Barn, Day 3

Apples

I've got an order in for four apple trees and a peach from Five Star in Brooklin. The apple varieties are Duchess of Oldenburg, Liberty, Tompkins King and Golden Russet. The four varieties all have dessert and/or cider qualities. I'll round out the orchard with a few more apple trees and maybe a cherry tree next spring.

We're preparing for our departure from Block Island. Two weeks to go.

Sedgwick Bound

I could be going to Sedgwick as early as next week. There's a special meeting of the school board next Thursday, and the later, regularly scheduled meeting might not work because Michelle's brother's coming to visit around then. The compressor I ordered will just make it in time for the trip north. I would have a long list of things to accomplish in a few days. Get sworn in as a member of the school board. Go to special meeting. Meet with Jeff about preparing the ground for our barn/summer living quarters. Try to fix rototiller. Resurrect oysters. Build temorary stairs to the 2nd floor. Talk to Five Star about apple trees. Talk to plumbers about the next step.
The first three in the list are the reason for going; the following five would be nice but aren't necessary.

Conrete is Forever (Redesign Part ?)

I don't know why it occurred to me last night as I was trying to fall asleep. Perhaps it was a rare moment of clarity. I've been talking up the concrete wall for many months. On the plans the thermal mass wall was about 12' long and 4' high, terminating in an L at the wood stove. I bought the special form material and put most of it together not long before we left for Block Island. Pouring it was to be the first thing on the agenda upon our return. And then last night I decided to scrap it. It could have been fabulous. The finish and color might've be just right, the little built in shelves perfect. But it could also have been a disaster, and a disaster set in stone is the worst kind. So I thought: We'll have enough concrete with the floor, and getting the floor and the wall to agree in finish and color could be tricky. Though it would have worked well as a heat sink, perhaps a little less mass might work just as well. A doubling or tripling of sheet rock on the dividing wall would be more responsive to solar gain. There'll be a wall there, same length, coming to an L at woodstove, framed with studs and sheetrocked.

I've been looking at compressors for way too long, and I've finally settled on a DeWalt. And, again, Amazon has the best price. I may make a quick trip to Sedgwick near the end of April. I was elected to the Sedgwick school board (write-in candidate 10 votes) and there's a meeting I should attend. At the same time I could set up a meeting with Jeff Gray, my excavator-in-chief, to show him where I want to put the gravel pad for the barn before I show up in May. I could also ferry a load of stuff up there so we aren't so loaded down when we leave the island.

Birch Floor

Two weeks to install roughly two thousand square feet of birch flooring. That's a long time with four guys on the project, but this was no ordinary floor. The boards came in four widths: 4.25, 7.25, 9.25, and 11.25 inches. While leaving room for expansion at the walls, the floor needed to be fitted artfully where it met the fir posts. To have a finish fit on two ends of the same board is no easy task. I spent almost one hour fitting a board that notched around a post and had a hole for an electrical box. To have this board fit in three places took careful measuring, cautious cutting and lots of time. On the whole, though, it was an interesting, engaging process, and the floor is beautiful. It should be at more than $9 a square foot. With a tung oil finish it will be one the highlights of the house.
Two and a half months until we're back on our own project.

More Free Heat

A few days ago I shot an email to Marvin Windows asking a basic question about using drywall returns as opposed to trimming the interior of the windows with wood. In the same email I gave a short explanation of the project and why I had chosen Marvin. The response I got in return had a little bit of good news. I had chosen Marvin because I could get a special type of glazing called LowE 178 that allows a significant amount of solar gain compared to typical LowE windows. LowE178 has been replaced with LowE 179 whose performance is a little better, and that means more free heat for us!

Ready, Aim, Fire

I just bought my first nail gun, a Senco FramePro 502 Full Round Head Nailer. I'll be able to use it for just about everything except finish work. And, even better, it cost $129 through some freak of internet commerce on Amazon. I checked three other tool sites, and the same gun was selling for about $260. I'll do a little more research before I buy an all around finish gun. Different guns shoot different guage finish nails, and I'm not sure which guage is the most versitile. My co-workers should be able to answer that question. The day we got back to the island I bumped into Bob (the boss) at the post office as he was picking up a largish size box from Amazon. It contained a new Bostitch pneumatic flooring nailer to be used on the couple thousand square feet of high-end birch flooring we're installing in the new place. He has two manual nailers he's used for many years, and he finally sprung for a powered one. We'll be fighting over the new one; but, given my place in the pecking order, I doubt I'll use it much.