Round the Front

This Sunday we celebrated a momentous occasion. The completion of the top exterior farmer's porch trim! YAY!

It looks amazing! Like suddenly it's a real live actual porch.... And that's not all! For super coolness, check out how Timmy did the left hand side.

Yes, that's right folks. He added some siding in the triangle to make it fit in with the rest of the house. (Or the rest of the house when eventually it's all sided with that siding.) So awesome looking and so much better then just white trim in there.

But the guys didn't work too much on Sunday, having family parties and other affairs in the late afternoon. I was just psyched to see that exterior trim. The interior trim is next, followed by pole wrapping. And lucky for us, we still have some materials left. Hot dog!

Then, on Sunday evening, Mike mowed the lawn and weed whacked everywhere. What a difference that made! It's like a whole new landscape! That, plus yours truly took a moment to clean up some of the debris in the backyard on Saturday. Thank you, thank you. Hold your applause por favor.

Oh - and then the guys started tempting me... talking about extending new siding out through the mudroom and kitchen side... which would mean a big new bay window in the kitchen and removal of two of the remaining three oldy cruddy gross 1950s windows in the house.

Ohhhh.... seriously. Don't tease me like that. I'm going to start getting all excited!

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Coming At 'Cha

More materials are en route! At this point I'm hoping the whole thing can be finished by the annual Halloween Party - first Saturday of November... so I have to keep things moving, no matter how po' I feel. (Yes, as you can tell, no trucks have sold as of yet.)

I quickly realized today that, "hey, it's friday!" and if I don't want to be driving my butt to Morse on Saturday early AM, Mike needs to order materials. I sent him a text this morning and sure enough, they'll be delivered tomorrow morning.

Still on the to-do list, more painting, all the caulking, and purchase of trim.

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Blue Paint and White Trim

Last weekend, recall that Mike brought home blue tinted primer for the newly completed porch ceiling. What you may not recall, because I didn't get around to publishing the post, was that we received a brandy-new materials list from Timmy last Wednesday. 8 pre-primed 1x10's.

Thinking he had no time to have Morse Lumber deliver the goods, Mike went to the DeepHo on Friday night. (Much to my dismay, believe me - since it would have been cheaper at Morse.) But after being gone for what seemed like ever, Mike called in angst. The HD had nothing worthwhile. The boards were VERY poor quality, pre-primed gray and not white, and $30 a pop. He came home with nada.

So Saturday morning he called in the order to Morse and I went in a rush to pick it up at 9am, since they close at noon on Saturday. Lucky #1, Mike left me his truck. Lucky #2, the guys at Morse agreed to load and strap it for me. And though all that was lucky, it was still a bit stressful because our one man painting crew, Richard from across the street, was due over at 10am.

Sure enough, there he was, right when I pulled home in the driveway. And with a coffee for me to boot. (I needed it!)

After that madness, it was pretty much sooth sailing. Richard painted until he ran out of paint... we should have bought two gallons.  I suppose it was Lucky #3 that he was able to even round the corner.

You can pretty much see where the paint ended in this pic.... and honestly, the far end of that paint job was a real stretch and a half. Once we finish this coat of primer, we'll fill all the holes with caulk. A little backwards from our original plan - but it's probably better that way.

Why you ask? Well, Sunday the guys were over again bright and early to start trimming things out. They used up all of the wood we bought, cutting it down as needed to box in the top of the porch where the ceiling meets the framing. (Thus avoiding the larger cost of purchasing large boards, small boards, medium boards, etc etc.) And, they attached everything with the stronger framing nails. (Here's where I'm getting to the benefit of not-caulking.)

Very true, finishing nails would certainly leave less of a mark - but to the expense of strength. Better to hold it tight and use more caulk then to watch it fall some years and years down the line.

Already it looks so beautiful on the inside. We need to purchase some moulding to fit where the ceiling meets the trim to finish it off, but other then that, this is how it will look.

A portion of the front facing (outside) trim was also completed... until we ran out of materials of course, and looks similarly awesome.

Timmy and Richard left around 2ish, but Mike wanted to keep working. First he cleaned up the area, throwing out all the trash and just tiding up tools and whatnot. Then, he removed a few pieces of siding at the top where the ceiling meets the house and attached strapping. This had to be done so trim could be later attached there.

He also decided to trim out the front door - a decision I was personally psyched about. Especially since we had enough trim boards "in-stock" in the basement. We'll have to purchase some moulding to round that out too, but check another long standing not-done off the to-do list.

Up for this week - complete the primer coat on the ceiling and caulk. Purchase more materials - we have a new list, plus the moulding. Timmy is also going to bring by some samples of post trim, to give us an idea. Mike kinda wanted to increase the width of the posts - by a lot. Like double. Like 8" posts. I don't know if I'm hip to that. I hate columns. And wide posts would remind me of columns. Too masculine for me. I'm hip to a little bit of an increase - but no beefy posts por favor.

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Beautiful Beautiful

The ceiling is complete... and it is beautiful. I can't tell you how happy I am to just stare at it - and it's not even painted yet.

Look at it!! All the angles coming together... the trim pieces.

The guys were all over on Sunday again to finish it - and, honestly, made quick work of the remaining pieces.

More would have been accomplished, but Timmy got called into work. No big deal. I didn't even think we'd get any trim up! In fact, I didn't even realize that the trim would be simple thin cuts of the same bead board. Simple - economical - genius. Looks amazing, even at the joints where the bead board changes direction.

