Tuesday, October 26, 2010

What I've Been Up To

A pictorial tour of the last couple-three weeks at the Sow's Ear:

Late on Tuesday, October 5th:  Flaws, holes, dings, and dents filled with Zar filler tinted with mahogany aniline dye dissolved in denatured alcohol.

Wednesday the 6th:  Nothing accomplished on the stairs.  Made quince jelly instead.


Saturday the 9th:  The five top stairs sanded down with 80-grit sandpaper.


Baby gate put at bottom of the stairs to keep the dog and his claw marks off the bare wood.


Sunday the 10th, approximately 7:00 AM:  The boy cat knocks the metal gate on the floor.  Replaced it with a wooden one.


Monday, 11 October:  One more tread and part of another medium-sanded.


Meant to do more that day, but I was watching my friend Hannah's* daughter Letty*, who was off school for Columbus Day.  We went to the riverside park and picked up windfall crabapples.  Twice.


Tuesday the 12th:  No stair work: made quince cheese.


Wednesday the 13th:  Medium-sanded the rest of the treads. 


Used the travel iron and a wet washcloth to raise the dents where I knocked the mouse sander and the canister vac down the stairs.


Dotted in some more tinted wood filler where I'd missed some spots.  Went a little nutty and used the rest of it on the hallway floor.


Raked and bagged leaves in the back yard while the filler was drying.



Thursday the 14th:  Fine sanded the stairs. 


Steamed the bottom tread again where I lost control of the mouse sander and let it plow into the wood. 


Decided I couldn't stand the stray nail tip some previous owner rammed through a riser from the closet below, and figured out a way to cut it off and countersink it.


Discovered I'd missed some holes and dings I should have refilled and sanded.  Too bad.  Any more material comes off these stairs, they'll have no intregity left whatsoever.

Since then, I've raked more leaves, gone to my second wedding of the month, gathered up the drop cloths and cleaned up a prodigious amount of sanding dust, substitute-taught a few times, gotten a sore throat, spent this past Sunday in bed, and, yesterday, had my final chemo session.  What I've been up to today, Tuesday the 26th, can wait for a separate post.


2 comments:

Larry said...

The stairs are looking AWESOME!!! The jam looks good too BTW....

Kristen said...

Wow, that is an INTENSE project. It's looking really great, though, and they're sure to turn out absolutely gorgeous!