Before our trek up to Whitehall, we learned that the cabin Mark and Anna have in Michigan is fairly close by. We talked a bit about meeting up, and today ended up being a good day for us to hang out. And to check out their cabin.
Unfortunately, Anna ended up being out of town for work. But we still arranged to meet up for a tour, a walk around the grounds, and an early dinner.
I remember being given a copy of the album 5150 by David Crook. I think this was in middle school. The album was dubbed on a cassette – specifically a Memorex transparent cassette.
Now, with us far away and waiting for some new floors to be installed… what better way to relax than to go out for a run in the brisk, Michigan air? It’s chilly out, with some decently strong winds… but no better time than now.
Running to relax. What an odd thing to do.
The odd thing is – I don’t feel rested. I don’t feel relaxed. I seem to be still stuck in some mode where I’m waiting for the next task to be done.
While we had several deer grazing, there was one of them that spotted me through the window. And kept a close eye on me, the entire rest of the time.
We only budgeted one day, yesterday… for us to hand over our keys to the flooring guys, travel to Michigan, pick up groceries, and more or less collapse.
Downstairs, we moved the front door against the fireplace. While the floors here have been stained already… we were waiting for a final buff/varnish. With all the work happening on the second floor, we decided it would be efficient of we cleared everything… and allowed the flooring guys to work on both floors at once.
Big day, last day. Tomorrow is when the flooring guys arrive, and by the morning we need to have everything off the first and second floors.
So that means – everything is shoved into the basement. Or kitchen. Or bathroom. Or the small space between our walk-in closet and the bathroom, which we’ve colloquially referred to as “Harry Potter”.
In addition to packing/clearing things, today was all about miscellaneous tasks. On my list: adding insulation in the hallway floor, along with insulating our two closet doors (in the front office).
Spar varnish on both doors.
Front door, looking colorful again.
With one side varnished and (slightly) protected, Liz flipped the doors to begin working on the other side.
There’s a bit of a timing concern. Ideally, the exterior gets 3 coats of varnish, for protection. But with each coat, it takes something like 8-16 hours to dry. So while there’s a single coat on the interior, that’s enough. And now the challenge is to try to get enough coats on the exterior, before all the flooring work begins.
Liz, showing how slick the doors are.
Big night for the door work. After several manual application attempts failed… Liz determined that the best way to apply her suspended dye/shellac mixture was to use a sprayer. So she headed out to Rockler in the suburbs, to pick up a unit.
In the meanwhile, I got the dining room ready to serve as a temporary spray booth. This meant covering up the walls with plastic, and making the whole area look like a serial killer’s playpen.
Prep work for the upstairs porch door: cutting painter’s tape, and protecting all the glass areas.