Mike purchased the primer on Saturday and tinted it the very lightest of blue. (Blue, as you recall, is traditional for farmer's porch ceilings. Blue like the sky!) I wish I was painting it at this very moment. Unfortunately, I've been booted off the painting crew. Let's face it, I'm stuck as Senior VP of Baby Management. But it's not so bad - and with my jelly arms, I'm not so great at painting ceilings anyway.

First thing's first - the filling of all the nail holes. Mike may or may not remember to bring home caulking tonight. (There are so many bad an inappropriate jokes I could make here regarding filling, nail holes, caulk, and up - but I'll leave it all to your imagination. I'm sure I'll hear enough of it from the guys.) Once that's finished - paint away!

And a new materials list wouldn't hurt either. We didn't even end up purchasing new materials over last weekend - but did manage to make a couple of good purchases in other areas, so no complaints.

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More Then 1/2 A Ceiling

Thursday night I arrived home to such a welcome sight. All the guys - working away on the porch ceiling. It made my evening, for sure. And in just a couple short hours, we went from 1/3 ceiling to 2/3 ceiling.

Check out the funky angles - all an effort to reduce seams and keep the bead board running straight. Don't forget, this porch is funky in that it is a fat L shape, with a large portion near the french doors. So as we go into the bottom line of the L, we switch direction on our bead board. Yes, that's not the ideal situation, but again, to avoid mad seams, we decided to make the switch.

 So this portion in the pic above, it's hard to tell, but the direction is flipped. Note that the hole has been cut for the fan box. Additionally, all the outlet holes have been cut on the "done" side of the porch. (Quote unquote)

Meanwhile, today begins MA's famous tax-free weekend! Yes, from Sat - Sun, you could save the 6.25% sales tax on any and all purchases under $2500. (Don't think I'm not dreaming about a fridge... but not right now.) Just this morning I was at BJ's 5mins after it opened to do a large shopping trip. Glad I did too, it was already getting busy!

Soooo.... yeah. I'm also dreaming of some additional porch building materials. I have no clue what we need next. No clue if Mike will be available to shop with me. No clue if Morse Lumber is open on Sunday. 

But I do know that if worse comes to worse, we need paint and we need a fan. We need railings - which I want so bad. But I just don't know what kind or how many. Should we go with the more expensive no-maintenance forever and ever kind?! Should we go with the economical pressure treated that needs painting again and again? Then there's trim.... And what about some lattice for the lower third? Oh - and stair stuff...

Ahhhhhh - overload!!!

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Clash of the Carpenters

It's Sunday night. And I'm looking at 1/3 of my porch ceiling. Yes, things were delayed last week... and having jinxed myself repeatedly, I decided not to type a word when the schedule changed to Saturday.... then Sunday.

And being Sunday, Mike was already booked fixing TJ's truck. So there we were... dual carpenters, one porch, a truck with no brakes, neighbors in and out, and so much madness. I was concerned it would be out of control, with everyone tripping all over each other. But it turned out. It really turned out. As you can see from the soon to be beautiful results.

But before you can say that doesn't look like a lot for a days work, the strapping for the rest of ceiling is done too - so we're ready to pretty much slap up the rest of the bead board at some point next week.

The next step, besides the obvious getting up of the bead board, is the removal of all the gutters across the front and side of the porch. That way, it'll be able to be trimmed on the outside. A very very good thing. After that? Stairs.

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Wired!

Wiring is complete! Mike finished it up last Friday night. Saturday, I even cleared the porch of all I could so that construction can commence whenever possible. I still can't believe it'll be happening soon.... imagine... a ceiling as early as this week. It just doesn't seem possible.

As you can tell, I'm in pretty good spirits. After last week's downturn, our luck returned over the weekend. Mike finished the wiring, I discovered my Sat night plans were not ruined because of stupidity, we salvaged that important document we lost, bids started flying on both my ebay auctions... then some no-feedback ding dong cancelled his winning bid on 4Runner #1 in the last 20mins of the auction. What an incredible idiot!

And it's not just like, "Oh, that's fine - I'll just list it again." No - selling vehicles on ebay is actually tricky business. I can't just plop it back up again - the same 4Runner shoppers from last week will likey still be there... and now that they saw my 4Runner make it up to the reserve amount.... they know what that amount is. And they won't bid.

I had a similar problem when selling a motorcycle some years ago on Ebay. Some crafty fellow slapped on a high bid, just to see what the reserve was, then retracted the bid. After that, the auction creeped up by pennies, because everyone knew what that reserve was and they were all clammering for a deal. Those swine. It's like they're all in cahoots.

Anyway. I read him the riot act. THEN he had the nut to tell me that since I'm an experienced Ebayer, I should be used to people doing this sort of thing and know how to handle it. That response did not dignify a response-response from me. (And by the by, this particular situation of having to file a claim with Ebay to cancel the transaction and that sort of thing - has never happened to me in all my many years of Ebaying.)

At least the soft top sold with no muss 'n fuss. Phew! Plus, I have a whole bunch of response to my craigslist ad for 4Runner #1... including a gentleman who is so near-to-sure he's going to purchase, he'll come to my house on Monday with a flatbed to pick it up if no one else has purchased yet. Hey, maybe that Ebay ding dong was just meant to be.

So, returning you once again to home-matters - I'm even more super psyched because the guys are supposed to come over tonight to begin work on the porch ceiling. Today's time is ticking by super slowly just to twazz me out. I cannot cannot wait.

Mike warned me in advance that we'd probably be getting another laundry list of materials from Timmy as progress progresses. No problemo man.

It's going to be finished before the end of this month. I can feel it.

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