Up and at 'em

This morning, accomplished a few things, which is good because my afternoons are all Hamlet and my evenings are becoming time for other things. Plus no one likes hammering in their neighborhood at 7pm.

• More leveling and gravelling - almost done, maybe, I think, perhaps
• Nailed part of one wall of shingles, almost ready to paint.
• Transplanted another tree from the edge of the new parking spaces to replace the old dying walnut in the backyard. We'll see if I didn't kill this one like I did the last. Note: When digging up a seedling, always dig wider than you'd think, then deeper than you'd think, to avoid the taproot.

Today...

Did some scraping on the west side of house to prep for nailing and maybe painting tomorrow AM.

Gravelgravelgravelgravel

That is all.

More stuff

A gravel expansion of angled parking spaces next to my still technically gravel driveway continued apace today. Details and pictures soon, when it's complete. So maybe not so soon, really.

And also today, two revelations about mulberries:

1) They are delicious. I knew they were edible, and had even started looking up things one can make with them online, but hadn't actually tried real nice ripe ones until today whilst wandering around the yard talking on the phone with an old friend.

2) They stain things. I knew they stained my hands and the tarps on which they've fallen over the last few years, but I just realized that maybe they could also stain wood. This could add an interesting, very purple, twist on projects in the future.

Related - noticed that the black walnut by the driveway is bearing fruit this year, so homemade stain plans are definitely back on the agenda for fall.

Stuff happened...

But I was either in Hamlet rehearsals or sick over the weekend, and thus wasn't really a part of them.

Work resumes on the house later today. I think.

It continues to be the little things...

• Shopped for flanges for this really clever bookcase thing I'm building. No really, it's going to be awesome. Someday. Particularly if I can find the pipe fittings I want ideally a) with a patina and b) for not $10-20 apiece. Someone just suggested the local Habitat ReStore which I'll need to look at soon.
• Moved things about in the shed. Again. I really should have built a garage. Let this be a lesson to all new homeowners, especially those who like to build things like I do. You're going to need space for the tools and supplies. More space than you think.
• Measured the doors I rescued from a house that was slated for demolition to see if I can swap any in for my upstairs bedroom doors. The upstairs doors need restoration attention, which they probably won't get for a while, so meanwhile I think giving them temporary replacements (and similarly old replacements at that) is a good idea.

Back to the small stuff

In an effort to keep myself blogging, but also to demonstrate to anyone reading this (Bueller?) how it's a lot of little things that eventually get you a really nice looking old house, I'm going to try and post, often sans pictures, what I've done on the house each day, even if that's just prep or minor work.

Today -

• replaced several shingles (there's a post in itself...)
• prepped a bunch more for painting
• marked off the beams for an all-reclaimed-materials bookcase
• got the drill press running and did a test drilling for said bookcase
• trimmed off some old shingles so they can be reused

This was a day off from OSTF, though, so no promises anything this exciting will happen the rest of this week...