The Finished Main Floor

We spent 48 man-hours sanding the main floor and the treads on both stairways. Dust was everywhere! In every room, every crack, on every piece of furniture... everywhere.
Chris' head after using the belt sander for a few minutes.

Karen working on the stairs to the basement. We still have a few ballisters to put into place... we keep forgetting about those.

Once the floors had been totally vacuumed and wiped clean, we used rags to apply the 50/50 mix of raw dark tung oil and mineral spirits. Mason jars worked pretty well as the impromptu container of choice, but they did get slippery.

More oil application, though at this angle it is harder to see the change in color.

After sanding, before the polyurethane.

While Chris was at Scout Camp last week, Karen and Jenn Baird polyurethaned the floor. Karen put on one coat every night for four consecutive nights, and Jenn was there for a couple nights, too. Lots of protection, and it really changes the way the house feels.

The dinning room after the two coats of oil was applied.

The dining room again, but after the poly. The first coat of poly was applied with brushes, and the consecutive coats were applied with 9" short nap rollers.

The view from the kitchen, looking through the dining room and into the living room.

Same view, but after the poly. Are we seeing a pattern here?

A random picture of the living room before we put all the furniture back in place. It was very empty and quiet while Andy, Mindy and the boys were on vacation!

Sunday morning sunlight coming in the East windows in the living room. Sometime around 7 am.

Chris and Karen's empty bedroom, with 7 am sunlight streaming through to the floor.

Tuckered out and just taking a moment respite before we clean all the furniture and put it back into place.

The living room from the stairway to the loft. With a few things back in place, it really feels like a finished home. It's as if people should be living here!

The Chain Gang

Lots of pictures this week. Time goes by all too quickly, and a lot has transpired since the last post. We have had an unusual number of cool, wet days here in New England this June. The silver lining is that we haven't had to worry about watering the garden for awhile. The lawn gets a little long in between the dry days, so we have been able to rake up some clippings for next year's garden. I suppose if you really want to stretch the concept, that's a blessing, too.
Benson has had a good time learning to use the lawnmower. He would prefer a model with powered wheels, but this is what we have for now. It's light enough that he can start it, run it, and haul it up most of the slopes all on his own.

This is what Benson would rather be doing instead of mowing! We have been scraping away some material from the front of the house as we prepare for a stone wall and some flower beds. The rear blade is great for snow, but it doesn't push down into hardpacked sand and dirt very well without some additional weight. Andy and Chris are providing ballast in this picture. Some things you just can't ask your wives to do. :)

Andy and Chris were both translated a few weeks ago. Feet first, apparently. They came back when they remembered that the house wasn't finished yet.

Happiness is a pile of rocks on a Saturday afternoon.

Working on the chain gang. It took some cajoling to get all three boys to agree to pose for this one, and in the end I think only Eli really pulled off a somewhat convincing scowl. Chris can hardly do anything without a smile, so he's not one to quibble.

A different view of the garden than usual. This also shows a new turn-around spot that we built at the edge of the lawn. We have only used it a few times, but when the parking spots in the back are full, this will be handy.

This stone is now part of the retaining wall at the edge of the garden. The hole is one of the bore holes from the blasting for the foundation. We still have detonation cord all around the house, and we keep digging up more as we build the stone wall in front.

Piles of material. Straw/grass clippings on the left, semi-composted grass and moss in the middle, and branches/brush on the right. Eventually these will be mixed and composted, and will all be spread around the garden area.

The first layer of stones is just visible here in front of the house.

Progress on the wall. We used a water level and a long string between stakes to keep things level from the house.

Further along on the wall.

Chris and Benson put up some towel hooks in Chris and Karen's bathroom.

Mindy scraped away some more dirt from the front of the house. Within about 8' of the house, it's all sand that was backfilled after the foundation was poured. Any farther away than that and we get into untouched dirt. The dirt has roots and rocks (I know, in western Mass, can you believe it?), so we have had to make multiple passes with the tractor blade to keep pulling away material. The rototiller has been handy here, too. The tines really churn up the hard packed dirt, and then we can pull it away with the tractor.

Benson used the bucket to backfill the stone wall with dirt for the planting bed.

With Andy, Mindy and the boys out to UT for three weeks on vacation, Chris and Karen are busy on the inside. While they are gone, we will sand, oil, and seal the floors on the main floor. First step? Move all the furniture somewhere else. We don't have all that much, but it sure seemed to fill up the loft.

Sanding party! Some friends came over to help us work on the floor, so we put all the willing hands to work. The railing and stairs to the downstairs are sanded, and by the end of the night, all of the walls and ballisters were taped in preparation for the tung oil.

Karen sanded the floor in our bedroom, and moved into the living room. The floors were fully sanded before we moved in, but have built up a burnished feel as we have lived here for a few months. We want to take off that hard protection so the tung oil soaks into the wood evenly and thoroughly.

Janice worked some of the kitchen area. Her dad did most of the work here, but you only get to see his shoes here.

The sanders. From left to right: Karen, Chris, Cori, Jenny, Janice, Emma, Dave, Brian, Jenn, and Carol. Whew! Never a dull moment when you're friends of the Wests.

