Pope house – Page 6 – The Hermits' Rest

Getting in on the Bear Trend

Everybody is putting bears in their windows for little kids to look for when they are out on their walks. Well, no child has ever walked by the Hermits’ Rest house, so we figured we’d put something at the Pope house.

The fox says hi, but hey, don’t trespass.

All I had, however, was a dog and a fox. I decided the fox looked most like a bear, so there it is. I hope the kids next door like it. I believe those are the only children who will go by the front of the house, since the ones behind us are too small to go on walks (but do have adorable puppies, which we have safely observed from quite a distance).

Before, the cement stuff while wet.
After, a nice, smooth subfloot.

It’s really looking fine over in renovation land. Easton has single-handedly finished the subfloor on the entire first floor, which means it’s ready for the luxury vinyl flooring to go in. Before he could do the back of the house, they had to fill in a place where there was a flooring gap. The leveling stuff worked great, and dried pretty fast, even as damp as it’s been.

It will be fun figuring out a way to get a little dining set in here. A little one.

The area by the stairs looks like a real house now!

My very red bathroom, with the greenboard going in. The green wall at left will be covered with old tin.

Chris has painted both bathrooms, as well. My tomato red is very tomato-y and the honey color in the other bathroom will look really good, too. The greenboard is going down in the bathrooms, too. That will keep water from seeping through and damaging under the bathrooms.

Looking out of the second bathroom at the wainscoting.

Nicole, who just announced she and Easton will be having a baby boy late this summer, has been patiently adding more coats to the wainscoting. She is very patient. More painting is to come, and we are ready to order glass for the archway and my interior window. Squee, as the young folks say!

I think the bathroom color will be good.

Painting and Polka

Grr, my body is annoying me. I had to quit working on the Pope Residence the the family, because I started getting repetitive motion tingles all in my hand and wrist. I need my hands to work, so after an hour or so of it, I had to stop painting trim. I’d gotten a lot done, though, and was really enjoying myself.

Just a little of the trim Kathleen primed last night.

Last night, after I went home, Kathleen single-handedly primed all the trim in the two offices we’re working on and the hallway. She had noticed that the parts that had already been painted white looked different when over brown or light wood, so she got out the primer (I’d forgotten we had it!). So, by the time she got in this morning, it was ready for paint.

Textured bathroom. Still wet, so it is shiny.

Meanwhile, this morning Chris and Eaton got all the texturing done (a light coat), in a brief moment of less-than-100% humidity. Soon as it’s dry, they can put primer over it and then actually paint all the areas that aren’t brick. That sure feels like progress.

By the time I got to the house to work (had to do all my writing chores first), I saw that Chris had also gotten a start on the flooring. Ooh, aah, that’s going to look great, though it’s pretty complex to install it right (many different patterns, which make it look more natural).

They’d taken a break on that to finish the opening between the two offices and to put the crown molding (which I painted!) in Lee’s office. It will need a little filling, but will look super when it’s done.

Opening from Kathleen’s side.She plans to paint her side brown.

All of this was taking place during Alfred Vrazel’s polka show playing on KMIL. It’s the nation’s longest-running radio polka show, you know. I kept hearing harmony that didn’t sound like it was coming from the radio. Hmm.

It turned out to be Kathleen, whose Czech heritage was coming out in a big way. It was wonderful to hear her singing along to the songs of her childhood. Now, that’s a true Texan.

I bet you didn’t spend your day with painting and polkas, but I assure you, it was a good way to spend a few hours. Like Mr. Vrazel said, you can’t go away from 2.5 hours of Czech polkas and waltzes and not be a bit happier.

Renovation Is a Family Affair

Fun historical house fact: apparently the Pope House was once blue or blue-gray. This is where the old front light fixture was. It will be covered up by our sign, eventually.

As you may know, we Hermits are doing our best to isolate ourselves just with the folks at the Hermits’ Rest property. We’re lucky we all work for Hearts Homes and Hands in some way (except Lee’s brother, who has taken on mowing our property and hanging out with Vlassic as his life’s mission), so work isn’t a problem. And our renovation of the Pope Residence is right across the street from our office. Oh boy, I get to walk across the street!

I’ve shared a few photos in other blog posts recently, but today I thought I’d share where we are now. We’re all pitching in, so things are progressing, even though we miss our other helpers.

Trimming

There will be two or three shelves here, with glass behind it.

We’re finished with most of the window trim (except the front room). We decided to put shelving back on the window between my office and the entry hall, with some opaque glass behind it. I’ll put my glass collection on those, and it should be really pretty.

