Beltane Greetings to the pagan pals! Labor Day/May Day greetings to the socialist/communist buddies and family! I’m boycotting whatever I’m supposed to boycott, which is easy, since I don’t really buy stuff now.
This is what a maypole looks like when you’re finished with the dance. I miss our old church maypole. Photo by @comeilmare via Twenty20.
Ooh, yesterday did not start off at all well. I had a great deal of trouble keeping my cool in a meeting at work. I have a lot of issues with people who “mansplain” and treat me like I’m stupid, and talk right over me. I’m really glad I had witnesses so it won’t be made out that I pitched a hysterical woman fit or something.
Then I broke one of the crystals for my new chandelier. And my foot has not stopped hurting. Oh woe is me, but WAIT. There’s LIGHTING over at the Pope Residence!
A real highlight of the Pope project is finally getting to install the tin ceiling tiles. They are pretty awe-inspiring, if you ask me, and I guess I matter on this topic!
It should be less shiny when the light fixtures are up.
The main hallway is complete and ready for the light fixtures to get installed tomorrow and the final crowning touch (literally) the crown molding to go up.
That’s the sample crown molding.
This is gonna be one fancy hallway, that’s for sure.
Going down to Lee’s office.
We ended up not having enough tin to do the bathrooms, which was a disappointment. The consensus is that we will order another box of the tiles to finish off the bathroom in my office, while we will to the main bathroom in the beadboard we used in the second-floor ceiling.
The bathroom has all the important parts done, where the light and vent will be. The rest will wait until more in arrives.
I think Chris just secretly wants to put more of that light blue color on surfaces.
This is the real masterpiece of craftsmanship, where the ceiling takes a job at the stairway.
Today Chris went to Temple and bought a LOT of light bulbs, so that when the electricians come tomorrow, all the fancy lighting can get installed and look pretty. That will be another milestone! We’re going to get all-new LED ones for the recycled fixtures going in the stairway, because we think changing them will be a pain.
These fixtures were originally right in the room where they are now, but we’ll have them lighting the stairs. We are going to add covers over the exposed bulb holders, which we will recycle from another fixture. We don’t know where the ones that SHOULD be here went.
Actually, cleaning them was a pain, literally, because as I was cleaning one of them, the rope that was holding it so it would hang from the carport gave way and the big ole hunk of glass and metal whacked into my left hand and right foot.
Before and after. The dirty one is the one that attacked me.
But I saved the fixture! Nothing broke on me, either. I just have some bruising and scratches, to go with my dewberry and dog scratches. I think they make me look tough, and I’m sticking with that story!
Chris is at the stage in the Pope renovation that he is putting up trim in high places. He’s also cutting lots of crazy angles.
Angles
I’d wondered how he was managing to hold the boards up while he nailed them, especially the long ones. That’s when he introduced me to his rather quiet new helper.
Hold it right there!
Meet Wilson. He holds the trim just right as Chris nails the other end down. How do I know his name?
Oh, I see.
He has a name tag. That’s very helpful, since he’s the tall and silent type. Very patient, too.
A little scruffy, isn’t he?
He looks a lot like Chris, too. I’m really glad that man has a sense of humor. It must make doing all this alone a lot easier.
This is me saying thanks. My goodness, my complexion is good. It looks like I have no wrinkles! Thanks, SnapChat!
Well, hey there, kind readers! And you are kind. My heart is warmed by the kind comments I’ve received on yesterday’s post where I lost it about the consequences of sheltering in place. I felt like I was doing some very personal whining there, but more than one person (totally out of the blue) told me it felt like I was in their head, so I must have struck a chord with a lot of folks. Yep, we aren’t alone. Thanks to all for your supportive words and thoughts!
I’m happy to report that after I spewed forth all my negativity, two or three potentially nasty situations at my jobs turned around into positive and encouraging situations instead. I guess I made room for abundance, or something!
Pope Residence Update?
This fancy trim needed to be finished off, so now it’s ready to be painted. The floor part won’t get done until the floors are refinished.
On to the topic at hand, the work at the Pope Residence has slowed down this week for a couple of reasons. Easton is no longer helping out (he and Nicole went home), we began to run low on needed supplies, and the weather hasn’t cooperated much.
My bathroom is partially trimmed, but we’re out of boards until more get brought in and painted.
Today was supposed to be the day Chris went to pick up important things like doors, more trim material, and the all-important beautiful tin ceiling material. Oooh, ahh! But, we had another big ole rainstorm. It’s cleared up, so tomorrow may be fun!
