As the Birthday wishes continue to pour in, from around the globe; I have some recent pics of the close out of BPN to share. Hope you enjoy.



Today - due to mild weather here - I finished painting the front porch.







Front of the house. Did the railings, deck, and steps. Fixed and painted the orig. iron handrail.



Interrupted group! Shot one arrow when I went in the shop looking for tools. Couple of hours later - getting something else ... I shot the second (touching first!). Worked a few more hours - came in to clean brushes .... shot #3 the left most arrow. 5-6 hour group! Haha. Yeah - the sights need adjusting. I altered the string.



Fixed a blistered area of patio surface right near the steps. It proved to be a delaminated area that grew. I used a vinyl patch concrete with additive. The color will fade in as it cures. The stuff immediately to the left of the patch is the chipped off top layer that was loose and blistered. Right where you walk in. This patch should hold and at least show maintenance.

The place is looking nice. But - I'd have to work four days a week - just on maintenance - to keep it up. Turn a corner, and you find stuff like this - endlessly. After the pic, I painted this today too. It was THE LAST of any of the windows, doors, trim, porches, etc. I am DONE with the huge list of those painting items on the house. We continue to move, clean, stage, pack the trailer, make all the paper trail stuff work out. There is a bunch of that that Kelly is doing a great job with. That will wear you down too - as you sit on hold - and deal with phone trees.



Hope you enjoyed a few more pics. I've tried to mix it up a bit.

Gary



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/06/2013 04:46AM by barnespneumatic.

Hope you recall - in the couple of years that I've been preparing to make a move possible - I've repaired the brick piers, nailed and repaired the deck, stripped the deck of 120 years of paint, repaired the railings, built synthetic lattice panels for under the porch, repaired the band boards, resurfaced the compromised brick wall, replaced critical stringers .... porches are a HUGE pain to maintain. But they are such a feature of a Victorian house. You can really screw up a house if you don't do it right.

Thank God that enormous project has come to a two year close. Actually - probably closer to four years. That porch was one of the things that finally pushed me over the edge ... I can NOT maintain this place for the rest of my life. Maybe I had one more go around in me. And ... guess I did - but just.

For those years that so many were encouraging me to go ahead and move ... I thought I knew what that was gonna entail. I decided against it several times. We made serious trips to scout areas. And came back and said, "no - we can't do this". And then, as everything changed around us ... and we continued to be encouraged to move and "simplify" ... we finally made the leap.

Now - we are about to move to the final two Scenes of the last Act.



Gary

Spectacular! But it must be time to cut and run? The purchaser will see a fine product and ignore the odd minor blemish.....problem is, Gary, you are a perfectionist, which is why your guns are what they are.......
Anyway, all the best for the home run
Cheers
Neil

Hi Neil,

Thks.

Well, we are very near the end of the list. Regarding the "cut and run" ...,

I know everyone considers this had taken too long. It's been the best we could do. That said, if you made a movie of the whole project - you could shorten it in two ways: 1). You could go back, with the benefit of hindsight, and omit segments here and there. The "Edit" method of shortening the movie. 2). You could just lop off the last ten minutes of the movie. The "Meat Axe" method. .

At this point, we are finishing the plan, as best we can.

We plan on being home for Christmas.



Gary

Well, other then Neil's nice post - guess Ill talk to myself.

Hey Gary - remember the last time you PAID to have the front porch painted? Yes I do. We had a few estimates. Cheapest was $3,500.00. Highest was twice that!!!

We picked the lower. Go figure. Nice sloppy job. In a few years it looked bad again - remember? You bet. That was about 15 years ago. I've painted it all at least twice more, myself - since then. And, it needed to look fresh now, since 5 minutes with any home show will tell you first impressions stick, and curb appeal is King.

So; what's a $3,500.00 job 15 years ago cost now? $5,500? More? It took me two days. And I did other things too. That's why we have done these projects.

Ok - I'll be back

Gary

I think your over worked And well you know getting burned out! That is one beautiful restoration job that you did there Gary inside and out. I can only imagine what that would've cost you to hire somebody to do and then you get crappy workmanship anyways ! Sometimes at work when I'm explaining something to somebody that I would like them to do it's just quicker to do it yourself because inevitably you miscommunicated tell them what you wanted done in the first place and it would be your fault it was done wrong anyways . That picture of your house showing the full front porch is beautiful I sure would like to pay the utility bills in that house middle of winter! NOT !! Keep your eye on the prize and I think you and miss Kelly deserve a vacation ! All work and no play makes Gary a dull boy.

That is a big beautiful house, and WAY too much work for anyone to deal with. It look's great, and I know you will have a buyer because thinking positive thought's will alway's bring a positive outcome. GOOD LUCK.

Hi Don,
Thanks. Just finished hand scraping the steps to the third floor. Put in 20 years ago, I never finished them. They had 20 years of stains, glue, plaster, paint. Now I Shellac them and add "Hand Scraped Pine Staircase" to the sale bill.
Gary

Complete.





