Month: August 2017
… the differences between Ye Olde Wreck, then and now. The ground that sloped downward into the house, burying the foundation in forever-damp soil. The rot in that misbegotten extension. The shredded corner where some fool tore the exterior wall to its studs and attempted to prop up the failing structure with a single 4×4 post The soggy fiberboard. The plastic sheeting covering holes in the walls. The general dank, cobwebby, moldy, crumbing mess of it all. And now the solid, leveled foundation of new treated 6 x6s. The ground graded flat. The hill held back by an attractive retaining…
Because the Late and Increasingly Unlamented Handyman Mike built the bathroom without correcting underlying problems, The Wandering Monk and I, having repaired and leveled the foundation , are now faced with having to re-level major elements. Phase II of the Great Foundation and Screen Porch Project has been a breeze compared with Phase I, but today we come to the hard part. The north bathroom wall (which Mike built level without regard to what the rest of the house was doing around it) leans in. The bathroom window runs uphill. Rebuilding the wall or cutting it loose from its moorings…
Sorry for the lack of updates on the Great Foundation and Screen Porch Project, and for the lack of photos now. On Thursday we (and this time it was both The Wandering Monk and me in equal measure) finally entered the “hey, there might really be a house in all this mess” stage. In May and July we labored painfully on the foundation and rotted lower walls of the back wing. Necessary, of course. But hard, scary, and mostly not gratifying. That is, not aesthetically gratifying (except for that new bedroom wall with the glass door in it). It’s intellectually…
We (but mostly The Wandering Monk) finished the screen porch framing except for the part above the door. That, and hopefully a fair bit of siding, should be done tomorrow. Well, barring the standard unpleasant discoveries, courtesy of Ye Olde Wreck’s original builders, Jim Beam and Jack Daniels. Fortunately we’ve reached the point where those discoveries are of the “how the heck do we fit those crazy angles together” variety rather than the “why didn’t I just tear the house down when I had the chance?” sort. But there sure are a lot of those little angles that don’t like…
Writer Annie Dillard described the wonder and strangeness of a total solar eclipse. Even scientists express awe as they examine data. I’ll be outside the totality zone for this month’s nation-covering eclipse. Everyone says that even near totality (which I’ll see) is a million miles from the true magic. Until you’ve watched the sun completely disappear by day, leaving only a glowing corona, you don’t know the glory of an eclipse, so they tell us. Where will you be on August 21? Anybody traveling to get a better view?