team gee

the gee sisters, mae, nancy and stef, generously spent super-bowl sunday helping us with the house.

strippingstef

it was a warm day, perfect for stripping paint in the backyard. (left) mathew, stef and nancy setting up their work stations. (right) stef getting started stripping paint and adhesive from wall panels that we will re-use as wainscotting in the downstairs bathroom.

nancysanding

(left) nancy using mae’s new heat gun. these volunteers bring tools! (right) in the garage, mae and i sanding doors. mae became obsessed with sanding this entire door today. mathew thinks he may have found someone even more meticulous than him…

lunchshucking

(left) mae’s delicious lunch of spinach and bean soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again, we are completely spoiled, our helpers even bring lunch! we had a nice picnic outside. (right) later in the day stef and i cleaned tile, this process looked a lot like shucking oysters. mae took a break from her sanding to see what we were doing.

gardeningplumbing

(left) nancy decided to trim the very overgrown garden ground cover. (right) mathew’s plumbing work station. soon after there was major plumbing drama in the garage.

before our friends left, we had a late afternoon/evening dessert of berry shortcakes that nancy made. they were extremely photogenic but so yummy i forgot to take photos!

plumbingdoor

plumbing and sanding went late into the night. actually, it is almost 11pm and we haven’t had dinner yet and mathew is still downstairs working as i write this post…

slight detour

on saturday, i mentioned that i’d really like to replace my plastic csi office door for my real door (that has been sitting in the garage for months.) mathew was more than happy to change his agenda for the day because plumbing is his least favorite activity to work on.

doorwindow

(left) mathew planing the door to fit the frame. (see, my ugly csi plastic door? still in place to keep the dust away from my office equipment as i sanded the door frame.) (right) i’m finally painting the frame for the window in the living room. it was sunny and warm, a perfect day to have the windows taken out and painted.

doordoor

(left) mathew clamping wood to the top and bottom of the door. victorian door frames are taller than today’s standard doors. we purchased this door from a local discount place and it was easier and cheaper to alter this door than place a custom order for the correct height. plus, settling of the house caused the door frame to become slightly off-square, so a thin angled piece was added to the top of the door. (right) here mathew is lying on the floor drilling the hole for the door knob while the wood glue is drying.

ceilingceiling

and finally on to the plumbing! mathew wouldn’t be mathew unless he was cutting holes in ceilings, floors and walls. (he needs to get to the pipes…)