Sunday, August 03, 2008

Mr. Mom does house-work

So, those of you who know me you know that, as a teacher, during the summer months I "don't work". Those of you who REALLY know me and have a handful of your own kids know how silly this idea of "not working" is. (Try telling my wife that she "doesn't work" during the school year. Stand back a bit before you do...) Anyway, since my wife is working pretty much full time during this summer in an on going effort to release ourselves from debt I have been working pretty much full time as Mr. Mom.



Anyway, suffice it to say that I have not had a lot of time to work on the house these past months. Back in June, when I was trying to make the transition from the school year routine to the summer one, this realization hit me hard. Let's just say every summer I gain a new appreciation for the work my wife - and all stay at home moms (God bless ya!) - do all year long. Transition usually takes a couple of weeks and then I'm fine (mostly). Despite the more full time nature of our jobs this summer, I did manage to get some work done on the house last week. My newly-revised goal for "finishing" BHB included really finishing the upstairs by the end of the summer...or, failing in that, by the end of the year ;-)



This is a little hard to photograph, apologies. If you have been reading this blog for a while you know that I have been working hard at cutting the old barn board and fitting it in over the exposed SIPs panels (see previous posts). I recently finished (mostly) with the upstairs except for around the long windows on the south side.

The job I finished this past week was putting barn board trim around these windows and then building a long sill along the bottom. I built the sill out of left over 1 x 4 mahogany decking.

After building the sills and finishing the trim, I put the first couple of coats of sealer on them. Looks great.

It's funny how relatively small jobs, upon completion, produce a disproportionately great sense of gratification. I guess the exposed OSB, un-trimmed windows, and protruding tufts of insulation were really bugging me...Anyway, I am happy with how this has turned out and it definitely adds to the feel of completion upstairs.