Tower repair…

Weeeeee!

Weeeeee!

That’s me, 35 feet up there…removing about 40 pounds of wood trim that was no longer firmly attached. It was about to fall off and I *really* don’t want to kill random pedestrians with pieces of my building. Over half of it was missing.

I had to pull square nails to remove the rest of it.

Removing old trim

Removing old trim

Removing old trim

Removing old trim

I then added new trim to seal a gap between the roof and the wall of the tower. It’s the “shiny” in the pic below…

Adding new trim

Adding new trim

That’s my friend Mike down there…helping me out by watching the truck and being my second boom operator if needed…he is also my saw man for the siding underlay repair and shingle replacement.

Mike, hanging out

Mike, hanging out

We started on the siding underlay repair and siding replacement as well…

Siding pattern-repair begins

Siding pattern-repair begins

That is a jigsaw puzzle there…only one row of those doesn’t require some kind of cut. Add in the 110 year old “square” factor (as in, nothing is square after 100 years…unless it’s broken and needs replaced) and there were dozens of cuts involved here. The top will go faster.

There’s enough here to see the pattern anyway…we ran out of time and the weather came down on us the next day (45 degree temperature drop, 7 inches of snow). The upper tower will have several rows of fishscale, several straight, and three rows with the round/arrow combo that gives the illusion of the circles.

Can’t wait to see it all together!

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

Posted in On the Square | 3 Comments

The tail/tale of the White Rabbit.

Seems odd we just saw Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland” a few days before this.

So…out to the Old Vic all last week…seems I had a bunch of time to take off from work (mandatory) before the end of March or I would lose it. Sad, methinks…that they have managed to complicate what hours are what so much so that I’ve no idea what time is what anymore. Sad thing is neither does the department that is supposed to track all this fiasco…but that’s all another story.

Time off I had…and it’s a real relief to get away…so off to work I went.

I had help…the wife was there of course…and my friend Mike came up for a few days…and we accomplished a LOT (as the aches, bruises, and stiffness will attest).

But more about that later…this tale is about a tail…a white rabbit’s tail in fact.

This guy had taken up residence under the bucket truck:

Visitor or messager?

Visitor or messager?

Fat, and tame enough to allow approach (but not quite allow picking up) he was obviously an escaped pet.

He wasn’t wearing a topcoat or carrying a watch, but I said, “Good morning.” just in case.

He didn’t reply to that…or to my query to see if I was late…indeed, he seemed quite content to hang out under the truck and eat clover.

Ur…which reminds me…despite the 7 inches of snow we got today it is once again time to start mowing the lawn…pardon me whilst I scream a bit….BAGGGHHHHHHHHHH!

(snif)…okay…back to the story…

Am I late?

Am I late?

None of the neighbors seemed to be missing a white rabbit, and the thought of allowing one to have unfettered access to a bucket truck is just too scary to entertain…so I mentioned it to the animal control officer at lunch…he hadn’t heard of any missing ones, but said he’d come by and get it later that day.

After a short chase, the rabbit was in custody. It apparently copped a bit of an attitude about it…but nobody died so all is well…

But that’s not the end of the story…

In the end, the rabbit outsmarted us all…see, it escaped custody and is at large…fortunately NOT in possession of a bucket truck…but escaped he has…

Keep in mind he escaped from an armed officer that is used to dealing with pretty much anything from cows and horses to pitt bulls.

And the rabbit got away.

I’d recommend you lock your doors as you drive through the area…

Oh…and if I had to guess…no Easter eggs for me.

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

Posted in Pets | 1 Comment

Full power restored….

*schhniiick*
“Full power restored.”
“Excellent! More than a match for poor Enter….”

Oh…wait…that’s a different movie. Ah well.

This weekend was a change. A real change. I’m not quite sure what to make of it yet. See, for the first time in like 4 months…it wasn’t raining (or 10 degrees!) all weekend.

Wow! Ground that doesn’t go “schluuuup” and suck your shoes off when you step on it. Birds can fly with their mouths open again (they would drown if they did it before). We can actually SEE the end of the backyard! There was sunshine on Saturday!

Unfortunately rain was scheduled for Sunday, so we wisely did NOT peel the roof back on the corner of the sunroom for needed repairs.

We did get stuff done though.

1) We scraped a lot of paint in the sunroom…there is more to do but it has reached that stage where it looks like it has a particularly disgusting form of cancer so that means it’s getting close. We should have it ready to paint with a few more days work. (I am SO looking forward to shooting that room with a coat of primer! The pepto-bismal pink trim and putrid yellow ceiling and walls are a bit much, even for my strong stomach.)

