progress has been happening on the house, i just haven’t been very fast about documenting it. all i can say is: the kittens sure take a lot of my time!
in january before mathew’s mom left, she helped mathew paint his workbench ORANGE. sue also did some planting in our garden.
we’ve been working on lots of miscellaneous things around the house. but finally it was time for the NEW DOOR! i think we’ve had it sitting in our garage for 12 months. mathew was intimidated by the idea of working on it, getting it to fit into the existing door frame, making sure it seals well, attaching the new hardware, staining and polyurethaning it… the whole process took about three weekends and some week days.
(above left) it started with carrying it upstairs. (it’s HEAVY.) then taking off the old door and pushing the new one into place, planing sides to make it fit and checking the fit, over and over again.
(above right) after that was done mathew chiseled out spaces for the hinges.
once the door fit into place, the hardware (pretty!) was attached and then the door frame was reworked, sanded and repainted.
next the door was taken back down to the garage, sanded, stained and polyurethaned. i think mathew said the exterior side got 6 coats of poly!
ta-da! (right) mathew even installed this automatic weather strip on the bottom of the door. it involved cutting out a groove and inserting this metal contraption that when you close the door, it actually pushes down on the floor. mathew had to plane down the hardwood floor threshold because it was interfering with the weather strip. of course, that involved sanding and re-polyurethaning that section of the floor…
since mathew is self-employed again, it leaves some weekday afternoons to do things like… tear up the sidewalk! the city of san francisco has been going around tagging sidewalk squares, encouraging homeowners to repair cracks themselves. if they choose not to do the work, the city will do it and charge something like $80 per square! (i thought sidewalks were public, not private property.) we had quite a few tagged with white paint dots. mathew repaired the cracks and even went to the effort of renting a jackhammer and chipping out and refilling some squares. a lot of the dots are gone now and it makes us wonder, will the city approve of his work? will they even know which squares were once tagged?
meanwhile inside the house, the kittens are growing fast! here they are “helping” mathew change the fish tank water.
they get along the best when they’re asleep…
(right) arwen has now learned how to play fetch too! her toys of choice are bones i knit for her.
these little girls get into plenty of trouble! (left) we had this plastic film on our living room window, to act as a double pane until we install the new window. one day arwen figured out how to cut into it and step into a see-thru tunnel… (right) bella has proudly learned how to jump up onto the handrail above the stairs…
(left) and that also means she can jump onto counters and the fireplace. the big orchid had a bad fall but is recovering well. (right) bags and boxes are endless fun. and one night while we were watching a movie they even figured out how to push the chair cushions around to make forts and tunnels!
hope everyone is having a fun february!