Progress report... The barn builders haven't been here this week, darn it. They're off on another job down in Ogden. I'm not sure when they're coming back, but hopefully tomorrow. Sheathing the interior and putting siding on the exterior are the next steps. Also installing the electrical service and the heating boiler, along with toilet, sinks, etc.
The roofers skipped a couple days because the head demolisher was sick. They were back today and demolished another quarter or so of our home's old roof; they're just over half done with that now.
I've been busy as heck, installing ceiling fans, fixing electrical problems, and (most recently) installing blinds. Prior to this morning, the only privacy in our bedroom was provided by the thick foliage on the trees and shrubs outside. In the past week, basically all the leaves of deciduous trees fell off. Not wanting to frighten all the local young women, I thought it would be a good idea to get those blinds up. As of this afternoon, we've got blinds on all the bedroom windows, plus the bathroom window. The latter was a real pain to put up, as I had to drill four holes through the porcelain tiles lining the window casing, and I had to drill them
up, as the blinds mounted on the top. My arms hurt :) But I got it done...
The last ceiling fan I just finished yesterday morning. It was far more challenging than I had expected, mainly because someone (presumably the previous owner) had seriously botched the installation of the one I was replacing. The old ceiling fan was mounted to a blue plastic junction box, which in turn was held in place by two nails into a joist – not even
close to being strong enough to hold up the fan. The previous owner “solved” this problem by putting six large sheet metal screws into the sheet rock on the ceiling. Ack! That fan was right over their bed, too – totally unacceptable. So I had to get rid of all the old bad installation, patch the screw holes, repaint that part of the ceiling, install a new metal junction box (working in a 5" diameter hole!), and only then could I install the new fan. I was very glad to finish that one, I don't mind saying!
One nice thing about the old ceiling fans: all four of them have new homes. One of our neighbors lives in an older house, and they're always looking for ways to upgrade. They took the three nicest fans to replace two not-so-nice ones they have now, plus add one to their workshop. The fourth old fan has a much more interesting future ahead of it: one of this blog's readers (“eg”) inquired about getting just the motor from it – to make it into a potter's wheel! That particular fan had a kind of cheesy looking fake brass exterior, and I was just going to toss it. How great that someone can use the one part that looks good on it!
