I've been a terrible blogger, part 2 of 1027764959

Hurricane Irene!


Disclaimer:
Let me just say that I know that this is barely a pinprick, considering 20 miles away from me, whole towns were washed away, and I count my lucky stars to come out so unscathed.


Project 2: The front door  to the vestibule finally got so water logged that it started to come apart. So off it came!

Psssshhh. Who needs a door with pieces that align?

80 years of paint had to come off the front. Peel Away 7, the environmentally friendly kind, got the paint off where the wood was really soft. Then I just heat gunned (at low temp) the rest of it. So a week full of nights was spent in my basement just removing paint.

It got to this stage and then we had another hurricane dump a bunch more water on us. So, of course, the basement flooded. Just a baby flood though. Still enough to deter me for a while. And then I needed to use epoxy and wood hardener. I couldn't find the good stuff (Liquidwood) so I picked up some nonsense from Minwax. It's so flammable I couldn't use it near any pilots lights, aka the water heaters I was 5ft away from. So I had to wait for a dry sunny weekend in September... Which never came. So we finally got nice weather the first weekend in October. I hauled the door outside. I promptly found a place to purchase the Liquidwood in Saratoga. Fabulous. Happy that I found the good stuff, not so happy that I wasted three weeks waiting to use the crap that would blow me up.

Braces on the bottom corner. Not pretty, but there were already two bolts attempting to hold the piece in place. Obviously that was not working anymore. These are on the inside and will be painted over so hopefully no one will really notice them. Unless you read this blog (ha!).  I straightened it all out the best it was going to be and then leveled off the bottom 1/8th inch with the jigsaw. It's currently primed and waiting in the basement for me to paint it this evening. What a way to spend Friday night!

Project 3: Ceiling in Vestibule caves in due to water from hurricane. 

At this point I'm pretty sure I'll never name one of my future children Irene. Note the menacing cracks. These correspond nicely to the panel of the porch floor that was cut out and put back in without any sealant around it. Workmanship abounds in this place... 

Fast forward two days. A chunk falls out.  So then I spend an evening ripping out the rest of the left side of the ceiling, which was also about to drop. Good thing that pesky front door already had to be removed so it wouldn't get in my way. Gaaaaa. It's still all tore up. Hopefully I'll get to that this weekend.

Project 4: Roof at chimneys starts leaking during hurricanes. Starts to ruin plaster in dining room.  Surprise! Both chimneys need new counter flashing! No pics, mainly because no way am I going on my roof. Hello vertigo. Still trying to get this done before we are dealing with snow.  They were quickly repaired with silicone caulking, but that's far from a permanent solution. It's holding for now at least...