One of the big projects right now is putting up the trim around the ceiling on the rooms whose ceilings aren’t getting painted. There is plain wood trim, with crown molding on top if it. I’d say it looks pretty spiffy. All the trim in the house is the same shade of creamy white, which looks great against the brick and really brightens the place up. It almost doesn’t feel like the same house.

Easton is putting up trim. More about the door frame below.

The trim is a challenge, because of course the walls aren’t 100% square. That gives Easton and Chris a lot of fun calculating and trimming. But, it’s moving right along, and they’re on the second room.

Birds and Bees, and a Weird Morning

It’s not even noon, but it’s already been a weird day. I got to the Hermit Haus for work, and was just making my coffee when the lights went out. Well, most of them did. For some reason, my red lamp and the light over the kitchen sink kept glowing, eerily.

It was just barely glowing when the power was out. Wonder why.

So, Kathleen and I went outside, and saw Chris talking to the neighbor (at way over 6 feet away) about the power being out. We got a text from Mandi saying Oncor (power folks) knew about it and would get the power back on in a couple of hours. Great. I had a couple of things I’d wanted to get done immediately.

After standing around and thinking for a while, we each went back to our respective areas to do work that could be done on the phone. Kathleen made phone calls, I did weekly employee reviews, Chris painted trim.

We opened the doors in our office for more light, and Chris did the same at the Pope house. A mistake? Maybe.

That’s when the invasions occurred. Chris heard noises and saw that he had a new coworker, but one that just banged on things randomly. This poor mockingbird was not helpful at all.

Hey, you’re not paying me enough to work in here!

At the same time, all the honey bees that have been out enjoying our wildflower meadow (the one with all the yellow flowers) decided to check out our basement. At the time it was no problem.

Then at 10 am, the power came back. Yay. The bees were still in the building. They decided to visit my office, with its bright lights. At first they checked out the monitor, but then I realized at least three of them were on my light fixture. Kathleen could hear them all buzzing away.

Finally I couldn’t concentrate on my work, so I turned the light off. Hooray, the bees went out. And we shut the doors, so no more can come in. We’ll shoo them back out at some point today, since there’s not much nectar down here.

I’m glad the June bugs are only at the ranch. I don’t think I could take them all bouncing around down here. Back to work.

Had to Share! I Have a Chair!

I hadn’t planned to do another renovation update, but then I got all excited. The office chairs that Chris and Kathleen got me for my birthday arrived, and of course I had to put the one I could find together and test-sit it.

A new chair, just crawling with flowers, just as I like it.

The color came out a little darker than we’d thought, but the red and orange will still be perfect in my new office. It certainly looks fancy in my old office!

Here you can see it matching all my stuff. It’s really comfy and short enough for short folks. Yay.

But, More!

A lot got done yesterday, so I’m going to share even though I just posted pictures yesterday. For one, all the drywall is now up, including along the future “break room” wall.

The last sheet of drywall goes up. Note that the wooden ceiling is also up, ready to be covered in tin.

The stairs are all covered up, and the old flooring removed in the new landing. This is unrecognizable as the same house!

The brickwork is moving forward. It’s now getting dusted and cleaned, and two of the rooms are now blocked off in preparation for sealing.

Do not enter!
All rotten wood is replaced, ready for trim.
Dusting off all the surfaces. Randy has a lot ahead of him.

Yep, it’s getting real. Shoot, we’re so close to being done that we ought to start on a new project, right?

Renovation ACTION

When all your workers live at or near your house, you can keep your renovation going! While Lee and I were on vacation, Chris, Easton, and Randy kept up the work at the Pope Residence. They concentrated on the back stairway area. and it was easy to see that a lot got done.

Stairs and drywall! The hole is for a sconce.

Almost all the drywall is up, and the second set of stairs got completed. You can now get to the second floor from the inside, if you are so inclined (which few of us are; it’s a mess).

The empty section is where they’ve made the landing larger.

They’re still working on the floor of the upstairs landing area, but what a great surprise it was to find out that they managed to make the area a bit larger. For one thing, since the first course of stairs was taller, there are fewer steps on the second course, so it ends farther from the door. That will give us a little sitting area/balcony kind of deal up there.

Chris is hiding while I show you the new window and how nice and light it makes things. The two holes in the ceiling are for matching chandeliers we already have.

A new little window was installed in the stairwell, too. That has made the back part of the house much lighter and brighter. Plus, the windows that were already there now allow light to go all the way down to the first floor.

Bathroom Update

Chris decided to put greenboard on all the bathroom walls, to add a bit of sound protection. Some of the walls will be covered with metal, which we are guessing may conduct sound.

