Day 378

A lot is going on around here right now...

Last week the concrete truck came for another visit. When we first built our workshop, we didn't pour a concrete slab in the back half of it. It was left as dirt and gravel with the intention of someday turning the whole area into two stalls for horses.



But then I bought a 1,650 pound letterpress that needs a new home. So I sucked it up and divided that space in half and poured a new concrete slab. We'll soon be adding some walls, insulation, and nice details and then that space will become my official letterpress "studio." YAHOO! It will be so nice to have all my things housed in that space instead of in the two guest rooms in the house, the workshop, and the garden shed... The future horses will just have to share the smaller space.



Next up was the delivery of our new roof! It may not look like much, but the three layers of metal on the truck weigh more than 1,000 pounds each. I really cracked up over the red "DANGER" tape that they strung around our yard before they unloaded the metal.



Like any good kid, Sadie was quick to offer to pose with them. The roof is bare metal, and over time it will rust and develop a nice patina.



It wasn't what I originally had in mind to do for the roof, but then the stucco came in the wrong color (it was supposed to be closer to the brown of the workshop), and we're working on putting up a rusted metal pipe fence that I really don't ever want to have to paint. So I've headed in a more "rustic" direction with the exterior of the house, and a rusty metal roof just fits that better and helps tie everything together. Now, it may seem odd to put on a roof that will just rust away, but we chose the type that has a copper substrate. It was more expensive, but it won't ever rust all the way through. And we live in a really dry climate, so the roof will probably last 50 or 60 years. 

They started putting the metal up late last week and they hope to be through with it around Wednesday this week. In the meantime, I'm rushing to paint that gosh darn awful original red trim around the house. Most of it will be covered by the edge piece for the roof, but the bottom part will still show. I took a sample of our stucco to Kwal paint and they did a bang up job matching the color exactly.

I don't know if you've ever tried painting roof trim before, but it is so much easier to do while in the bucket of a Waldon than on a ladder. Don't have a Waldon parked at your house? You really should get one. They're beyond handy.



The only problem is that the husband would raise me up in the bucket, park it in place, and leave! More than once I was sitting up there, whistling or yelling for him to come move me over to the next section. And there he'd be, at the edge of our property, spraying weeds and flapping his gums on the phone... So to get even, I made him paint the top part of the back section of the house. It is much higher than the front of the house, and even with the bucket raised all the way up, I couldn't reach it. So the husband had to climb up to the bucket with me and then stand on top of it to be able to reach. I don't know about him, but his life flashed before my eyes the entire time!