Painting

We spent the afternoon painting the ceiling of the house. We had been batting around the idea of renting scaffolding to help Pat reach the 12.5 foot ceiling, but for the cost of that Pat bought an articulating Wagner ladder for $200.00 which we can use for longer than three days.

This was one of those purchases that worked out, he loves his ladder.

I think the name is The Little Giant..

http://www.homedepot.com/Building-Materials-Ladders/Little-Giant-Ladder-Systems/h_d1/N-5yc1vZ1xr5ZaqnpZ3z6/R-100430057/h_d2/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053

And, this will work on the outside too, for when he needs to finish the high areas of the soffit and fasica he's not been able to paint due to cold weather. Of course, I only stand back and admire the engineering. The steps up to the communion rail at church are almost beyond me and my lack of balance.

Our plywood, which we have been anticipating being delivered this week has been delayed a week. We are getting our IKEA cabinets on Friday and we'd hoped to have at least the kitchen area finished so that Pat could assemble the cabinets next week, which he had taken off from work. Instead, it will be a week of no work, either on the house or at the office...I hope he doesn't get into trouble. Idle hands are the Devil's playthings.

Robert Lewis Stevenson, sortakinda

The rain is raining all around

It falls on field and trees.

It rains on the umbrellas here,

and on the ships at sea..

AND MY ROOF DAMMIT....

Rain has probably delayed our house building by 3 1/2 weeks. We, by rights, should have been dried in for over a week. We have had to put off the Sears delivery of our appliances three times and the roofers may or may not be able to put the membrane on today so that we can proceed with our windows which have been waiting silently in the Home Depot warehouse...

AND, RONNA IS GONNA WIN!!! ARRGGGGGHHHHHH!

Thanks to Amazon.com for the image...

What the Swedes do best

We're headed to IKEA! To get our kitchen cabinets and bathroom sinks and furnishings.

Why IKEA you ask? Because IKEA understands small, compact and lean. The Raleigh News & Observer just had an article about the latest parade of homes. And, per usual, all the homes in the article seem to be massive, overdone Grandomania styles as Mr. Wright would say. We have walked through Lowes and Home Depot looking for very plain, yet nice kitchen cabinetry and it's just not there.-not in Alamance county anyway, so we have to go to Charlotte.

Also, with our concrete floor and radiant heat tubing, we're not keen on pounding nails into it to secure cabinets. Ikea's come with little feet. I like that. Also, they are good quality, easy to assemble and have nice features like drawers with an anti-slamming feature, which is quite nice.

I think that Mr. Wright would like IKEA. Although he was the quintessential AMERICAN architect, He believed in using new things and was influenced by other cultures such as Japan's.

In fact, when he was building his Usonians, plywood was the newest thing going and he made the cabinetry and furniture out of this new material. Now, of course, it's been around long enough, like dandelions, that we're not all that impressed with it.

And why now? Because IKEA is having a 10% off sale on kitchens right now. We could get more than that if we also bought the appliances from them, but I prefer Sears for that sort of thing.

I am NOT getting lunch there however, Tiddley made better Swedish meatballs.

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/

Today was much better. Instead of trying to get things online we actually went to local places of business and got alot of things straightened in our head.

The Hardward Store in Gibsonville, will provide our interior walls. We're forgoing sheet rock and using a pale birch plywood, prefinished. It will look very clean and bright. There will be some sort of sheet rock on the ceiling which will need to be painted.

We also stopped at Home Depot to discuss windows and doors. We will have shorter doors (pocket style to save room) and I thought, FINALLY, a savings because the doors are shorter, but alas, we have to pay 5 bucks a door extra because of the odd size.

Our contractor mentioned that since the walls of the inner "L" facing the inner courtyard will be mainly windows, in order to "stiffen" the house, he wants to use plywood on the outer walls under the Hardie board rather than that other exterior sheeting, you know that has "tyvek" or whatever plastered all over it. Thankfully, the cost is comparable. These sort of add ons can be very scary you know.

Our last stop was Sherwin Williams to take advantage of the paint sale, but a huge storm came through and knocked out all the computers so we will have to return to actually make the purchase and get the red paint, our eldest grandson thought would look good on our new house. We have already tried it on our "usonian" sauna and decided he was right!

Rembrandt Ruby Red