You may have noticed why I’ve taken to calling this my dearly neglected blog. Here’s some support for that moniker:
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,000 times in 2014. If it were a cable car, it would take about 33 trips to carry that many people.
They used to do what up there?
Soon I’m going to have to update this blog’s cover photo. Because that aluminum on top is coming off tomorrow!
I had to climb onto the porch roof with the paint guy to show him I was serious about doing away with the last of the aluminum on the east gable of the house. Seems the original roof planks are peeking out at the top of the trim on this side. And we’ll likely want to do something to cover that. But it’s no reason to keep this silly sheathing on. Having loathed the look of that stuff up there for nearly 13 years, I am ecstatic.
Look, it’s not me! Way up high on the way to paint things!
The other day our new paint guy said, “You’re not being a pain in the ass.”
This was his response to my being finicky about updating the contract he sent to reflect every little thing we want done. Now I’ve got extra respect for this paint guy. See, he’d done this odd thing I’ve had other professionals, including a lawyer, do: Rewrite my detailed written instructions and accidentally leave out key points. We were sure he knew he was being hired to strip, prime and paint the eaves and fascia all around the house. But he somehow omitted that from the contract. And I really like to have everything down in writing so there’s an easy way to check that everything gets done. So we updated the contract he sent, sent it back to him and had it printed out and ready for him to sign (I already had) before the start of the job.
The need for this paint job has been looming over my head for years, and I am so relieved at this progress. If all goes to plan, it’ll finally be done this week!
Retro Renovation shares this intriguing review of a product that might make cleaning chrome less laborious. I’ve got a serious chrome collecting habit, but wow what a pain it can be to keep shiny. Curious to check out this eraser.
Divine providence or entropy or something has sealed the decision on whether the aluminum will be removed from the eaves and fascia on the east-facing gable of the house when we have the rest (which was never covered) painted. This is a relief, because I knew I wanted that stripey stuff off. It just wrecks the look of the house to me. But there was always the question of what’s underneath. Horror or loveliness or (horrors) something slapdash and unpresentable. So here’s what it is:
That piece was festooning the yard this morning. When the rest comes off, it’ll be the last of the sheathing that was put on to negate the need for repainting. We took it off the window trim and front porch already. Now there’s just that part about getting someone to paint that old wood.
North 54th~Bricklayer's Folly 