Brick-Free Work Zone

For a second consecutive day, no bricks went down. In fact, nothing was done on the walkway at all today. Part of this was due to rain that started late yesterday. Lawrence was here this morning though and a lot of other things did get done.

First, he checked out the motor on the outdoor ceiling fan and declared it alive. He then replaced the blade arms with the ones I was finally able to get. (One of the arms was destroyed back in the spring during a monstrous storm which also seemed to temporarily jam the fan.)

With all the blades in place, the mother slapped some gold paint around the light fixture casing and then it whirred into life. Just in time, too, because if yesterday’s humidity was bad, it was small-time compared to today’s. Then, we moved indoors to the family room where the closet that he and I built back in January still needed to have the doors fine-tuned. It started to sprinkle almost the second we reemerged with the first set of doors.

Lawrence trimmed them a bit and then it was on to the second set of doors. This time, the minute we set the doors down it really started to rain. Lawrence was undeterred. “Just givin’ the doors a little bath,” he says and proceeds with his cutting. With that, we were able to put the doors back on their track and this time they successfully cleared the floor! (After I dried the second set off, of course.)

Then, it was time for another adventure with electricity. The very first project that I worked on with Lawrence was on the coldest day of the spring in 2007 to install the outdoor ceiling fan and an outside outlet. (It was like 35 outside that day and I was about to die.) So, we’re old friends when it comes to electricity. But what workday would be complete without a trip to The Home Depot? We had to go there to stock up on supplies for the latest adventure in power.

This time, the plan was to install outlets in the hallway between the bedrooms and in the dining room. Lawrence began whipping out drillbits that were taller than me. I was awestruck. Then, the very same nail and string we used to line up the fence, helped to save the day and FINALLY pull the wire through. (The hallway proved more of a challenge than we planned, so we didn’t get to the dining room outlet.) Then, it was on to trimming out the family room closet.

I had tried to do this myself earlier this year. I screwed up. I cut the miter the wrong way, meaning the molding board was now too short. I’d gotten rid of the scraps which killed Lawrence’s idea to make it work. Then I had an epiphany. Why couldn’t I get a piece of corner molding that would 1) make up the difference for the too-short board and 2) eliminate the need to miter all together? Lawrence shook his head. “That’s a great idea.” We added that piece to our HD shopping list.

The corner idea worked well and we got all the trim pieces cut in about 30 minutes. I couldn’t install them because we both had believe the crown molding would cover the gap between the uppermost edge of the closet and the closet track. It didn’t. Believing that it would, I hadn’t taped and mudded it when we finished the drywall. Now, I get to do that.

Shouldn’t take long though. So, we changed out the fan blades, trimmed and rehung closet doors, installed a brand new outlet and cut multiple pieces of trim to finish up the closet.

More work with Lawrence will have to wait. I’m on my own for a while. He returns to 10-hour workdays and six-day weeks tomorrow. I’m bummed.

The good news: Nothing undone will hold up other ongoing projects, except for maybe the downstairs ceiling. But that’s for another post.