This room is ready to be finished. Can’t wait to pee in the future toilet.

Preparation for Flooring

There is a lot of wood waiting to be used. There’s some nice wood that will serve as a stabilizing influence and go under the luxury vinyl tile in the downstairs rooms that don’t have tile or original wood.

Repaired flooring by the window, and lots of wood for trim.

And Easton did a great job of getting rid of the bad wood in the main “parlor” room and replacing it with wood from Lee’s office. That’s gonna look so great when it gets cleaned up!

The rest of the wood is all the trim. There is a LOT of trim. It will match what was originally there.

Brick Repair

Meanwhile, Randy worked on brick. The area in my office with the window into the hallway got bricked up to the height of the wainscoting in the entry hall. And the place in Kathleen’s office that had crumbled now has nice, healthy brick.

Chris says they are going to clean the brick really well, then put on a sealant that will really make the walls look spiffy. Argh, so exciting.

New brick in my office. The gap will be covered by trim.

We’re going to keep you updated, of course (and post this info in a couple of other places). It’s fun to see a plan coming together.

Deep Stuff about Dust?

Oh goodness. What WERE the PC Practitioners over at the Unitarian Universalist Association (world’s most politically correct organization) thinking when they decided that dust was going to be one or the UU Lent words of the day? Were they thinking UU Lint? (And how many people also came up with that question today?)

Can’t believe no one else had tagged #UULint yet on Instagram. Ima check back later. None on Twitter yet, either.

I’m sure a lot of people go real deep when they think about dust. Or the song “Dust in the Wind” gets stuck in their heads. Darn you, Kansas. I guess it DOES blow your mind the first time you realize that, “we are all made of stardust,” a sentiment which seems to have been attributed to every pop astronomer of the past twenty years.

Sometimes I wish the vast majority of people who have that us versus them mentality would think about the fact that we are all made of the same stuff a little more. Perhaps if they dusted off the cobwebs in their brains, dust could lead to peace. That’s a stretch, though.

I’ll be honest, here. When I think about dust, other than when I need to wipe some off a surface, I usually think about what’s IN the dust. I’ve always had what passes for Suna having fun by imagining germs, dander, mites, ash, and a whole lot of giant pollen particles swirling around me, going in my lungs and back out. I’m glad we don’t get all stuffed up inside.

Special Dust

Brick dust everywhere, even on the ancient curtains.

However, right now, I’m more fixated on all that brick dust at the Pope Residence. It’s a couple of inches thick on some of the wainscoting in the entry. Poor Randy has swept it many times. I’m sure glad he and Easton wore masks when sanding down the bricks.

That’s some dust-free wood! Plus, I can see where the light fixture and vent will be! Photo by Chris

In fact, when Chris sent me this photo of the ceiling going up in the bathroom attached to my future office, my first thought was, “Wow, that sure is clean.” I sure hope we eventually get ALL that brick dust out of the building. It can blow in the wind, because as we all know, EVERYTHING is dust in the wind. Or stardust.

Okay, if any of you would happen to have more insights into the concept of “dust” that you’d like to share with me, I’d really appreciate it. I may be missing out on something as I am using most of my brain on actual work today. Share! Do it for Vlassic!

Thinking about being made of stardust has me all tuckered out.

I Love Color Choosing

Today Kathleen and I headed over to the ole hardware store to look at paint chips. It’s time to get the paint for the Pope Residence project! (Content below stolen from another blog; sorry, but the blogs have different audiences.)

We chose the colors for the trim and walls that aren’t brick, as well as the painted ceilings. The main color is called Rosy Pashmina, and will complement the brick really well. It’s a shade lighter than the actual bricks, but will blend in with them, we hope. It goes mostly in the back of the building.

Paint samples! This is the image taken in the shade.

The trim is a “designer white” called Wings of an Angel, which is a very light cream. We wanted to be sure to get a warm white to go with all the brick and wood.

The main bathroom is a calm yellow (if you can call any yellow “calm”) called Deviled Eggs. I hope it doesn’t always make me hungry. It’s toned-down nature will go with the rustic decor of that room quite well.

My office bath will be a very vivid red-orange called Steelhead Redd. It shouldn’t be overwhelming, since one wall will be metal and the brick wall will be the cream color. Besides, I like vivid bathrooms. I love the one in Bobcat that is a paprika color.

These are the colors in the sunlight. Probably in the house they’ll look a third different way.