2) We got PRIMING done! WoooHoooo! We’ve been trying for a couple months to get the exterior French doors primed and the windowframe in the mudroom stripped and primed. I can’t mount weather stripping till the painting is done on that stuff and it’s been simply too wet/damp/cold. This weekend brought us one step closer to weather-tightness in the mudroom! Woot!

3) I helped a friend (Hi Larry!) install a new fan motor in one of his heat pumps. That was a success (nobody died AND he can still use the heat-pump). I’m pleased to report there were no aliens in the ductwork.

4) And I did some tool maintenance. Namely, I fixed the lower controls on the Left-handed Fargle-snorker. This means the boom can be operated from the ground as well as from the bucket. Mainly it’s a safety feature, but it’s also so that things (within the weight limit) can be lifted and also the bucket can be brought lower for easier in/out than climbing the boom.

Sooo…full power restored. That’s a good thing. I’ve a project for that machine next weekend! (should be some cool pictures!)

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

Posted in Paint, Tools | Leave a comment

Scraaaaaaaaapppppe!

No pictures this week. Just cleaning, and scraping paint. We had nice weather, but too short a weather window (rain starting Sunday night) to get to work on the roof or the exterior door painting.

Instead, we concentrated on scraping the paint off the billion or so linear feet of beadboard in the sunroom. We hope to paint that room quite soon.

It’s a large room…but it seems to grow even larger when you’re on the ladder scraping paint off the ceiling. I think it started out being 27 feet long…after this weekend’s work it must be up to 50 feet or so!

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

Posted in Paint | Leave a comment

The 2010 Clarksville Fine Arts Festival

Make your plans now!

This year the 2010 Clarksville Fine Arts Festival will be Saturday, May 22, 2010, from 9:AM to 4:PM on the historic square in Clarksville, Texas.

This year’s festival is shaping up to be a great one. There will even be glass blowing demonstrations!

I’ll be there signing books and will also have original art and some prints.

Art. Music. Food. Fun. What else could you need? Come on by and see me!

The 2010 Clarksville Fine Arts Festival

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

Posted in On the Square | Leave a comment

Foot pain…

Was wondering why my work shoes were a bit uncomfortable lately…

Pulled all these out of the right shoe.

Foot pain...

Foot pain...

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

Posted in Miscellaneous | 1 Comment

“Orange” Juice?

Those that have been following along our various adventures with old buildings might recall that we bought an 1890(ish) gothic debatable commercial building, complete with tower.

This building has been a pharmacy downstairs since it was built. It’s been rearranged a couple times, some merchandise no longer carried, the soda fountain taken out…new ceilings…you know, typical changes. It was doctors’ offices upstairs until around the 1960’s or so…the upstairs has been mostly vacant since (and thus, filled with junk from wall to wall).

Along comes us. We are, apparently the 3rd owners. We’re not a pharmacy so just as a starting point, we are cleaning it out to the core.

You might imagine some interesting things can be found in a 120 year old building…and you’d be right. Why, I have no less than 20 cash registers…from every concievable era…and printers! Printers of every make and model…printers progressing over the years! Dozens! All of them broken of course…Oh, and then there’s the cases of labels/receipt blanks left over for each and every one of the broken printers…

And remind me to someday tell you about the stuff…I can’t tell you about.

But that’s not the story here. The trash is the story here…something like 35 giant contractors bags full so far…maybe 3000 pounds hauled out so far…

So today, in a little used and obviously forgotten store-room (nook under the stairs) we found the ticking time bombs…

Cokes so old they had eaten through the can. 20 oz plastic bottles so old that they were smushy as there was no pressure left in them. Some glass bottles. When’s the last time they made 20 oz glass bottles? Oh, and the older style too…the tall narrow glass bottles with the crimped on metal caps? Except the caps were corroded through.

And then there’s the juice.

Not so orange juice

Not so orange juice

Cases of it.

Good for what ails ya!

Good for what ails ya!

I think the color’s a little off on this batch…what about you? Maybe it needed refrigeration for the last decade or so?

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

Posted in On the Square | Leave a comment

Whoosh! (the sound of money departing at high speed and volume)

I ordered the shakes for our 1880’s Gothic Debatable tower today. I’m replacing all the cedar on it. Got some trim work around the edge of the roof to do as well. Oh, and a couple pieces of tin to fabricate.

The tower

The tower

12 cartons…96 shingles/carton. 3 different patterns (fancy-ing this up just a bit).

I’m pretty sure they are a thin cedar veneer over a solid gold substrate (based on cost).

Shipped in from Canada.

So, I’ve got the tools…

The Left Handed Fargle Snorker is ready to work

Higher and higher!

Higher and higher!

…and will shortly have the material.

