What a month. 2020 is the year that keeps on taking. Well, we’ve tried to push on with the upstairs work, and almost finished the front hallway and stairs.
And of course, there’s mask making. Janeen’s figured out how to make a mask that fits my very three dimensional face. All other masks squash my nose down, so I have to breathe through my mouth.
Arwen loves helping.
Oh, and as if it wasn’t enough that a selfish minority of people in USA insist on not wearing masks (thus keeping the spread of Covid at high numbers and voiding all the sacrifices in March, April and May) the fire season started early and with a vengeance this year. We were having a 100F+ heatwave in California, and one night a thunderstorm came. It has been a long time since I remember that much thunder and lightning. In SF, it started raining during the storm, and the temperature dropped. At the time, it felt like a welcome break to the heat.
But most places just got lightning which started forest fires all over the state. Within a few days, the smoke was choking everyone: Maybe this would get the anti-maskers to finally put them on?
This Covid pandemic has now been going on so long that we are all exhausted. At first, there was talk of baking bread, cooking, and finding ways to be creative. Then we started protesting about police brutality and BLM. And when things got bad, the president-in-name-only just made things worse. Now I just feel beaten down.
The air quality forces us to keep the windows closed, and we can’t even go outside for a walk in the fresh air. For me, my work is going full blast, but meetings and all coordination has to happen remotely. So I feel lucky that I have work. At the same time, it’s exhausting to try to keep pushing on. Many people seem to be just at 25% at work, so nothing is going smoothly – parents are probably distracted trying to look after their kids at the same time.
So I decided I had to at least try to keep baking sourdough.
I have even been baking almost wheat-free sourdough loaves for mole. The starter has wheat flour in it, so out of a 500 gram loaf, about 20 grams is wheat flour.
The apple tree gave us a lot of really good Fuji apples this year. We got a couple of boxes of peaches, too. They were tasty, but not as plentiful as other years.
We happened to be working on the house during those really unpleasantly hot days this summer. We masked off the hallway, and I used the sprayer to paint. Once the masking is done, the spraying goes very fast. But I have to wear my full crazy outfit:
Back to the hallway, here’s the detail at the Victorian corner moulding. Because I didn’t tear out the plaster on the wall, the additional layer of veneer plaster makes it a bit proud of the dowel. But I still like the detail (instead of a sharp corner using a metal bead).
Here’s the hallway with primer on.
Here’s the hallway after painting. Initially I also painted the far wall that yellow, but it was too much. The yellow color continues around the corner, so it reflects on the white wall.
This is how the light switch came out. I accidentally installed it too close to the door, so the moulding didn’t fit. So Mole suggested I build the light switch into the moulding!
Next step is to put the Anaglypta on the walls below the chair rails. It’s the same as we used at the front of the downstairs.
The textured pattern hides any unevenness in the wall, and adds a subtle decorative finish. I like it.
Now the carpet is off the stairs, and the paint stripped, there’s a LOT of filler needed. I also had to take off and glue a couple of the treads together. All the nails and staples from the carpet of the last hundred years left a lot of holes.
I stained the stair treads with the same stain I used on all the doors downstairs. We plan to put a runner down the center of the stairs so it’s a bit more grippy and padded than plain wood stairs.
It’s coming together. Here’s mole at the bottom of the stairs…
Once the stair treads were stained, and sealed with polyurethane, I painted the risers and the sides white…
Meanwhile: During the heat, I had the windows wide open in the front office. Arwen decided to climb out of them, and jumped across to the front stairs. But then she couldn’t figure out how to get back, so she started scratching on the front door. She also tried climbing up the front door, and tried to jump in the window.
Bella alerted Janeen by calmly sitting inside the front door, staring at it. Luckily Arwen made it home safely. But the door did not fare well. There were scratches all up the front where she grabbed on below the window and tried to get hold with her back claws.
So I took the front door off, sanded and re-stained where it was scratched, and gave it a few coats of spar urethane.
That took a about a week. So I had to make a temporary front door.
And then we had the brown day. It was so dark, we couldn’t see where we were walking without turning turning the lights on. Mole tried to take a photo, but the camera couldn’t do it justice:
Looking out the front, in the middle of the morning, it looked like night time.
The new hallway closet needs a door, and I had one in the garage left over from (I think) the bedroom door. The previous owners had used this beauty in place of one of the original paneled redwood doors.
I had to cut the width down, and rebuild it because it’s a hollow door. Here I’m mortising the door pull into the door.
I bought replica cast steel hinges from houseofantiquehardware.com and painted them white. Initially I was thinking of using blind hinges that completely disappear when the door is closed, but they are $75 each, and this door really won’t be invisible anyway.
Here’s the door painted and installed. We painted the edges the same yellow as the wall across, and the rest of the door to match its surrounding wall.
I used a magnetic catch to hold the door closed, similar to a cabinet. i wanted to make a flush door handle so it’s not sticking out as you walk down the stairs. I really like the smiling face on this stainless steel handle (it’s boat hardware).
And yet, there’s more: Mole did the graphic design for Misha’s new CD. It was released purely digitally, so mole put together a few actual physical copies. You can listen to the whole CD here: https://eighttwo.bandcamp.com/album/truth-and-fun
Mole made some door stops. We’ve been using my slippers to hold open/closed the bedroom door. These are much more friendly: They remind me of Totoro.
AND Bella got a new ball. This one is a foam ball that’s bouncy and soft. She’s been playing soccer with it, and also bringing it to us so we’ll throw it to play fetch.
Here’s Bella when mole first gave her a knitted ball as a kitten. She still loves the knitted balls.
