for that back rotting floor is still evolving-always evolving! So is the plan for the 3rd floor. But we won’t get into those, instead we’ll just savor the progress we have already made.
So I think that’s it? Oh, wait-I painted the downstairs hallway again! I had lots of this beautiful gold paint, since that’s the color I wanted our room. But Kevin said absolutely not, so we compromised with gold trim, and I had a gallon to spare. I then added caulke green, and it was a big exciting moment for me, because the green is FARROW & BALL paint, donated to us by dear friends. Ooooh, the luxury to finally get to play with super fancypants paint! In case you’re wondering, I did love working with it! It cut like a dream- I probably went twice as far before having to dip my brush back in the paint. To quote the hilarious SNL sketch about it, just look at that co-LOUR!
At the current moment, our bikes and golf clubs are stored here. For the winter, we’re planning a little plant area so we don’t have to drag all the palm trees up a flight of stairs ever again. One day this will also be a hall of mirrors.
Ok, that’s it for now! I’ll be back for a fall check-in as we approach our two-year finish line date of October 28th!