Finally back to building!

New target: the east door on the carriage house. The ultra-frigid weather of two weeks ago is gone, but there are still some serious drafts howling through our nice new family room, so this effort is important.

For orientation, note that you can see the sunroom roof through the transom of this door, and the Japanese maple that's between the buildings. In the backyard picture from July, this door is to the far left of the picture, and it is directly under window #2.

The cord hanging down is my quick-and-dirty wiring for the security light outside; part of this project will be to wire that properly and insulate the arched space above the transom.

As always, the first order of business is to fix plaster. First, I removed the inner board of the arched space (look at those arched bricks - aren't they neat?) to see what fell off. The large chunk of plaster at the right above that arch did so, and so I took my caulk/adhesive and glued it back in place. I caulked the right side of the door (light showing), then I mortared the missing plaster there, right on top of the caulk. The left side of the door is in better condition, for whatever reason.

This is getting to be my pattern for this plaster. I'm using mortar as a base layer, then patching plaster as the top layer. I'm sure the patching plaster isn't as strong as a true plaster top coat, but this is working OK for smaller areas like this. And you can't beat mortar for strength, assuming you mix it right. (Ahem.)

Anyway, that was yesterday's work. Today, I put a deadbolt on this door. The old lock was missing, so there was a 1-1/2" hole in it. This is not what we in the building trades consider winterized. So now it's better.

Friday, my HVAC friend is coming, and we'll have heat in the big house for the first time. (Ahem again.) Then we can get back to plumbing over there. So more on that in the days to come.