That about does in my spring budget…

(sigh)

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

Posted in On the Square, Tools | 1 Comment

99 bags of trash on the wall…99 bags of trash…

…ya take one down and pass it around…98 bags of trash on the wall…

Okay, I freely admit it…I can’t sing. I once had someone tell me that at gunpoint…but that’s another story.

Anyway, this weekend. Trash. Lots of it.

Not much as far as cool pictures this weekend…we had priming to do…an exterior door and window…but it was too wet. The weather was chilly, so we figured we’d just clean.

Now…cleaning. That’s a thing you can do with low budget, and some time. It’s something we tackle when other things are at a standstill due to weather or budget.

And cleaning we’ve got…lots of it to do that is.

Not only do we have the construction mess and typical dust of the Old Vic project to deal with, we also have our “new” 1880’s era historic building on the square to work on.

Why talk about that? Well, part of our Old Vic project…the point of it in fact…is for us to eventually LIVE in our new chosen town. We always expected to open a business in town…perhaps later…during our retirement…but we also considered maybe earlier as my writing career accelerates (hint: buy my books!). I really want to make a living as an author!

Something we could take some time to establish. We’d be further along on the house. We’d keep our eyes open and perhaps in a couple years…

Well…later or maybe earlier? Heh…”now” came up as the building we loved came on the market and the price was right. We looked at our means and intent and decided that if we were serious about it, the opportunity just could not be passed up.

So, the building, like it or not, is part of our project. Of course, since it has a tower…and is actually older than our Queen Anne Victorian, we figure most of our readers shouldn’t mind.

Yep. Opportunity. Gotta take it. Sieze the day. He who hesitates. All that good stuff.

Bottom line is…if you currently have the means…and you have the dreams…NOW is the time to buy. Prices will never be better.

Just please, nobody show me any more old buildings with towers for sale anytime soon…

Yes, we have the means…but…that said, we moved more quickly then we would have under other circumstances, and so, have stretched the budget a little.

Some work that doesn’t involve $1000 worth of stuff from the hardware store is therefore most welcome.

Something that came with the building was a massive cleanup project. The second floor really hasn’t been used in a few decades or so…and has been the “go to” place for anything the previous two owners didn’t know what to do with.

The building is roughly 25′ x 100’…so upstairs alone is 2500 square feet of junk…most of it not worth the effort it took to haul it up the stairs in the first place. Old retail racks. Some 1970’s era furniture. Old rotten clothes. About 10 old artificial Christmas trees. Old bags. Plastic shelves. Old air-conditioners. Very little of any value at all.

Add several hundred pounds of pidgeon poop, mix well, and you’ve got more than a few bags of trash to haul.

A good view through the rooms upstairs:

A good view through the rooms upstairs

A good view through the rooms upstairs

Home Depot carries some really nice trash bags just for such an occasion…the 8 mill contractor’s cleanup bags. Tough. Very large. Tie flaps. Don’t break or tear. Even hard to punch through. These bags are so good…and we’re going to use so many, that when my Mom asked me what I wanted for Christmas, I asked for trash bags.

Yeah. I did. AND she got them for me. TWO boxes!

We spent a few hours Saturday cleaning up and hauled about a ten or so trash bags out of there this weekend.

Ten bags of trash is approximately 700 pounds.

That’s on top of 12 bags (a half-ton or so) we got rid of a couple weekends ago.

And we have not yet begun to clean.

At a guess? There are 98 bags of trash left on the wall.

And then we’ll get to the big stuff.

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

Posted in On the Square | 1 Comment

Normalcy…

No work for me this weekend. Resting. Processing. Recuperating. Recharging.

I putter. Watching some TV. Listening to music. Reading. Writing. Plotting my next project.

Sunday I manage a nap…and for the first time in days, my dreams don’t wake me in a cold sweat, yelling for people to get down…to run…to get away from the laughing drug dealer who, even as he steps over bystanders’ bodies, just won’t run out of bullets.

The wife sits across from me, reading, occasionally looking up at me. We share a look then…a promise…a reaffirmation…that only intimates can make or understand. Nineteen years and my heart still gives a lurch.

The caffeinated kitten, who now (and seemingly rather suddenly) inhabits a big orange cat’s body, bounds in through the gap we left in the patio door for some fresh air…his collar jangling. He prances up and proudly deposits his latest catch at my feet…a large leaf from the front bushes. It joins the growing pile of similiar prizes he’s left me in the last hour.

He gets some praise and a quick skritch behind the ears and he’s off to his next big adventure.

The Maine Coon is upside down, half in and half out of a bag on the kitchen floor…his natural habitat methinks. He snores.

Bills to pay. Back to work tomorrow. Normalcy.

And yet I wonder…is that okay?

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

Posted in Miscellaneous | 1 Comment