the voice of god

So I made a promise in the last post, and I've now seen the error of my ways, and PROMISE never to do it again. Truthfully, I'm entirely too scatterbrained to commit to finishing and posting things in any sort of orderly fashion. Oh well, at least I've been trying to use a real camera for my photos, baby steps. So, despite being behind on things I would otherwise have posted about, I did finish staining the shingles (for those not familiar with the project, the center is entirely new restoration work, replacing a bumped out addition).

It's amazing how once you get used to being up on the scaffolding you feel like you're now qualified to run away and join the circus. Also amazing is how my being up there led to my chatting with about 50% of the people that walked or drove by, while the other 50% had no idea I was there and proceeded to be idiots, and do things like pick my flowers (or park on top of them). Luckily, yelling from on high is ridiculously effective.

mostly unmolested . . .

My favorite chat was with a couple of contractors in a big truck that drove past, backed up the street, gawked for 5 minutes, noticed me, said they have never noticed the house till now (a huge compliment), asked me about my hoarding of cobblestones, and said next time they found some they'd drop them off along with a case of Red Bull.

Although I still need to finish painting the corbels and sanding the beadboard (the beadboard is from about 4 different houses, and you can trace the decades through the shades of pink), staining the new shingles and painting the new trim is done.

I'm beyond thrilled with the shingle stain, as it ended up being a near perfect match (Behr's Russet solid stain). The colors for anyone who's interested are Roycroft bronze green, Rookwood dark red, and Raisin (sashes and accent). We had hoped to use a terracotta/pumpkin color instead of the red, but the lovely Victorian two houses up (also a shingled house) beat us to the punch (red shingles, green trim and cream and pumpkin accents). We also have to clean this section of new masonry, does anyone know if the muriatic acid would mess with the paint? If so, I supposed I should do that before I paint the corbels. I desperately want to paint at least the front of the house now, but so much of the trim has completely rotted away and replicating it is way in the the future . . . In the meantime though, be jealous of my dogwood . . .

there's a few new shingles back here too . . .