Cousins' Week 2015
Attendees (in order of arrival) - Dave and Linda, Jay, Wayne, Suzy and Barbara, Wendy, Jen, Chris and Gregg. Linda had just planned to stay for dinner on our arrival Sunday night, but saw how much we needed to do and took the entire week off from work to pitch in. Thanks to everyone who helped make this one of the most productive weeks EVER!!!
Projects
(All images are thumbnails.)
New Flooring: We arrived to view the new maple flooring installed by Tom Sederman in the weeks before cousins' week. It gives the whole downstairs a new fresh look and solid feel - no more bouncing of the floor when walking.
Suki's Room: Monday, Linda and I scraped and prepped the entire ceiling and walls, caulking the eaves to reduce airflow, and then painted the ceiling with 2 to 3 coats of Benjamin Moor ceiling white paint. On Tuesday, Jay joined in and he and Linda completed painting of the walls and the floor. "Country Redwood" was the only color of flooring available and unfortunately is apparently the last of the oil based flooring paint that will ever be sold. After the paint dried, Suzy and Barbara replaced all of the mattress pads, pillows, shams and blankets with NEW and donated materials. On Friday, Kostas from Budget Blinds installed the new blackout pull down shades, DONATED BY SUZY. The room looks gorgeous, clean and inviting.
Massive De-Clutter of Attic and Garage: In the middle of all of this work, we had a lengthy and very productive Board meeting, which included a short walk-around where we decided what items we needed to discard. On Wednesday, we completely FILLED a huge dumpster with discarded materials (filled to the point that Linda and I had to get in it and re-pack things to avoid an overfill charge). We emptied the garage and then replaced only needed items, discarding old paint, broken items, mildewed life vests, and miscellaneous accumulated junk. The attic (see "before" pictures) is now "highly inhabitable" and the garage is a "useful workplace". Three more trips in the truck were made to dispose of mattresses, TV, and moldy carpets, as well as brush trimmings and other waste.
Exterior Painting: On Thursday, Friday and Saturday the remaining crew scraped and primed the first and second floor window trim, re-glazed the front door and painted the entire downstairs windows, except for the east facing ones, which are going to be replaced with new windows next week.
That's not all! Suzy and Barbara DONATED new bedspreads, pillows, etc. for the all of the other rooms on the second floor. A new living room carpet was added, along with a hearth rug and a new hall entry rug. Repairs were made to the fence along the deck, the screen and hardware on the kitchen screen was replaced, the foot rinse valve was replaced, the base boards in the living room were caulked and painted, the barberry bush was removed from the kitchen window area, new wine glasses were donated, Jen made new curtains for the upstairs hall and new colorful cushion covers for the living room, and the front door was re-caulked and painted. A few other miscellaneous repairs, etc. were completed before cleaning up and departing. We discarded the old Sunfish hull (the autopsy revealed waterlogged urethane) and are awaiting the arrival of a replacement Sunfish when Barb B. arrives in early June.
While there is plenty more to do to continue the improvements, it has been an absolutely AMAZING week for the Porter Family Partnership. Thanks for EVERYONE's support!
5/25/15
6/15/15
7/17/15
Post has been reinforced and expandable gate added. A compression type gate (kept in the attic) can be installed here if desired.
The Porter Family Trust