Chris and Brian formed a transition piece to fit between the kitchen floor and the mudroom tile. A router might have worked well to curve the wood properly. Or perhaps the tablesaw. Maybe a plane and some elbow grease. In the end, though, the tool of choice was a belt sander and 36 grit paper. This will be oiled and sealed to match the floor. Meanwhile, the fridge was being struck by lightning.

One more shot of the garden. We have eaten some swiss chard and some peas so far this year. From the hillside, we have had 9 raspberries. More peas will be ready soon, and we look forward to finding ways to eat everything we have grown.

The Mudroom Wall

I couldn't think of a cohesive title for the last week of progress, so the mudroom wall won out.

This is Chris and Karen's room with a view.
Our church sponsored a father and son campout a week ago. Chris took the boys on Friday night and set up camp while Andy drove straight in from VT, where he had been working all week.

Benson took this artsy shot of the corn. The house is in the background, and manure in the foreground.

We brought two loads of manure home with the trailer to help out the garden. Chris and Dave spread some of it around, but they were appear to be talking it instead of shoveling it here. A couple of regular state workers.

Saturday was a beautiful day to work outside, and we moved some more material from the front of the house. We are still working on the plans for the stone wall that will end up here. Any way you cut it, we love the work and can't imagine spending our free time any other way.

The garden a few days ago. Everything is growing well except the rhubarb, which is still in shock. Chris wanted a place to sit down, so he brought the bench down and plopped it by the squash. You see, he doesn't just stand and lean on his shovel. Sometimes he sits and lets the shovel lean on him. Very fair.

Chris and Karen finished the mudroom wall up to the ceiling this week. It had been 3.5 boards shy of the ceiling for a long time now. Those last few boards are difficult to reach, and there just never seemed to be a good reason to finish. With company coming soon, Karen and Mindy are really pushing to polish a few areas of the house. You know, the last 10% of a project that just keeps getting pushed back? Yeah, that's the stuff they want done, and this was one of those spots. The darker shade was finished with a coat of polyacrylic ages ago, and the rest of the wall is as yet untreated.

The garden, as seen from the loft.

The upstairs bedroom, as empty as you'll ever see it. This will be a guest room when company comes in June and July. Until then, it will be a music and a craft room.

We have more pictures of the outside of the house, but with company coming soon, we are holding back a bit for the 'ooooohhhh' and 'aaaaahhhh' effect when they get here. :) So if you're local, you're welcome to come on by. If you're distant, I'm afraid you'll just have to wait a few weeks. :)

The Garden

Yes, Russell, the blog is finally up! The excavators finished the stone wall for the garden area and along the side of the house. Most of the very large stones have been used up, but you can see a pile of small-ish rocks on the uphill side of this shot. These left-overs are all move-able by us, except for one enormous boulder that even the excavator had trouble with. We aren't sure what to do with that one yet. Maybe we will support it, dig out the ground underneath it, and then drop it into a hole. No doubt we have about 6 inches of dirt under it before we hit bedrock. :) We had the soil tested, and Andy is laying some lyme down to cut down on the natural acidity.
Here you can see the lawn coming in a bit thicker, as well as the stone wall that has been added to the SE corner of the house.

More lyme. One of these stones, about where Ethan is standing, has a visible bore hole from when the blasting guys drilled into the bedrock to plant the explosives. Pretty cool stuff.

We raked in the lyme, and then got busy planting. Mindy mapped out the rows on a nice grid of graph paper, so we had very detailed plans to follow. It is great to have such a flat space to plant on.

Same garden, but a few days later. Can you spot the very sad looking rhubarb?

A closer picture of our very sad-looking rhubarb. It has since been joined by several of its brethren, so now we have an entire row of leafy sadness.

Our Stihl saw ran beautifully, until one day it didn't. The cylinder and piston are now scored beyond use. We will either swap out the 290 cylinder/piston assembly for the 390 pieces, or sell it as is. Not sure yet. In any case, we need a reliable saw, and we chose a Husqvarna 346xp this time. Same power, much less weight, and it is built to a higher standard than our Stihl 290 was. We liked them both, but the new tool is in a different class. Old and busted, meet the new hotness.

Andy and Chris enjoyed a great road-trip with Dad in the summer of 1986 when they travelled over the mountains from Charlemont, MA to Troy, NY to pick up a brand new TroyBilt Horse Rototiller. The tiller lives in Chester, now, and while the tool itself is built like a tank, the original Tecumseh engine decided it had had enough. So... Old and busted, meet the new hotness. Now we're ready to tackle some work.

Andy and Chris spent a frustrating hour last week torn between two tasks... the fun of an engine swap on the tiller, and the dreary option of hanging window boxes. Yes, the window boxes look great, and we do love to make our wives happy, but come on! The cold frames are partially disassembled in this shot, and are entirely cleared away by the time of this post. We have scraped away a lot of the extra sand and gravel from the front of the house and are preparing for some dirt so we can seed and plant the area in front of the house. No, we don't park there anymore.

Here you can see the remaining window boxes fully hung. The two satellite windows are empty for now - those planters were put in the kitchen windows instead, where they would be more enjoyed from inside the house.

Karen and Chris went for a hike with some friends on Memorial Day. We set out to hike Alander Mountain, and ended up somewhere else entirely. The weather was perfect, the company was fun, and the view turned out pretty decent, too. This picture is looking West into NY, from a non-summit along the trail between Alander and Frissell mountains in Mt. Washington State Park, SW Massachusetts.