The hand scraped surface, with a brushed coat of clear Shellac; created a mellow light. Another complete section of the lists. The 3rd floor is 99.5% complete now. A wall recepticle cover here, a window blind there, staging. Piece of cake.

Permission to take the rest of the evening off ...

Gary



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/07/2013 01:28AM by barnespneumatic.

GRANTED

damn Gary, you are like the Energizer bunny of home repair projects!

I hope my wife never decides to keep up with this site, it makes me look like a slacker by comparison.

Your house looks great from the photos we've seen, I'm sure you'll find someone who will be thrilled to own it. Hopefully they'll be late-twenties/early thirties and have plenty of energy to do all the upkeep...while you kick back in Florida drinking iced tea and humming away in your shop. You're in the home stretch here, very exciting!

Gary one last push to the end. Two full weeks to Christmas. House looks amazing. Christmas with the temperature in the seventies. I am jealous.
Good luck with the final effort to the finish.

Will

Hi Will, Sean, Kurt ...

We will do everything to be home for Christmas. Spend Christmas Eve hugging my tools and making Kelly a present.

I'm on the job.



Gary

(Yeah - I'll hug Kelly too ... Haha)

First boat of Shellac leaves a hard but rough/sandy feeling surface. You need to scuff sand that off. It sands readily, and leaves a smooth surface ready for the second coat. In this case - also the final coat. I sanded, Kelly vacuumed, and wiped the surface of dust. I brushed on the final coat. It dried smooth in about a half an hour.



I went around touching damaged woodwork. This is what happens when doors collide (and you have teenagers in an antique house). When the closet door is left wide open and you sling the adjacent bedroom door into it. The latches collide. What you don't see here is that - under the latch unit - I've fixed four patches with amber shellac. Once I finished this, the wood was still damaged - but from across the room; you just didn't see it at all.



And then, when we were in the shop fixing light globes which didn't fit light fixtures .... Kelly wanted to "Try" my elastic powered crossbow pistol. NEVER bet against her. Haha. This is with a tossed together - less then clockwork unit. An eye hook and a bead for sights. Plywood trigger.



12:01 am. Lunch is over. Haha

Gary

After all this work the two of you have done, it would be nice to see a complete set of picture's of that big house. We are all awaiting to see the finished product and those stair's make MY back hurt just looking at them!!!! Great cardio work out.....

Now watch, some real estate agent is gonna traipse up and down those beautifully varnished stairs in her slippery socks and say "whoa, those are way too smooth, better rough them up a bit"

Another project done! I think those stairs and railing will be a feature that helps with the sale. The porch is going to make a fine impression, just don't let the realtor talk maintenance! It looks like your latest neighbor is keeping up his house, that's bound to help too.

Hi Jerry,

Yeah - after 34 years, we finally got some good neighbors. Well, the first old fellow was nice - then he went and died on me . Been trying on neighbors since. These folks are the 7th set. Nice folks. They work hard keeping their place. That will help me. Right now, all the homes around are real nice.

BTW readers - that concrete patch colored in the same as the panel. Yay.

Hey - also ... Do you guys really "read" these posts ... or just look at the pictures. I think it says 154 reads of this thread ... and not one lousy "happy birthday Gary". . Look at the first sentence in this unedited thread. Not that I have any feelings left, or expect to be treated like a human being. . Or need a crummy pick me up. . I just work 80 hours a DAY and what do I get???? Heartache!! That's what. I'll just go eat worms ... . .... We don't even have an Emocon of a worm!!! . Stupid fish probably ate it! Or this guy took it. .

Hey Gary! A belated happy birthday to you!
The house is looking beautiful. I hope you get out of there soon.

Scott

Hi Scott!
Me too!!! I've had quite enough of this little project.
Hey - Thank You for thinking if me! Haha. Gee - I never like to make a fuss ....

Gosh - they are calling for another storm here tomorrow. We need a break. Not even Winter yet!!
Gary

Now that you mentioned it happy birthday Gary

You want birthday comments, I guess you're gonna have to post photos of cake.

Don't get too close to all those candles though, (there's just SO many of them, it's a bit dangerous).

Hi Sean,

Yeah - about the cake .....

I painted the front porch for my birthday bash. We are sort of living out of a paper bag now. .

I'll have to celebrate later. After I do some driving, unloading, set up, gun finishing ... then maybe a donut.

Haha

Gary

Well, since I read the post a week after your birthday passed with no mention from me....I thought I could just slink off into my guilty hole...

Nice that this neighbor doesn't have a long term mega dumpster next to the house!

Oh THAT'S FINE Jerry.

You just slinked away with the 180+ other slinkers ....

I know .... I'm a sub-human species. No pictures of new guns .... no basic human dignities. I see how it is ....

That's OK .... gosh .... I hope I can still cancel that big "Hug-O-Gram" I sent to you from the Krispy Cream Girls Calendar 2014.

Hey - Who's sorry NOW!!!



Gary

So...I guess this isn't a good time to point out what's sitting on the table in one of those photos I posted on the other thread...

hadn't seen that before .....

I was gonna send you a piece, but it was getting stale. You know how these things go...