Paint, Projects & People

You know that light at the end of the tunnel? Papa is seeing it.
Team G&G, D&G and J&K ruled this weekend.

David, Glenna, John and I caught a ferry, ate breakfast drank 2 cups of coffee, did a little prep work and had paint implements in hand by 8:30 Saturday morning.

The paint sprayer gave John a bit of heartache for the first couple of hours but once he showed it who was boss it was smooth sailing. The sprayer was definitely the ticket to getting 2 coats on the building in one day.

David owned the job of painting the back bedroom. It was hot, sticky, tiring work. The windows were taped shut, the industrial work light gave off massive amounts of heat and the breeze did not round the corner and give him any relief. By the end of the day his arms and neck were spent and his body drained. We've renamed the back bedroom "DavidsRoom". He deserves the honor!

David said this pic is for Pat! I'm not sure of the exact story but Pat painted a wall for David like this (maybe Pat's bedroom wall?).

Nearing the end and you can see weariness setting in.

Glenna was the FinishQueen extraordinaire. John sprayed, I followed behind him back-rolling (she's holding my roller so I can snap this shot :)) and Glenna followed behind me with various sized paint brushes fine tuning all the corners, edges, trim and more.

Grandma painted the door trim on the sleeping cabin and she sealed the beautiful new wood railing. She used the Cabot sealer Ben and James used on the new fire pit benches. She also touched up all the green trim on the little cabin windows, railings and the Adirondack chairs (no pics of grandma working all day - what's up with that ridiculousness - jeesh, this photographer needs 30 lashes).

Between the new wood soaking it up and the sprayer sucking it up, our 4 gallons of paint was disappearing fast. We were going to need more. John and Grandpa went to Home Depot to get 3 more gallons...and since it was right there and it smelled so good they decided to have a Home Depot polish sausage along with chips and pop for lunch! Grandma, Glenna, David and I took the opportunity to dine by the sea in the sunshine :)

My assortment of pictures is sadly limited. I didn't keep the camera in my pocket like I usually do and there just wasn't time for cleaning off hands and collecting it. After the job was complete I kept forgetting to grab the camera. I am bummed to have missed so many good shots. I'm blaming exhaustion. That's my story and I'm sticking to it :/ But here are a few more random photos from a truly enjoyable and satisfying weekend.

I am up on the ladder and Daddy is helping me do the final back rolling by telling me the spots I'm missing - that's why the front of the sleeping cabin is beeeeeeautiful :)

Time for the two of them to talk about dinner.
As a side note...grandpa doubted my ability to zoom in and capture a good shot of the two of them. Considering the light is fading and I'm balancing on an extension ladder, I did okay :) 

John is using the poopy water to clean up the sprayer. Grandma is using red duct tape to repair a torn bbq cover and David is enjoying the calm evening view while visiting with Glenna and Grandpa.

Dinner is finished, Grandpa is telling good stories and Grandma is saying good night - but telling him to stay and enjoy - which he did :)

SUNDAY MORNING

John unwrapped and cleaned the first 2 windows, I did the next two. We were worried when we woke up Sunday morning. All night long the wind had howled, the rain pounded the side of the building and we imagined the worst. But all was good - our worries were for not.

Glenna observing the unveiling of the windows and gathering the paper and tape as it got dropped. 

We now have a structurally sound and aesthetically pleasing sleeping cabin. Let the fun of organizing and decorating begin ;)

Oh, and by-the-way...grandma announced that this will be the final time the six of us paint out there. From here on out she said we will leave it to the kids. Works for me!

Bonus Picture

This picture just doesn't capture what I was trying to photograph. The wind was howling with white caps churning up the channel but the water next to the ferry dock (and protected by the land) was sparkling clean and gently rolling. When viewing it live, it was a striking difference. I think this ended up being a "you had to be there story". Hahaha - probably should have deleted the pic. Oh well.

True Love

I am leaving my house at 6:30 tomorrow morning to paint the sleeping cabin (groan). I usually don't do anything but snore at 6:30 in the morning. Must be true love.

After Shaun and Kellen finished the siding project on the sleeping cabin Grandma, Glenna and I got it ready for David, and John to join us on Saturday and Sunday for a paint-party-weekend. Grandma and Grandpa are going to be chief cook and bottle washers. James and Daniel are babysitting the dogs (fur, allergies and paint just don't mix).

John borrowed this nifty paint sprayer from his boss.

