Blog de Puree

What a day! Lots of progress to report. The final steel/cement support lally columns have been strategically placed in the basement. The back porch is finished, and they closed up the old door and completely resided the eastern side of the house–you would never tell there was a door there. Wow! The opening from the [...]

I had a nasty blister on my right hand after yesterday’s row, so I took the easy way out and hit the ergometer in the gym at work again. Jokes about my manliness aside, I had to grasp the erg handle rather gingerly today, to avoid spraying myself with lymphatic fluid or whatever that clear [...]

Following the great news that we can make the switch of the location of the pantry and open up a wide entry into the kitchen and dining room, we thought we’d post a few pics of today’s progress. (In the two pics showing the opening to the kitchen are 2x4s–they’re temporary supports) The kitchen/dining room [...]

It turns out, my suspicions were right. Ergometer times and actual on the water times are vastly different. While rowing machines attempt to simulate actual water conditions, it’s not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. While rowing today, I was buoyed by yesterday’s erg score of 20:58.5 and was hoping to come close to [...]

The “brainstorm” from yesterday is a go! Since the work is essentially the same, they’re just going to go ahead make it happen — no upcharge required. Squeeeeee! I always swore I wouldn’t be one of those fickle clients who change constantly, and I certainly hope I’m not turning into one. But man, when I [...]

Not too much going on today. Only two guys showed up and there wasn’t much they could do. There was some more gutting of walls around the chimney and back hallway. However, while more opening up was being done around the chimney, Randye had a revelation. She was thinking it might be really cool to [...]

It rained this morning, so I decided to get in some indoor training for the rowing regattas I’ll be competing in this September and October. I went in to work early and made time to train on the rowing ergometer at work during lunch hour. There’s nothing like a 5,000 meter piece at full pressure, [...]

The lads were back yesterday and in full force. We have no photos today, as there wasn’t much visual progress to show. Some more gutting and building, but things were getting done. From what Randye and I could tell, the deck is almost finished and looks great. We’re just waiting for stairs on a cement [...]

Just wanted to pop in and say, “Yay! It’s Paul’s 35th birthday! I’m so happy, I could flip!” But instead, I’ll just meow: “Happy birthday to you, Happy birthday to you, Happy birthday, dear Paul, Happy birthday to yooouuuuuuu.” Last night, Randye and Paul celebrated the big 35 with some friends. They went to Kowloons [...]

What a week! We have dust everywhere, and the place has the old house debris smell, comingled with freshly sawed wood and construction smell. Thus far, we’ve uncovered some skeletons within this old house, including an old ice pick from the 20th century. It looks like we’re going to have to add another support column [...]