Five Projects
Today Noel and I worked on a variety of projects. Mostly because we actually finished things today and so we worked on other things, which is more awesome than it sounds, I swear.
Noel started by working on the pocket door frame installation.
I helped him snap a couple chalk lines on the floor.
Then he used the laser level to line up the base hardware between the two chalk lines. This hardware guides the bottom of the door inside the wall.
The kit comes with these thin pieces of wood encased in metal, basically a split 2x4 that the door can run through. They get installed on each side of the base hardware. Again, Noel used the laser level to get everything plumb.
He had to cut the split 2x4s to length, because the kit is designed for a door up to so many inches high and our door is slightly shorter than that.
You can see here the first pair of split 2x4s installed, and Noel is fitting the second pair in place.
He used the palm nailer to attach them to the head hardware.
And there we are.
The next project he worked on was reframing around the window opening, which he made a little too small. This time he deliberately made it a little too large, so he can shim the window into place.
Another project for the laser level and palm nailer.
And finally he could not put it off any more: it was time to strip the paint on the door. We want it to be all good before we install it in place, so it needs to be stripped, and that's a little easier to do lying flat on the sawhorses.
This did not look to be a bad job, just time-consuming.
By dinnertime, he got about a quarter of the door done (half of one side). That's the window screen from the bathroom window on there; it's chilly tonight and once the stinky fumes of stripping paint were no longer being produced Noel shut the window.
As for me, I started the day by finishing the last of the bulb planting, the mass planting under the buddleias.
I raked back the mulch, then dug the ground up, threw in bulbs and fertilizer, and shoveled and raked everything back. I also weeded out a bunch of invasive ferns.
I did some minor things around the garden like planting some more plants from pots (the first of the hostas under the deck!) and putting away tools that were lying around because it's supposed to rain next week.
Then I could not put it off any more: it was time to wash the ceiling in the hall.
You may recall that I made good progress on this a while ago, but since early April I have literally done nothing with it. I previously had the excuse that Noel was working on stripping the inside of the front doors, but he's finished that so I just had to get to work.
Noel helped me set up one of our sets of Baker scaffolding in the hall, then I went upstairs to take some photos for him. When I came down, this is what I had:
I swear that dog is going to end up injured from her habit of lying right under us while we work, but so far so good. Apart from getting a bunch of old wallpaper stuck to her once, she's been incident free since starting on the job in 2005.
posted by ayse on 10/21/12