Some of our accomplishments

We tried to get most of the high work done while the lift was here. In addition to fixing the chimneys (mentioned in an earlier post) and taking down two massive trees (also mentioned in an earlier post); we painted the cedar shakes and repaired and painted trim work. So here are the before and after pictures:

Front of house (before).......................(after)


East side (before)..............................(after) (notice that the bay window has been painted as well)

and portions of the east dormer needed to be rebuilt (picture of the rebuilt dormer).

I'm grateful for lifts!

(My sincerest appreciation to my beautiful wife for her insight, talent and help; and my thanks to Dean Machinery for the rental of the lift.)

So how big was that maple tree?

I'm sure I couldn't tell you, but it was over the top of the house, a good 45' in the air.


Now that it is down I can show you a comparison with my size 12 shoe. Thanks Tad, David and Richard for helping to take down the maple tree. Now, how do I move it out of my driveway?

The Beehive is down

Remember my situation, how to get the beehive down and move the bees?


The beehive in the tree is down, but the bees are still in it. (Well they did come out when their portion of the tree hit the ground.) I guess they will remain there for the winter and then next spring I will work on getting them out and into a new hive. (Oh yes, we missed hitting the side of the house by about 6 inches.)

We played host to our first unofficial wedding shoot

Okay, so I don't have any pictures to show. On Saturday, October 2nd, there was a wedding at the church across the street from our house. Prior to the ceremony, the photographers were taking pictures of the bride and groom outside of our house. Chris offered to let them use the drawing room for some of the shots, which they did. So we have unofficially had our first wedding shoot at the house.

The Tower

Let me start this post with the following statement: "I'm a guy. As with most males our description of colors are simple, such as: black, brown, blue, green, white (oh yes, white is a color), and red. Colors such as: taupe, chartreuse, wine, etc. do not exist in my library of colors. Get the picture?" Now that that has been established let me talk about the tower. We have finished painting the upper part of the tower (well there is a little touch up work to do), and the colors are: dark green for the cedar shakes; beige for the window trim with a thin line of green on the inner trim and maroon for the window sash; light green for the dentil work at the top with maroon on the trim below the dentil work; the outer trims of the tower (top and bottom) are beige with a white underside. (You need to click on the pictures and zoom them in to see the detailed work). It is such a wonderful feeling (not that I'm a feeling type of guy) to see the details of the tower. The color scheme is perfect. All praise must go to my wonderful wife, Chris, for her vision.

Friends in high places

A friend stopped by the other day and made a comment about "friends in high places". I thought I would let you see what it was like to be a friend in high places.

Those dark marks on the roof are the holes I had to patch because of the 2x4's I screwed to the roof to make a ladder so I could get to the chimney. The lift wouldn't reach this one. Next time I think I will use a safety line; I can tell you that it's a weird feeling to be walking at such a steep pitch without a safety line. Notice that the chimney on the left has not been capped. I believe that this has contributed to the bats getting into the house, however I can't reach the top of the chimney with the lift so capping the chimney will have to wait for another day. I'm grateful for our cat who helps with the bats!

Have you ever wondered how the world looks to a bird? Here's a bird's eye view:

Now riddle me this, Batman. How can a bird in flight at a high altitude manage to hit such a small target? Ah, now that's the million dollar question.

Just like an amusment park ride

One of the major goals while the lift is here is to repair two chimneys. It is not a good sign when you can see daylight through the bricks, or in other words look through one side of the chimney and out the other because the mortar is missing. The hazard becomes the danger of "falling bricks". It is my goal to repair them before that happens. Saturday between sessions of conference I worked on one of the chimneys. Have you ever used an articulating lift? It is like operating an amusement park ride, one with interesting thrills, especially when there are 10-15 mph wind gusts. It's a weird sensation to feel what you believe to be a stable platform move under you feet. Here are the captured pictures of me, somewhere around 45 feet in the air, repairing bricks. (Photos courtesy of Chris)

Trust me, I'm up there! Anyway, I finshed the chimney that Brother Miller started...

and now I have one left. (Notice the holes, it's worse than it looks).

