Two weeks. Lots to tell.

Amazing how quickly the season has changed. There’s the nip in the air, but more than that, the light is so different than just a few weeks ago.  Jennifer undertook to photograph our views through the dirty windows. Normally that’s not the best thing to show, but these give  a feel  that I wanted to share. Something about being in a structure looking out... contrasts with how it was last year at this time!

The week of Sept 21 was the week for finishing up all the in-wall systems. One big part of that was electrical. For that I had and electrician, thank goodness. Maybe you remember this from a long ago post:  Those are the tubes of conduit that I ran over the kitchen/dining ceiling – which is exposed beams and cannot hold wiring like a normal ceiling.  These were supposed to provide us with maximum flexibility to position fixtures in one of a number of places where we might ultimately want them. Well.... somehow we came up with a plan that didn’t quite match my ideas back then.

It was one of those 3am realizations – I’ve had quite a few of them over this project – that there was no way to get where we wanted to go.  

I couldn’t believe that after all the care that has gone into the flawless ceiling, I’d have to have a big plate or patch in it. UNACCEPTABLE. A suggestion from the electrician,  plus one sleepless night figuring it all out,  then a few hours of uncomfortable over the head work, and the problem was under control,  but ugly:

Awful right? No worries.  First real carpenter I ever knew used to tell me all the time -- sign of a good carpenter isn't not making mistakes.  It's how well you fix em.... Once we got the wires in, it’s back to this:  

 This fix worked out pretty well.   

Apart from the electrical were a zillion other unphotogenic details. Insulating pipes, running thermostat wires, speaker wires, computer and phone lines, duct work... etc etc.   I’ve hired a slow-at-his-day-job sheetrock taper to hang and tape the sheetrock on the ceilings and on the internal walls. (The block walls will be plastered – more on this later.)  First the beastly heavy material had to be delivered.  Oy: Watch the roof.... PLEASE!It’s a messy business and it also turns my beloved little work site into a noisy and chaotic mess.... In other words it’s like most construction sites are 100% of the time. Hard on me, though.  Here is a series of pictures over the past week. As you can see, the spaces are getting defined.  

The start of the work -- ceilings only, early in the week.  

Jennifer contemplates living room avec "lid" as they call it.  Today that room has its walls covered too.  Below is the entry to the  main bedroom. 

And the main hall downstairs (still with the temporary stair.) 

Upstairs stair landing.

With the exception of some small detail pieces, the drywall is up now. Next week is for taping and mudding. It will look a lot better when all those seams and screws and corners are cleaned up! For about the first half of the week last week I was running out ahead of the drywallers, realizing details that had not been fully prepared. There’s a lot to making sure you end up with the details that you need around doorways and transition spots. Once that was over I finally could get to having Sebastian back to dig and sift some of the clay  so that we can use it for the first coat of plaster on the interior of the block walls.   We took this clay from just beneath the topsoil at an area very near the driveway.  Here it is soaking,  after having been sifted:   I have read quite a bit about the whole earthen plaster possibility. We ran some tests & I think we’ve figured out the mix of sand and fiber that our clay here requires to work as a first coat.

My reading also taught me that fresh cow dung is an excellent additive for clay plaster. The enzymes in it apparently cattle-ize ;-) the clay’s own adhesive and elastic properties. We want lots of those.  At the end of our driveway there literally are 2000 acres dedicated to grazing cows, so I could see no reason not to try this. (I hope that when it’s all over we will  smell no reason either....)   So, this very morning, off I went (with my neighbor’s permission, of course) to collect fresh cow pies. You can read all you want, there are always more questions. For instance, the book says that you want “fresh” manure. Well... walking the field I thought I could identify the fresher drops. Then I came to wonder whether wetter was necessarily fresher.... or was I just in pursuit of one sick animal’s leavings? Later came the matter of heaving the bucket through the slats in the gate. Let’s just say, it was a messy proposition. I should have taken pictures, but alas I was alone . Jennifer out of town for sister’s wedding.  I didn’t dare handle the camera . Here is a  pic of the load I brought home: and of the  process of mixing these all important enzymes into the clay slip: 

Well..... we got a lot of s--- done this week,  like I said!