And in a move that I hope works out well, I selected a very pale blue (Dreamstress) for the ceilings that are currently white. I think they will register more as white, and will be a nice contrast to all the warm colors. I always wanted a ceiling that looked like the sky, and it reminds me of the tradition of painting porch ceilings the “haint blue” color.

If it doesn’t work out, like they say, “It’s only paint.”

My Car Is a Billboard

In an unsubtle attempt at bringing attention to Hearts Homes and Hands, I finally put the giant sticker of our logo and phone number on the back of my car.

Wave if you see me! Don’t honk; I’ll think I did a traffic faux pas.

Let’s see if the rest of them get installed. I think Kathleen will start using the car magnets on “official business” now that we rescued them from the back of her office.

Bio Blitzing and Mental Gaps

Today’s big activity (and ONLY activity, thankfully) was to go to a local park and do our very first bioblitz in Milam County. That’s where you find as many plants and animals in a specific place at a specified time. I had a lot of fun, though there was a lot of cat herding involved and I didn’t do a very good job of trying to teach what I wanted to teach. If you want some photos and such, visit the blog article I wrote for the group.

I enjoyed hanging around with my old and new friends, and sure found a lot of plants that were hard to identify, but I guess that’s part of the fun. If you want to see what plants, animals, and birds we found, you can visit the little project we created for our bioblitz.

Chickasaw plum is one of the first trees to bloom here.

After the blitzing, we came back to our office, where it was warmer, to talk about uploading our findings, then a few of us had a quick lunch. There I was a bit disturbed at myself. I could not remember things. The entire topic of the mind blindedness I wrote about just last week completely escaped my mind. I blanked out on the names of a couple of people I knew, too.

More and more often I find myself coming up with a big hole where I was certain a word, fact, or memory should be. I’m not declaring myself to have dementia or anything, but it sure is annoying. It’s hard to know when you’re just tired, and it’s normal, or when there’s something actually wrong.

So, if you know me, let me know if I’m drifting off.

Look. Insects doing it. I actually typed “insexts” at first. They are crane flies.

ANYWAY, I did get to take my friend Dorothy to see the Pope House, and there we found beautiful stairs! I was pretty excited and ran up them.

Stairs! Indoors! Safe! photo by Dorothy Mayer

The steps themselves are really pretty. Chris made them bull-nosed, so they have a lot of class. I can’t wait to see what next week brings. Until then, I am officially resting, reading, and maybe even knitting for a while. I hope I remember what I’m doing.

Those steps are gorgeous, and nice and deep, too.

Is This Safe? No. Remodeling Scare.

We are moving right along in remodeling the Pope Residence. You may remember that we removed a staircase that was in the entry hall, because it was dangerous (in more than one way). After it was removed, we put a temporary piece of wood over the resulting hole, so no one would fall to their death on our first floor.

See that big board, just hanging there? Oops. Two more have been repaired.

Yesterday, the crew was planning to make a permanent repair to the floor on the second floor, in anticipation of being able to put in the new tin ceiling. When Chris and Easton looked at it, their hearts skipped a beat. The previous remodeler had simply sawn through the floor joists to insert the stairs. That meant nothing was holding the floor up in that space. It’s a miracle no one ever had the floor collapse beneath them. Scary.

Just to show that we fixed it, here’s a fixed picture! It should be darned sturdy now.

Chris has been busily supporting things in the house, anyway. He’s reinforcing the floor in the main downstairs bathroom, which is probably a good idea. And all those sinking places are doubly reinforced. Our floors will stay!

Ready to replace damaged floors with safe and strong subflooring.

And We Can See!

In breaking news, the electric folks just came by and switched on our new, safe, and inspected electrical service! The temporary lighting works just fine. I turned on all the lights, just because I could. Now we can work all night!

My office has light!
The naked chandelier has light (mostly)
The hallway has light, and a floor upstairs.
Even the corner hallway has light!

Other Renovation Stuff

We’re all excited about the stuff Chris and I bought on a whirlwind trip to Lowe’s yesterday. There are the two windows to go in my bathroom and in the stairwell. They will match just fine.

And we got all the outside lights, which will make it much safer for all of us and keep the perimeter of the building visible at all times. I think they are pretty, even if they’re just the kind everyone has. That doesn’t mean they are ugly!

Large and medium sized outdoor lights. They should get installed any day now.

The shiny red tiles for my office and bathroom came in, as did the vanity for the main bathroom downstairs, but the vanity was too big to fit in the giant SUV (it was raining, so no pickup and trailer). We did get a LOT of decking for replacing old floors, though. And while we were there, we chose a nice deep sink for the breakroom, as well as a faucet.

Stay tuned next time, when I hope to have stairway progress to share.