Andrea in Blue

I was a guest blogger at Andrea in Blue today. I made a rambling, stream of consciousness comparison of painting and freeform fiber art. Check it out!

BTW, I am teaching a freeform knitting and crochet workshop July 10 at the SLV Folk Art and Fiber Festival.

Almost a year

And not so much done to the place. Sometimes I get hurt, or sick, or tired, or too much of the day job.

Since last November?

Hmmmmmmmm..........

The Holiday Fest wasn't so well attended. I blame it on the freezing rain that turned into an unnavigable sheet of ice covering the whole valley. We'll try that again this year, but slightly differently.

I've gotten most of the outside stuff hauled off as well including the badly poured pad behind the garage.

Right now I'm working on re-doing the water pipes entering the place. They were leaking and that just isn't good. Hopefully I'll finish that this or next week.

Next weekend, the 27th, is a yard sale there again. We'll use this money to re-do the sidewalk out front so I don't keep killing myself trying to shovel the damned thing through the winter.

When the water pipes are done I'll get to the boiler install. I'm a bit weary of the three trips over during the night to keep the place from freezing by stocking the wood stove. :) More expensive to use natural gas, but lots more convenient and once I free up some time it just becomes cumulative.

I've been working too much at the day job, and selling off old stuff to build up a pile of cash to really get to working on the place this winter. Perhaps we'll get ready to open up in the spring.

OK, I'll try to get back to update a bit more often.

Untrashed

Well.... I got the trash out. Not a whole lot else but then that was a really huge chore. It took 5 trips with my trailer to the dump to get all that crap gone. Feels good to be able to have room in the yard to move around, and to be able to get a vehicle to the garage door for unloading and such. We also got about 3 cords of wood laid in for the winter and over the Thanksgiving weekend I started fires. That's later than usual, but then the cold got here with snow and a vengeance.

Laura is gone to Denver for a grant writing workshop so I'm tasked with getting the building ready to hold art for Christmas. The Monte Vista Holiday Fest is this Saturday. Our art group took the money from our yard sales and invested it in a holiday art tour complete with buses and a Christmas train along with 35 artists showing in 8 locations that have snacks and some with wine. Having decided to help make this town value it's artists and their revenue generating potential it was time to put our money where our mouth is. Laura is the force behind these things. I just do what is asked of me. :)

So I'm getting all the nails pulled and stuff rearranged in the building. Most of that got done yesterday. Today I'll get it cleaned up and hopefully lit up. Nothing too fancy since it's temporary. Flood lighting for the gallery portion along with sweeping the floors but it sure is nice to have all the little bits of leftover destruction gone. I'm a little sore from all the nail pulling and such but hey (!) it keeps me off the streets.

Oh .... and there are a bunch of pots to get glazed as well. :) There has to be some just plain old good fun in the mix you know.

Time sure flies

When you're having fun. OK, I got a cold and now I'm sitting and it's a good time to catch up and post stuff and update things.

Hmmm....... since July.........

The walls around the staircase on the second floor and the entire staircase to the loft are gone. Eliminated, completely gone. Even the debris is all cleared out. The Art Thing had a yard sale there for two separate weekends and even that pile of crap is all gone. We've fired the kiln a few times and gotten a bit of pottery out of it, even some that we like.

Right now I'm tightening the place up for winter. It comes early and cold here so keeping the heat IN is a really good idea. I replaced 5 panes of glass, foamed and caulked every window in the place and started laying in some firewood for the chore of keeping the place above freezing. Really soon I'll get measurements on the 4 exterior doors and put storm doors on all of 'em to keep out just that much more of the hawk. My outside shed is mostly cleaned out thanks to some wonderful folks who wanted the junk wood for a chicken coop they're working on. I even got a better weather shield/strip for the garage door so we'll lose a little less cold through there.

The last bits to do are some tearout where the new bathroom will go, a couple trim boards around the roof to seal it up better and a rain gutter over the studio entry door. It would help if I got some water run to the sink in the studio but I think we can struggle with what we have for a bit longer while I get the really big stuff done.

I'm hoping to have the main area open for business next summer. We've recently decided to have the upstairs as exibit area as well since it looks so nice an big and open with all the walls outta there. I think it'll work out well.

Sometime before the snow flies I'll be making a whole bunch of trash go away. The backyard has turned into the pit where I throw all the shit I've torn out. It's gotten a bit too big to manage and needs to go away post haste. I have maybe a month or a month and a half before it'll be buried until spring. Reckon I best just get to it.

Bigger rooms

Well, in the last month a bit has happened but not too much. I tore off some more plaster so the middle of the place looks right rather than all pieced together. Tore out some walls upstairs and am working on the ceiling boards so that the light can filter down. We're throwing clay in the studio and did our first cone 6 fire in the electric kiln last night.

This weekend is all about the Fiber Fest that Laura and Crys are throwing in a park down the street. Hope it all goes well for them.

Bricked up

OK, been a while since I posted to this story of repair. :) At this point it's all good news. The mason, Chuck, from Cornerstone Masonry in Center, Colorado is all done. We kept finding more stuff that needed fixing as we went along but the house, which was a bit unstable when he started, is now structurally sound and beautiful to boot. I ended up losing my chimney in the back because one of the past owners had their head up their butt and took the support out from under the chimney and then cut a door in under it. Sometimes what folks do just boggles my mind. We also found a whole lot of loose brick at the bottom of the wall all around the house that had to be reset. Not repointed mind you but taken out and reset. Chuck and his co-worker Jeff were there for over a week, nearly two with a short break here and there for other small jobs. My original estimate of $1500 ended up at just under $2300 and I think I ended up getting in incredible bargain for that. Makes me really glad I saved that tax return for the problem I knew I'd encounter. It paid for almost all of it.

So now it's all ready for the next 100 things. Another part of the good news is that I can now see the end of the dust. It's a pretty far ways off but I CAN see it. Part of my plan will include getting all that old plaster stripped off the walls before I put in the baseboard heaters, since dust isn't so good for the fins on those. Gotta get that bathroom moved and get that dust outta the way as well. Oh and redo the water and get that pesky boiler set too. That should do it for the rest of the year. :) Of course there are windows to fix and ceilings to redo and insulate. All dusty things. I'm hoping to get the place ready for freezing by late November, but we'll see.

Wrinkles

In the big tearout weekend we found a wrinkle or two in the old joint. :) I knew I'd find something eventually I just didn't know what. There's just no way to avoid it when fixing up a 100+ year old brick house. The stuff is the brick around the front entry door. It's sagging because someone loosened it up quite a few years ago, and a door that they just hacked into a wall. The odd thing is that they hacked it in just a few feet over from a perfectly good door. Weird.

So I called a local mason that LOVES working on old houses. He came out and I got an estimate for around $1500 to fix the problems the place has. I think that's pretty cheap to fix the front door, brick up the one that they hacked in, and fix a spot or two around the floor where the old soft brick has just disintegrated. He can't work me in until around July 1st, so I have plenty of time to finish tearing out the old plaster cover on the brick. That promises to be messy fun. UG. I've had about enough of the dust, but the good news is that the dusty bits are just about over. Soon it'll all just be building, I'll like the change.

Today I'll clean up the yard a bit more. It's an ongoing process and I hope to have it all shined up by June outside.

To help with that? I bought 1/2 a dumptruck. It's old and clanky but works. Wish me luck.