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Something is different here… There's something that seems warmer about our house. What could it be? What oh what…
Hey! We have a functioning woodstove!
Michael's parents, Greg and Annie, were just up here for a visit and if there is one thing they love, it's trying to move our house projects along with something resembling speed. So while Cherie was busy working (or should that be "working"?), Michael and Greg were doing this:
That right there is a completed metalbestos chimney. No, it's not very Arts and Crafts-y, or even very pretty, but it provides a means for the smoke from a warm fire to safely exit our house. And that's good enough. Besides, it's on the back side of the house, so who cares?
We didn't have to cut into the roof to mount the chimney, as we thought we might have to do. Instead, it goes neatly around the roofline. Here's a closer look for those of you interested in that sort of thing.
Cherie is not interested in that sort of thing. She's interested in this sort of thing:
Can you blame her?
(You'll notice that we have, for the moment, abandoned the debate concerning the granite up the back of the surround. You know us. Why make a decision that will require work when stalling is possible? The cement board behind the stove is fire resistant and acceptable to our code enforcement office and that's good enough for us.)
It's not that we've been purposely neglecting the blog. It's not that we haven't been working. It's just that what we've been doing is so mindnumbingly boring that not only do we not want to do it, we don't even want to talk about doing it. And heaven knows that is unusual for us.
Here, this is what you've missed out on the last month or so:
Take shingle. Dip in stain. Prop in drying rack. Take shingle. Dip in stain. Prop in drying rack. Take shingle. Dip in stain. Prop in drying rack. Etc.
OR:
Take shingle. Line up on wall. Nail. Take shingle. Line up on wall. Nail. Take shingle. Line up on wall. Nail. Etc.
Do you see the problem here? Just those few sentences were enough to make us want to poke our eyes out with sticks and we are the ones who should be the most fascinated by the process. So, really, the silence was for your own protection.
But we have been busy shingling, trying to get the south wall finished before winter hits. Like the Aesop's famous grasshopper, we apparently spent all summer fiddling (we did?) and have now been caught unawares by the rapidly chilling air. So we've been trying to to batten down, insulate up, and otherwise brace ourselves for what is to come.
Other exciting, winter-related developments that we can attribute to this drive:
- Our woodstove is in place and has a chimney piece that runs through the interior wall, under the stairs, and through the exterior wall where it goes straight up…for four feet. Which makes it almost, but not quite, usable. The rest of the chimney will be installed…sometime.
- We finally finished insulating the attic, including new insulation in the perpetually leaking dormer. Michael pulled down all of the wood in the ceiling, installed reflexive insulation on both the interior and exterior sides with R30 fiberglass insulation sandwiched in between, in yet another attempt to prevent cold air and warm air from making acquaintance and resulting in that ugliest of offspring: condensation. Will it work? Who knows. We've given up predicting what will happen with that dormer. We hope it works, because our next step involves a flamethrower and a big can of gasoline.
- We put up more hooks in the entryway so we could hang winter coats, hats, and scarves, especially Annabel's coats and hats which keep getting lost in the chaos of our coat closet.
- Michael finished the bathroom vanity. Okay, that has absolutely nothing to do with winter, but it did get done and it looks great so we had to mention it. Of course, our camera is still broken so you are just going to imagine the prettiest vanity you've ever seen and multiply that prettiness by two. No, prettier. There you go. That's how pretty it is. (Note to selves: figure out what vanity we can show instead of ours once we get a new camera.)
So we say: bring it on Winter. We're (almost, as soon as that chimney gets done) ready for you!
Of course, feel free to send your friend Summer instead, if you're busy. That would be fine, too.