That perky panel is for access to the air conditioning unit when it needs servicing. The hole is for air intake and will have a vent on it.
In any case, the ceilings are now pale blue in the offices we’re working on now, and a lot of the trim for those rooms is in. We have to wait to finish the trim in there until the floors are sanded and finished. We’ve got to rent the big sander to do that. More excitement to look forward to!
The blue on the ceiling looks fine, and the door trim makes the main office look more finished. Someone broke a tile on the hearth, so we have to figure out a way to deal with that!
Chris remembered to paint under the stairs yesterday, and earlier in the week finished enclosing the stairs. They also need to get sanded so we can stain them a color that goes with our flooring. I foresee a lot of sanding.
The forgotten under-stairs storage area.
Stairs ready to finish and add rails.
We’re ready for another big push, and Kathleen and I are ready to help out over the weekend. We’re gonna get it done, yes we are.
When you are renovating a large house with a very small team, it can seem like you’re just not making progress. That’s why there was a big smile on Chris’s face this morning when he declared that the first two offices are as done as they can be until the electrical stuff gets hooked up.
This lovely office now stores the wood for the rest of the trim and shims.
Both Kathleen’s office and Lee’s are all trimmed out and all painted. Wow. The hallway is done other than the ceiling, too.
On to the Next Phase
The guys have now moved on to the main office and my office. Everything that was in them has been cleared out and either taken to the ranch for storage or stored in Lee’s office on stacks of cardboard, to protect the flooring. A lot of trash went away yesterday, too.
The ceiling in my office, all primed.
Already today Chris and Easton got the primer painted on the ceilings in the two offices. When I first looked at them, I thought they’d already painted them the pale blue, but no, that’s gray primer.
Main office ceiling primed.
They are getting ready to apply some trim, once the ceilings are done, but I think the trim along the floor won’t happen until the floor refinishing project is done. That’s going to be exciting.
Alcove ceiling looking way better.
They also moved all the bathroom stuff into my little bathroom, other than the bathtub. It’s heavy. At least with the toilet and sink out of it, we could turn it over to get measurements for replacement feet.
Big Bertha has had a hard life, but she gets to stay!
We’re pretty sure that with just a couple simple tools and some paint,we will be able to get that old tub up and running, at least for the limited amount of use we plan to put it to!
Life is rolling along here in scenically rural Milam County, Texas. And its population is getting sicker. There are only 25,000-ish people in this county, so our ten COVID-19 cases are a lot. It was NOT good news to find out yesterday that one person who got sick worked at the local Dairy Queen. We’ve gotten take-out from there during our confinement.
Our lovely Dairy Queen
Oops. This has led Kathleen to declare that we bring lunches from home from now on. No one has disagreed.
Now, an important point to make here is that we have the best Dairy Queen possible here. It’s in a modern, new building. It’s clean. They pay well above minimum wage and have employees who’ve been there many years. The staff have all been briefed on precautions to take. And the owner, Robert Mayfield, immediately closed the store so that they can disinfect it from top to bottom and be sure that it’s safe (and that the workers there have a chance to quarantine and stay safe, themselves).
An example of Judge Young’s weekly newspaper articles.
Our County Judge, Steve Young, has been doing a heroic job going on the radio, doing Facebook Live, and otherwise staying in touch with the people here, urging them to not gather in large groups, wear masks if working with the public or out in public, and to stay the heck home. We’re all really proud of the work he and our Health Department are doing.
But, it takes actual cooperation to prevent the spread of disease. No one at the hardware store, serving the public, was wearing a mask this morning. No one at the gas station where I got fuel this morning was wearing a mask or gloves other than me. I am NOT gonna touch a credit card machine with my hands! I also have a very clean credit card now.
It’s good to have your own company hand sanitizers spread everywhere you go, so you can clean your credit cards and such.
I know Cameron is not alone. There are people everywhere who believe themselves immortal or invulnerable or just don’t give a shit who are wandering around like nothing has changed. Now, I’m not referring to people who have no access to masks or gloves and have to be out so their families don’t starve; I know isolation and protection is a privilege. I’m talking about people who feel perfectly comfortable putting other people’s lives in danger by their choices. Who knows how many innocent folks with underlying conditions that predispose them to having a bad case of the virus these people will kill in the name of their personal freedom?
Happy thoughts, yeah.
I Said There Would Be Some “Ups” in This Post
Look at all those freckles.
Yes, I did. I was looking at myself on Zoom yesterday (it’s hard NOT to look at yourself) and realized I looked as bad as I felt. So, last night I re-colored my hair for the first time since early March. It’s now orange with some pink highlights. (My next hair appointment isn’t for another month, at least, so plenty of time to wash out color by then.)
