Construction Journal Entry Week of 4/17/05

4/19-21/05 I went up to the property for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

I arrived at 11:45. It was a beautiful spring day, 58 degrees. There was quite a bit of snow in the mountains which made them look beautiful against a clear blue sky.

After moving in, I sanded the five northeast utility room logs that were due for the final coat of varnish. Then I scraped and gouged the top two northwest logs in the utility room. The top log had a long stretch of irregular concave surface which made it very hard to scrape, especially since I had to reach overhead to do it. I was glad when I got it done.

On Wednesday, I planed all the rest of the logs in the northwest utility room wall which will be the last of the planing until I go back up to work in the loft. That will be the last of the big mess of chips for a while too. I scraped and gouged five more logs in that wall for a total of seven.

In the process, the exhaust valve in my respirator started leaking so I was breathing in dust through the valve. I sat down to work on it and found that it was clogged with gray goo. I took part of the valve off so I could clean it, and I dropped it down the stairwell to the crawl space. That was a mistake. I went down under the stairs with a flashlight and looked for a long time without success. It didn't help that the little plastic part was black. I gave up and covered the valve with duct tape. To breathe out, I had to grin enough to allow the air to escape between the mask and my cheeks. That was a pain, but it worked. I decided it was time for a new respirator.

Larry stopped by for a visit late in the afternoon. We had such a pleasant visit that we ended up talking for two hours. After he left, I cleaned up all the chips and vacuumed the floor and walls.

On Thursday morning, I scraped the glue, such as it was, from the trim on the Grid D3-E3 window. I did such a good job gluing that trim that there was only a bead of glue for about one inch. I finally have the gluing technique down pretty well.

Next, I mitered the molding and trimmed the big bedroom window. It looks like I won't have much, if any, glue to clean up on that window either. Then I varnished all the prepared logs in the utility room: five in the northeast wall and seven in the northwest wall. It looks really good in that room now.

Before I left, I discovered that the rodents had discovered my supply of toilet paper in the privy. I keep the roll I am using under a coffee can, so it is safe. But the supply of extra rolls was in a paper bag inside a cardboard box. The mice or squirrels or pack rats had chewed up the better part of two rolls. I got a tin box from the cabin and put the toilet paper in that. It will be safe from now on. I should have known better. I left for home at 1:10.



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