Oh the joys of restoration!

Into one's life a little sting must come

It's amazing how when you commit to do something right, how the Lord helps by sending people to lighten your burden. Chris and I decided that we were going to attend the temple during the week which would mean that we would end up paying for the lift to sit idle for a day. It would also mean giving up a day of work but we felt that the Lord would bless for our commitment. Wednesday, out of the blue two missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints stopped by with an offer of their services to us. Since Brother Miller and I were taking down trees it seemed like a great offer. They could work on the trees and I could continue my work on the front porch. Prior to recommencing on the tree take down Brother Miller took both missionaries (Elder Chidester (left) and Elder Lyon (right)) up in the lift to inspect the beehive in our old maple tree. The bees have been busily building a comb at the entrance of the hive. (Notice how close the missionaries are to the beehive.)

I thought it would be a great update to my September 22nd post to show the comb. I take it that the bees do not like the paparazzi because as we were going up in the lift I was suddenly stung on the right side of my face at the cheek bone, a place with little fatty tissue to absorb the sting. At first it felt like an electrical shock followed by a burning pain. For a couple of days the area was painful and felt like I had been hit in the face with a baseball. (I know that baseball feeling as I was an infielder during my amateur baseball career.) Anyway, having been stung I decided that I was not going down empty handed, or should I say "without my picture" so we proceeded up the lift. Somebody has to hurt in order to get the pictures.

Brother Miller's comforting words to me regarding the sting were "As long as your throat doesn't swell shut and you stop breathing, then you are not allergic to bee stings". I guess I'm not allergic to bee stings since I am still here.

We have honey, but how to harvest it?

We have this huge maple tree that is being cut down due to the fact that it is in a terrible location, between two houses, and hollow in the core. It has been the home of a busy beehive for who knows how long. Today I went up to take closer pictures and noticed that there appears to be honey on the outside of the tree. The bees may have filled the tree full of honey, which I would like to harvest. Also, how can I get the bees to move from the tree to a beehive that we purchased? Ah, that is the question. Anyway here are the pictures that I took.

The bees were quite active this afternoon. They must be happy that the rain has ended.

Back to the front porch

Columns are now starting to go up, as if they could do it on their own. It is a slow process but I like the look.

Chris on the job

After a quick lesson my wife has become a boom operator, actually a very good boom operator.

It's amazing what a little paint will do:

Trees are not always a good thing...

especially when they are growing close to one or two houses. Oh, and are hollow also. So Brother Miller started to cut down the old Maple tree, I acting as ground crew. I'm glad he has had years of experience with tree cutting because one slip could have been disastrous. So without any further ado here are the action shots:

Afterwards I ventured up the lift to inspect the chimney. Oh great, now I need to tuck point the chimney. 118 years of weather has washed out most of the mortar, so you can see what I mean by "so much to do and so little time". Better to take care of it now before bricks start falling.

By this was really cool. A honey bee hive up close. I'll have to take pictures when they are more active.

So much to do and so little time!

Anyway that is how I feel sometimes. Winter is fast approaching and we need to take care of several things. For instance, the front porch. It was falling apart, rotten wood and improperly installed causing water to run off the deck and onto the tower bricks which resulted in mortar being washed away and bricks falling off the tower. Those bricks have been repaired but now the deck needs to be repaired. Soooo, we started to take the old decking off.

 

 

But we did take time to take a break

The Bay Window

Brother Miller and I worked on the bay window roof on Friday. I needed to get if fixed properly before winter to prevent water damage to the dining room ceiling and heat loss. The roof area is 3 feet wide at the widest point, 6 inches wide at the two outer edges and 180 inches long against the brick wall of the house. Imagine two adult males pulling up the tin roof while standing on it. (It would have been easier if we would have had a lift or at least scaffolding that would reach 15-20 feet.) On one of my trips onto the roof my foot caught on the window sill and I dove head first through the open window. Fortunately I caught my balance, otherwise I would have done a 20 foot, head first dive off the roof. It's not the fall that I was concerned with, it's the sudden stop at the bottom.