I put on makeup and lipstick today, added my sparkly yellow shoes, and I donned my new Hearts Homes and Hands lab coat. I look all professional and up-beat, and I’m hoping that will spread to my mood and attitude. So far, it’s helped. If I have to take things one step at a time, at least they will be sparkly steps!
Here you can see my lab coat. It reminds me of the one I had in grad school to keep chalk off my clothes, just like my mentor, Georgia, wore.
A Little Pope News That’s In-Between
Chris is really close to getting the first two offices completely done, other than installing the barn door between them. He has been working on trim all week. There is a LOT involved in doing trim, which is sorta sad, since when it’s well done, it blends into the background.
Trim in progress.
The doorway between the two rooms will NOT blend into the background. It’s darned bright and cheerful, especially on Lee’s side!
Trim, trim, trim.
Another thing that is taking a while is that they have to make dozens and dozens of shims to go behind the metal to trim windows on the tin walls. And, well, the house isn’t all level, so many shims are needed elsewhere. Easton spent an entire day cutting shims. Now, that sounds fun. Or does it?
Without shims, this trim would stick out from the wall, because the metal has bump-outs.
The plan is to get the remaining two rooms all cleaned up and move the supplies needed to finish the rest of the downstairs over there. We can’t paint the ceilings or refinish the floors if there are wood and tools all over the place!
So…even though we remain sort of dazed and confused, my plan is to dazzle with my shiny hair, shoes, watch band…anything cheerful!
Today I toddled off to the Pope Residence to see how I could help Chris. I knew I had to paint another coat on the second floor porch door and use paint thinner to get the rest of the paint off the stained glass over the front door.
I did it! Our entry is beautiful.
I got the door done but really didn’t feel like scraping yet, so I finished my project of creating a little anteroom out of the former scary upstairs kitchen.
Here’s the other window I finished scraping putty off.
It was fun. I ripped the remnants of the extra-flimsy sheet vinyl from the floor and finally got all the broken glass and other odd detritus off the floor. It made getting to the porch dangerous.
The wood floor may be ugly, but the cracked vinyl and glass were dangerous.
Next, I “cleaned” the pink Formica counters. They are marginally less filthy. I sprayed some Windex on the old sink in there and it got a lot cleaner! I think we can actually re-use it!
Wait, you say, that looks disgusting! But it was way worse. I think it will clean up!
I looked down. There was my can of paint. I proceeded to do perhaps the worst paint job any cabinets have ever received. No prep work, no taping things off, nope. I just slapped paint on them. You could say it’s cheerful.
It is best observed from a distance.
You could also say it’s ugly, but I put a bench and folding chair in there (to store our cushions during rain), and added a fine mirror and wall decor thing. The final touch is two puppy chia pets that I’m lucky Lee didn’t throw away when he was disposing of some stuff yesterday.
All decor was already in the house.
Well. I was more successful with my paint scraping I did after lunch. And Chris is putting in floor trim.
Looking finished!
I don’t think they’ll turn me loose with red paint and no set agenda again! I don’t blame them!
Sure, the UU Lent word for today is anticipation, because it’s the traditional day when Christians anticipate the culmination of the passion/story/tradition of Easter. But really, who isn’t anticipating a lessening of the very necessary restrictions we are dealing with right now? More on that later.
First, it’s still spring. Resurrection is all around us. Here in Cameron, lilies are blooming everywhere, butterflies are making their appearance, and the birds and bees are everywhere (especially when I’m trying to drink a beverage on the new patio break area we made).
Mrs. Finch is annoyed that Chris and I are watching her work on the nest. She’s also anticipating those little chirpers.
I keep coming back to it, but anticipation of the familiar, regular, slow and sure changing of the seasons has been really helpful to me the past month or two. Be sure to look out and see what’s changing outside your window – it can help.
What ARE We Anticipating?
I’ve been idly wondering (okay, maybe not so idly wondering) what’s coming up in the next few months. This morning I read two articles that hit me like a big ole brick wall from across the street at the Pope Residence.
First, Kathleen shared this article from the Houston Chronicle about the phases of coping with the pandemic. Gerald Parker says we’re in Phase 2, mitigation, but there are two more phases to come that are just different kinds of mitigation. Next will be containment, where we start things back up a bit, but remain cautious, since we will not yet have a vaccine, but hopefully will have better treatment. We will be much more careful about sanitation and isolating sick people
This is how I feel right now. That all these invisible things are swarming around me. I also was splattered with paint yesterday when I made this.
