I wanted originally to say that there wasn't much to say about September, because I haven't done much on the house. But then, thinking back, I realize I've done a lot in bits and pieces. So here's a roundup:
- Lots and lots of tuck pointing, including that one bit on the west wall of the carriage house where three bricks had fallen out entirely. They're back in, now. The carriage house is now tight enough that the mouse problem is gone. While cleaning the mortar out on the southwest corner on a windy day, I was surprised to find mortar dust blowing out of the wall - it was blowing in on the other side of the corner... That tells you you really need to get to your tuck pointing.
- We cleaned up around the northmost door on the east side of the carriage house. I'd been putting it off because there was lots of poison ivy and I don't have a full-isolation environmental suit. Anyway, so we did that, only to discover that the bottom two feet of the door frame on both sides and the sill plate had an argument with some termites sometime in the past. And lost. So that entire frame has to come out. The plan is to put a new vinyl window there and frame in under it, like the west window on the carriage house.
- The cast iron drainpipe from my one working half-bath in the big house is cracked. A lot. This is on the same drain system as the flange that rotted the parlor floor, so I started by cutting that pipe out. I'm still in the midst of my second cut; those big cast iron pipes take a lot of hacksawing. Anyway, so I'll be taking plastic nearly up to the wall and discarding a lot of drain that is solely of historical interest.
- The little boarded-up window on the southwest of the carriage house (inside; outside [it's to the left of the red wall that used to be the garage door]) has gotten some attention at last. Its sill was egregiously rotted (and they'd nailed some aluminum siding over that to make it look less so), and the bricks had pulled about a half inch away from the frame. I've got the old paint off and filled the worst of the sill rot with mortar. I'm using Bondo for the rest. More on that effort later. I also filled mortar in to the half-inch crack on the side; we were losing a lot of heat there last winter. (It's already plastered on the inside, but still.)
- Good Lord, I never even posted in August about the plaster fixup and paint job in the carriage house living room. It looks pretty good, although I'm obviously still learning how to use Plaster of Paris. Still - better than it was, and that's the primary goal.
- We've been getting primer onto trim - the downstairs windows of the big house, and the doors of the carriage house, so far. It's slow going, but really makes the whole house look so much better.
So I'm way behind on writing. Hopefully October will be better.