After I taped the front windows I timbored the heck out of the new wood around the entire cabin. *Timbored* is a new verb that will get a lot of use at the beach from now on.

Tim-bor is actually an insecticide you spay on wood to prevent or treat infestation by wood boring insects such as termites, powder post beetles (our particular insect of choice), ants, spiders, etc. As of now, every square inch of the sleeping cabin has been doused in Tim-bor.

Not this summer (!) but soon we will have to begin the project of timboring the little cabin and the big cabin too. Whew, I'm exhausted just thinking about it.

Grandma got the back wall taped and ready to be timbored and then painted. 

This weekend we will also paint the back room It will be eggshell white 'cuz we have 4 gallons of leftover flat eggshell white from Shannon's condo remodel :)

Glenna scraped, brushed and squashed every bug, cobweb and other generally disgusting thing attached to the outside of the cabin.

Glenna shopvaced (another beach verb) every square inch and Grandma sanded the rough edges of the new wood.

Surveying the work and decided on what's next...or are we all done!

We are done! The cabin is now ready to be sprayed green (the same green that is on the trim of the little cabin).

Anniversary

One year ago today James amputated his right hand and underwent nearly 12 hours of re-attachment surgery. The surgeons, doctors and nurses warned us the surgery may be unsuccessful; best case scenario he would only loose a digit or two. Before we left the hospital we were told his hand would never be more than a 'pusher' and it certainly would not have any strength or dexterity or much feeling.

After three hundred sixty five days, hundreds of therapy hours and thousands of hours of exercise he has all 5 digits and the beginning of ideas for a full future. He can hold cards, balance plates, click a mouse and more. Sure, it never will be what it was...but it is amazing what it is.

Kudos James. You have done well!

(his hands are resting on Lenny)

The Siding Project

Wednesday, September 21 Shaun and Kellen put siding on the sleeping cabin. This amazingly long project is almost done. I can actually see the light at the end of the tunnel!

Grandma, Glenna and I were out there for the project and besides completing our own multitude of missions we got to babysit Shaun's new 10-week old Australian Shepard, Cocoa. What a bundle of cute time-wasting joy she was!

Glenna and I applied a special sealing tape to the cracks in the repaired plywood before Shaun covered them with siding.

No easy spider access in these rooms anymore!

Shaun's SawCentral is a lot fancier than ours :)

 

 Prepping and surveying before sawing and nailing.

Measure twice, cut once.

 And siding begins...

OOPS!

Shaun had to go to the lumber store to get another piece of siding (someone forgot to measure twice before cutting once - they never said who) In his rush to return, he slammed into the post; cracking the wood and bending the iron railing.

There is an upside to this blunder. Next week he'll pop in and replace the entire post which was rotted and in need of attention anyway. Maybe he could run into a few more things for us :)

Girls Rule Dogs Drool

We Rule

Glenna, Grandma and I spent Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at the beach overseeing the new siding installation and prepping the sleeping cabin for painting this weekend (looks good doesn't it!).





They Drool 
Cocoa belongs to Shaun (guy in pic). She is a 10 week old Australian Shepard. Oh gosh she was soooooooo cute. In spite of being a couple of old men, Dakota and Lenny were amazingly tolerant of her puppy antics. 


Shaun is the contractor who does a little bit of everything and if he doesn't do it, he knows someone who does. We are so glad to have found him. He lives about 5 minutes away from us and totally understands how things "need to get done" at the beach :)

Rain, rain, rain, rain, beautiful rain. NOT

Well, yes. But still not.

The rain cleaned the layers of dry dust and grimy dirt off of everything; it watered all Grandma's plants for me; and made the air smell wonderful. So that was the beautiful part.

The not so beautiful part is the dent it put in our work plans. However, we got all the "have to have done" projects complete thanks to James being on board so I shan't complain. Who knew 5.5 hands could make the job of seal-coating go so fast :)

  

  

Waiting for mom to gather supplies and mix the seal-coating.

Brush and roller combo worked great.

A sprayer would have been even slicker...but for $250 I can buy a lot of brushes, rollers and man hours :)

Waiting for the first coat to dry (or maybe it was the second).

Luckily it only took about an hour between coats. That was slick!

Bored indoors 'cuz of the rain.

No girlfriends to play with (aka Caley dog named Lucky).
No people to feed them poo-poo's (aka hors d'oeuvres).
Just no stinkin' fun.

Bored outdoors 'cuz of the waiting.

So I think he's coming to poke me. Where's Tess when I need her? If she's around he pokes her instead. Help!