Oct 3 2007
With the plywood in place and screwed down, I cover it with a fibreglass weave saturated with polyester resin. After it has cured I cut of the “skirt”, and caulk the edges with the wall.
And now, repeat this for the next balcony hoping the weather will stay nice and we won’t get a snowstorm.
[No snow, but it did rain…]
Oct 2 2007
Then I put a new plywood floor and screw it to the beams. Getting the plywood sheets in place wasn’t very easy since the sheets are wider than the clearance between the wall and the railing, but I devised a cunning system that worked pretty well.
I attached two ropes to the front of the balcony, just under the place where the new floor will be. I attached the other ends of the ropes to the poles that hold up the roof. Then I carried the sheet of plywood upstairs and slid it into the coils of rope. By loosening the ropes I could then lower the sheet so it was oriented horizontally. Then it was fairly easy to slide it under the posts of the railing and slide it into its final place. Of course this description doesn’t include the swearing when things got temporarily stuck, or the near misses when I lost my balance and almost fell down three stories. Well, that last thing didn’t happen, it was actually quite straightforward. Screwing the sheets down took longer that getting them in place.
Oct 1 2007
The bathroom project is finished (will post pictures after the client has painted it) and I have my tools back at home. So I can tackle some other projects. The weather is extremely warm lately and the forecast is so good that I decide to replace the back balconies. Last year I did that with our own porch and that worked pretty well. So now I’m going to do the same on the second and third floor. That makes think a lot harder because I don’t have as easy access. First I remove the old balcony planks. Then I have to reinforce the beams that are missing or are severely affected by rot.
Sep 30 2007
Instead of resting on our laurels and enjoying the nice fall weather we’re spending most of our weekends lately scraping and painting our fire escape stairs. There is a lot of rust, but on the whole its metal is in better state than I had feared. Still there are a lot of nooks and crannies to scrape the rust out and a lot of it is only accessible on high ladders. I strapped myself into my climbing harness (so it gets some use after all) and work all day with my arms in the air until they are really sore. Wearing goggles so I don’t get rust chips into my eye. Or paint.
Of course Alison is also scraping and painting but to her dismay I shield her from the “hanging-upside-down-under-stair-experience”. She doesn’t know anything about ropes and carabiners and I don’t want to worry if she’s going to fall of the ladder and break her neck. “But teach her the ropes!”, I hear you thinking, but I can’t do that without spending a lot of time supervising her. And she is kind of allergic to supervision. And there is so much work ahead.
Sep 14 2007
The bathroom project is nearing its final stage. The client is enjoying his daily showers and baths and I just have to do the finishing touches. Unfortunately a lot of finishing touches, because I almost changed the whole house to make this bathroom. I moved two doors and two walls and so there is a lot to plaster, a couple of doors and their mouldings and thresholds need to be re-installed and a lot of other small things need to be done as well. So I won’t be finished in a week or so, and after that I still have to built some custom furniture (a vanity, mirror cabinet and doors and drawers above the washer/dryer combination) to complete the project. But it looks pretty nice and the client is very happy. It even sounds nice because I installed speakers above the bath tub and while I work I now listen to music in genuine bathroom acoustics.
Sep 9 2007
Scraping and painting the fire escape. My arms hurt from working above my head. It’s a lot of work, but we’re making progress. A couple more weekends and the job will be done.
Sep 8 2007
Poupoune met a cat. Cat was not pleased but just missed her eye. Poupoune was unaware of the fact how lucky she had been and hadn’t learned a thing, because on the way back she checked out the cat again… Fortunately the cat had left.
Aug 27 2007
I know these little critters are considered a pest, and are regularly classified as rats, but at least they are busy and beautiful rats.
This one literally dropped dead in front of our house. She didn’t seem to be ill and had a gorgeous coat and tail. Since I found her straight under a transformer in the electricity pole my guess is that she was electrocuted while touching the high voltage while grounded. Or maybe she just missed when she jumped from one tree to another. Even circus trapeze artists sometimes miss.
I picked her up, put her in a bag (“See, Buy, Fly”, from the Dutch airport tax free shops; I thought that was appropriate) and walked towards the passing garbage truck and put her in there myself. She was very stiff, and heavier than I expected.
Nov 21 2007
Cones
Pepe & Poupoune (and Alison) make their first appearance on another website.
The context of these cones can be had here and here from the archives.
By mare • A., dogs, english, montréal, web •