it occurred to me that the month is almost over.

It's been a while since I posted, and I can't honestly think what's changed. So, I guess I'll list what I've done, see if it makes any sense.

Same time I listed the playhouse, I also listed a couple of bicycles that I never ride, and felt they needed good homes.

My dear old Cannondale T-700 touring bike:

And my old Fisher CR-7, which I never really even rode very much. I have an OLDER CR-7, which I rode a great deal, but for some reason, I just never gave this bike the love it deserved:

Anyway, the Cannondale generated a lot of interest on Craigslist, but only one person was actually interested in taking it for a ride and trying it out. So, I hitched it up to Big Dummy, and rode it over and dropped it off for him to try it over the weekend, but alas, twas not a good fit. So, I just gave up, and pulled the ad.

The day I pulled the ad, I got an email from a fellow up at Bucknell University who wanted to buy it and ride it across the country this summer. I suggested he might want to try it first, but he was actually pretty insistent. A few days later, he got a ride down, and took it for a ride, and bought it. This guy was a complete nut! Muyambi, the CEO/Founder of Bicycles Against Poverty, from Uganda to the US, he's going to ride across the country, east to west, and after meeting him, I have no doubt he will do it.

(Google has changed the way this blogging software works, and I'm not happy with it, images and everything.)

Anyway, he bought it. And that was about the big point of the week.

In other news, Got pretty much all of Bob's tools moved back over to his shop, in a vain attempt at creating more space. Also loaded a lot of scrap insulation foam, and old lumber out to the garage/workshop, to clear more space. A fair amount of effort, but it doesn't seem to have had any effect on the cluttered feel of things.

Spent yesterday afternoon trimming out the inside molding on the back door in the addition. That took 4x longer than expected, and due to the strange sizes of the space, and the strange sizes of the material I had, it ended up taking a lot more material as well.

Then today, I basically did this:

I really wanted to get this done, and get the trim on before I took this picture, so I could head off to Cheat Fest tomorrow with a sense of having gotten at least one thing actually done. But it's not done, and I decided that I wasn't going to try to force it, as I was starting to get pretty tired. Oh well. It will wait.

Du gamla, Du fria, Du fjällhöga nord

Du tysta, Du glädjerika sköna!

Jag hälsar Dig, vänaste land uppå jord,

/: Din sol, Din himmel, Dina ängder gröna.:/

I think this accidental colour scheme is starting to get to me. 

Oh well, onward thru the fog.

Next week, Cheat Fest!

--

I moved the ball forward a little further.

Let's see, where was I?

Well, in a nutshell, I sanded and patched and sanded and patched for about 2 weeks. This is AFTER Jimi so very generously came up and spent 2 of his very valuable days establishing some shape on the ceiling corners. Seriously. And it still doesn't look that great. Finally



I decided that I was done sanding and patching, and began to prep to paint.

I'm using milk paint from the Old Fashioned Milk Paint Company. This stuff is kinda tricky. It's a bag of hydrated lyme, powdered milk and pigment. You mix it with water to turn it into paint, then you paint. Sounds simple, yes?

Well, of all things, I dislike doing drywall the most, as stated. But painting comes in a very close second. For some reason I was expected about 5 to 600 sq/ft coverage per gallon, figure 2 coats to cover, that's 250/300 sqf per gallon, right? Not even close. About half that. I blended what I had many times until I hit on a decent light sage color for the ceilings, did my cut in and started to paint. Ran out about 1/3rd the way through what I had hoped to accomplish with those materials. No way around it, I was shut down on that project for a week while I ordered up and got in more paint. Sigh.

So, I threw what effort I could into finishing at least one room. With a second thin coat on the ceiling, I decided it was good enough, and started in on the walls. What was supposed to be -in my mind at least- a yellow, turned out to be some really strange mustard colour. Again, going through 2 to 3x the amount of paint I expected, I managed to finally get all joint compound covered.



Second coat applied, still wet. Joint compound still clearly visible. Sigh, ,

And then, while doing laundry on sun morn, the dear ole not so egregious prius decided that it had had it's 200th birthday, so it's about time to throw a code. The check engine light came on, and the gas motor now no longer shut off. Mileage really started to suffer, I was back down in the range of 30-33mpg. So, on monday, I took it into Starks Auto, to make a long story short, (very long, involving bicycle crashes and other more fun stuff) it was a blown fuse.

So, the third coat:



Better. Still looks like Gulden's Mustard though.

But, the colour really started to grow on me.

Then yesterday, I went after other tasks, and listed the little playhouse on craigslist,



that's it in the foreground.

And Kelli contacted me, and WANTED it. For the kids, for a chicken coop. And by golly, she was going to make it happen. She bounded into the backyard with a neighbors utility trailer hitched to her Chevy Tahoe in a few hours, with her sister, niece and various offspring and other folks, and we had that thing loaded and gone in no time. Horse folks, these people, the last of the great american 'can do' clans.

last night, she sent me this pic:



Which I gotta say, really made my day.

So, today, I took a deep breath, and went after a project I've been dreading since I first conceived of it last fall. I've got lots of friends, who, -sorry for the biased cliche`- have -shall we say- last names that end in vowels that know how to do this stuff, but I am clearly out of my depth here.

Onward through the fog.



The slate is yet still another wonderful find from the the Habitat for Humanity Re-Store. We really love those folks.



So, the idea is to have a place to take off boots/shoes and stuff before walking on the floor proper. Further, the black slate is supposed to capture sunlight and couple that heat directly through the concrete board to the sand and then the tubes in the radiant floor system. Give it a boost as it changes from this zone into the bedroom zone. Both zones sends and returns pass through this section.



Gives an idea what I'm trying to do colour-wise. Capture the green and the wood, and balance it with the wall colour. The pic doesn't show the colours well, it looks better than this in person, really. Promise, honest, you'll have to come see.

And yes, one thing about projects like this is that no one ever bothers with the wall plates/outlet covers. I bought a few boxes of'em, and now whenever I'm just standing around staring blankly into a corner, I can slap on wall plates until i find something else I'd rather do.

PS,

And in other news,

At night, the bears come and eat the bird feeders, yes, the bird feeders themselves.
Now no more bird feeders, sigh.

we're being beaten up by the weather

which can't seem to decide if it's early spring, or early winter.

In short, after a couple of weeks of summer, the weather has return to a more seasonable rhythm, which is wreaking havoc on all the budding trees and shrubs around cold comfort. it's pretty hard to watch actually.

The robins are here, and they are finding some stuff to eat, but I can tell, it's not as much as they'd like. The finches are here, and it appears as if they are completely dependent on our feeder, as the stuff they would normally eat, isn't yet available.

So, that's the news from the backyard.

In the house, this horror continues:



and there really isn't much to say about that. it's still going on. I'm about done messing with it though, and am willing to accept it as is at this point. Folks tell me that first coat of pain will go on,and I'll be back to patching and sanding again. Me, I'm not so sure. Time well tell, always does.

She's been going through a lot, very busy with family and professional matters. Too much so. But that's part of this spring as well. Just how it is. So, she came up last weekend, and we decided to take a small vacation instead of meekly trying to move the ball forward. It was a much needed break indeed.

From our private backyard, into the shared backyard, we took a little walk:











and a fine time was had by all.