Once there is a vaccine for people who believe in such things, the virus will be much less prevalent, but never go away, just like the flu that comes every year and kills people. That will be the new normal, according to Parker, anyway.
I thought it was a little discouraging, but my friend Jean, who has a background in such things, has another perspective:
Actually, it is kind of encouraging. We’ve been executing a plan for this and it’s on schedule. I may not like it, but this contingency has been planned for, some of the problems we are seeing were recognized as such but not acted on (not surprising by the way — I was responsible for our organization’s shelter in place plan before I retired, and there were things I knew we weren’t ready for because it was fiscally not feasible to do), but our national strategy is working. Had we not had a workable plan for this, we would be in a far worse place now.
I’m glad to read this other perspective. It makes me feel like we’re all helping.
Next, let’s talk about spin. Here’s an article that has been shared all over my Facebook today, which pessimistically predicts that as soon as we are all out of our homes and those extremely creepy commercials about how companies love us in our confinement are over, the advertising/marketing engine will gear up to try to get us to forget all this ever happened. Talk about Orwellian dystopia coming to life. Argh.
Let’s take a break and watch some streaky clouds. They look like they’re in a hurry to get out of Cameron. I don’t blame them.
The author, Julio Vincent Gambuto, calls it the ultimate gaslighting (and let me tell you, as someone who experiences it often, I do NOT like gaslighting). He predicts we’ll be hearing how all the things we are directly experiencing right now will be minimized. This gives me the shivers. I am not sure this will actually happen to the extent Gambuto claims it will (after all, the article is on Medium.com, which does not fact check), but now that I know about the possibility, I’ll be anticipating it and keep my eyes and ears open for marketing gaslighting.
Well, let’s change the subject. I anticipate the end of UU Lent tomorrow. I’ll have to think of my own topics! Don’t worry. I can do it.
The result of yesterday’s painting and scraping is ALL the matching doors are now a matching color.
By the way, I said I’d write about something today, but I decided not to, since it had to do with corporate practices, and I currently work for a corporation. I’ll follow their social media guidelines like a good corporate citizen and go paint, scrape, and clean some more.
We’ve been waiting for a long time to be able to share this latest upgrade to the Pope Residence. Chris had torn down an old tin building in Dewitt County for some friends, and saved the metal for some future project.
Notice anything new? The front door is red! The other doors will soon be red, too. Along with the chair cushions, the house looks much more festive.
He asked us if we could maybe use that on the Pope Residence, and everyone got all excited about it. We didn’t want to put too much rusty tin in the office, but just enough to accent the rustic look we have going with the exposed brick, etc.
A pop of teal! It will go with Kathleen’s rug and other accessories.
Now that all the paint is done except the archway, which Nicole just painted teal on Kathleen’s side (it’s her favorite color) and the blue ceilings, it was time to bring that metal over and see how it could be used.
Here comes the tin!
As soon as they started putting the tin up on the wall where our “break room” cabinets will be, I got excited. Suddenly, the hallway looked “finished” to me.
The first metal wall goes up.
It was really fun to watch Chris and Easton putting the metal up. There are so many different textures and colors, between the rust and other signs of wear, it looks like it’s always been there.
Dang, this looks good. Rustic but good.
It’s especially lovely going up the stairs. It looks so great as a bridge between the two wall colors. It definitely makes a statement, and makes the stairway look less like a new addition.
Going up the stairs, it’s all tin.
Both bathrooms also got tin installed, and it tones down their intense colors enough, I think.
I like the rusty areas in my bathroom.
The deviled egg color looks good with the warm metal.
In all, I think I am personally in love with the tin. It gave me a much-needed moment of happiness after a long day of meetings and hard conversations.
I saw a little blurb in This Old House magazine, saying this new book is a “must-read” for anyone restoring an old house. Why, I’m renovating an old house, which is close. So, I ordered two copies, one for me and one for Kathleen, of Restoring Your Historic House: The Comprehensive Guide for Homeowners, by Scott Hanson (2019). At 720 pages, it has a good chance of being comprehensive, anyway!
This post will have two parts, one in which I review the book, and the other in which I talk about the choices we have made on the Pope house that do or don’t follow Hanson’s recommendations.
By the way, we now have TWO stuffed animals for kids to find, and we’re going to put Easter eggs in the window, too. Look at that original stained glass! Look at that trim! Let’s keep it.Continue reading “Book Report: Restoring Your Historic House”
The Hermits' Rest 