This experience reminded me of my teenage years when I use to jump off the roof of my parents house. Now you may ask yourself why would someone jump off the roof of a single story house, in particular make a 10-15 foot jump onto solid ground? Well, that is a good question. It could be that I was a little like Napoleon Dynamite when he asked Pedro if Pedro dared him to go and talk to a girl who was in the cafeteria. I don't remember being dared to jump, I just did it. Why do boys do such things? It makes no sense to me. I guess it's because we can, not that we should, but we can.

Anyway, we were able to remove the old tin, remove some of the subroofing (which made the area we were standing on even smaller), insulate the dining room ceiling, replace the subroofing and then pitch and install a new roof before Brother Miller had to leave. I am grateful that we got all that completed without any accidents, except for the cut on my finger. Why don't I just wear my gloves?

Now for the action shots!!!

The new roof is sealed and weatherproof enough for now. Eventually we will put metal back on the roof. Thanks Chris for the photos.

Have you ever gone to a bed race?

Last saturday we attended the bed races. It was a first for me. Each team was responsible for making their own bed for the race. It seems like some of the teams have this down to a science, such as when to brake and reverse direction. There were about eight teams in all. The team on the right won the championship. What will they think of next???

The Griffin has landed

The griffin, griffon, or gryphon (Greek: γρύφων, grýphōn, or γρύπων, grýpōn; Latin: gryphus) is a legendary creature with the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle. As the lion was traditionally considered the king of the beasts and the eagle was the king of the birds, the griffin was thought to be an especially powerful and majestic creature. Griffins are normally known for guarding treasure and well valued priceless possession. In antiquity it was a symbol of divine power and a guardian of the divine. (Wikipedia)

Our Griffin has finally found its home. It has had a rough life after being uprooted from Georgia but now has a nice place to reside. Welcome home my friend!

Rome wasn't built in a day!

No doubt you have heard the phrase "Rome wasn't build in a day" or something similar. I personally believe that Rome was built one column at a time. At least that is true with what I have experienced. The first column on the front porch is in place but not completely installed. This represents a few days work. Five more columns need to be installed. Maybe they will go up quicker since I have now learned what not to do from putting up the first one.

Maybe, Rome can be built in a week or two.

Work on the front porch

I've noticed that it has been some time since my last post, in fact almost 2 months. Why you may ask? We have been visiting our children and grandchildren in Utah and Georgia. But we are home now and work has resumed. So what's on the agenda...repair of the front porch for sure. Elder Chidester, Elder Parkinson and I took down the granite caps and bricks that served as the porch railing.

(Men at work photos:)

Who needs the gym when you have 250+ pound granite caps to haul around. As of now everything is taken down ready for the columns to be put up. We also worked on the upstairs bathroom. The ceiling wallpaper is up and we will start on the walls soon.

Video of the dining room

It has been my practice to do a video of the rooms that we have completed. I have held off on doing a video of the dining room since there are a few things that need to be done. As I thought about it I realized that the rooms that I have done a video of are not 100% complete either...so I decided to do a video of the dining room as it is today. Notice the transition of the floors between the dining room and the drawing room with the wood pattern that we created to fill the void where the old cold air return was located. The ceiling is complete with trim work that follows the walls in the room. The family pictures hanging on the wall are of my Danish grandparents (the square frame) and Chris' Italian great-grandparents (the oval frames).

Yes Virginia there is a Santa Claus

And for Celeste, here is a picture of the souvenir we brought back from Chicago when we went to Tim's rugby match:

Not this, this would be a prehistoric man!

By the way what does this title have to do with any of the pictures?