Julie’s Birthday: Franklin Room

Julie and Liz, exploring some of the (many) other bottles available.
Julie and Liz, exploring some of the (many) other bottles available.
A lot of the complexity is in the paint needing to overlap the putty slightly, and make contact with the glass. This ensures a proper seal, but is also incredibly tricky in that it’s paint on glass (and has a tendency to run and not remain in a straight line).
The best sound of the whole night? When young kids were simply unable to really manage the salad tongs, and so it would just be this sound of constant buzzing for like 20 seconds. Hilarious. Made me laugh every single time.
When the power tools come out, things are getting real. It was a bit of a snug fit, but we slowly carved out spots for each of the electrical outlets.
It’s been a long, long time since I did this. But the parts and pieces are all familiar. Though we had a lot of electrical outlets in the basement, the shapes weren’t quite what we needed… so Liz and I made a special trip to Home Depot, just for some newer outlets. Which turned out to be an excellent call, because we got some good stuff.
Woke up early this morning, for a trek out to Reuse Depot. Liz was looking for some wavy glass to use, for her window resoration project – and the best option was to find some older windows, and to cut the pieces she needed from them.
Liz, continuing her work on restoring the hall windows. Because all the previous glass panes had a lot of scratches… she cut new window panes by hand, and applied the putty to set each pane into the window.
The first one took some time, but it looked like she found her rhythm.
Navigating the large bit of plywood solo was a little tricky, but I did manage to get the hang of it. I only had to haul it up here a few times, after hauling it back downstairs to do refinement cuts. Turned out pretty ok.
Liz is a very careful painter. When she explained things to me, I learned that this task especially, requires a very steady and precise hand.
Liz applied a cleaner to the living room fireplace. It’s a coating that needs to set for a day or so, as it hardens and does its thing.
When we pointed to the bottles from the Scotch Malt Whisky Society, our bartender (Peter) got really excited. He brought them all over, and the three of us fell to talking. He was impressed that we visited them in Edinburgh, and we talked at length about their bottles and the whole process.
While I did a lot of Asana and planning work, Liz was busy in the basement. In addition to her work refinishing a window… Liz also worked on repairing our front screen door (which has had a hole in it for what feels like forever).
A lot of logistics for us today. We fly out of Glasgow, so this meant driving the hour from Edinburgh to Glasglow, stopping to add petrol to the car, before then dropping it off at the airport.
Our last day in Edinburgh (and Scotland), Liz and I decided to just wander around a bit.
We learned a bit more about the Scotch Malt Whisky Society, and both Liz and I were quite floored by the selections that our server, Francesco, pulled for us.
We had several drams here, and each and every single one was absolutely delicious. I think right here and now is where I started to really lean towards cask strength Speyside whiskies, very bright and fruit forward.