Nothing to see here, keep moving...

Not much of an update today. I've been busy with other things and havent had much time to work on the house.

I found some plaster patch product by DAP that I've been testing. It seems to work really well except that it's curing way too fast for me to work with it. On the box it says that it sets in 20-30 minutes but it's been setting in less than 5. I think it's because it's so cold in the rooms that I'm trying to use it in. It's in the low 50's in the kitchen right now. I'm going to bring a space heater in there this afternoon and see if that doesnt help. If it does I'm going to try to patch up the main downstairs bathroom so we can finally get it painted and finished.

The HVAC/plumbers havent been here all week, they've had other projects they're working on. It would be nice to have heat downstairs so I really wish they would hurry up... It's colder in the house than outside in the afternoons, the plaster walls really hold the cold in.

I'll post some pictures of my plaster work later this evening as long as it's not too much of a disaster...

Weekend salvage trip

Well our trip to the farmhouse for wood was pretty productive. We ended up getting a ton of T&G wood, some more doors, and 11 sets of nice old windows that we plan on using for our sunroom addition.

Here's a shot of the farmhouse:


Here's some of the wood we brought back:



We spent roughly 9 hours there yesterday, plus a 2 hour drive each way. It was a looooong day. It was well worth it though. Now I definitely have enough wood to finish the walls in the kitchen.

Here is a shot of just about the only productive work I accomplished today (I was still tired... plus the race was on):


As you can see I'm planing the boards first now. That should save some time later during sanding.

I also finally got around to pulling the last old closet out of the living room. This closet appears to be older than the other one that was in this room. It looks like it was installed in the 50's during the apartment conversion. I had a nice surprise whan I took it down:




Original paint and stain!! This has been hidden in the dark since the 50's. The stain is a deep red, it almost looks like paint until you look close. I'd really like to know what stain it is, I like the look and would love to duplicate it. Here's a closer shot:


I find it really odd that the fireplace mantle juts out beyond the end of the wall like this:


The only other house I have seen where the mantle does this is in the Holliday-Dorsey-Fife house, you can see a very similar setup of it in this picture. That house belonged to Doc Holliday's uncle and was built in 1855. It's about 40 minutes from my house.

Well I guess that's all for tonight, hopefully there will be some good progress tomorrow.

Jason