What NOT to do
Have you ever had one of those restoration weeks? The kind where nothing goes right?
Fixing the wood trim last week with a cycle of carving out, water-resistant Bondo, sanding and priming went pretty well. I was feeling good...we were cruising!
But this week? Not so much.
When I came out to sand down the Bondo-repaired wood, it was gooey...like Silly Putty. It couldn't be sanded.
Worse? It had rained over the last 48 hours and the Silly Putty/Bondo directed the water right where we didn't want it to go. Right into the space between the original sill and the extender.
Someone in the house's past had nailed a piece of wood to the original sill that made each sill project out further. This probably happened right after the most recent layer of stucco was applied (over the original stucco).
But that left a seam between two pieces of horizontal wood directly taking abuse from snow and rain. When I stripped the paint, I left the rotted wood exposed and covered with Bondo. Great. It was swollen with water.
Bad enough that I just had to take the extender off and trash it. Luckily the old sill was very hard wood...it would survive. The extender was a soft wood, which needed to be hardened and protected.
So, one of two things happened. I either grabbed the wrong kind of new Bondo container (the kind for cars, which has to be protected from water immediately with primer and paint). Or I didn't stir in the hardener in well enough. My guess is the mixing.
Either way, it was three days of work...gone. So I was back on the ladder again today.
And all the dog wants to do is play. I don't think she likes the ladder.
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Comments
JM,
Its a proven fact: dogs do like ladders. They have a little mineral element in the bridge of their noses, similar to the ones carrier pidgeons use to get home, that attracts them to ladders. When I spent about a month last summer up on the ladder, chipping paint, I would look down and see our lab at the base of my ladder with a look that said, "I could just tip this over for you. Then you'd be down on the ground and you could THROW THE BALL." At least thats what it looked like he was thinking...
Posted by: SD | October 12, 2004 11:21 PM
It's true, It's true! Last week, we had our ladder out to get into the attic - it has to sit in the very small "hallway" between our bedroom, bathroom and living room doorways (but doesn't allow the doors to close). I thought that the ladder would act as a blocking device for the bedroom I didn't want our dogs in ... lo and behold, as soon as we were in the attic, both dogs made a game of jumping back and forth through the ladder!
Posted by: Marie | October 16, 2004 8:45 PM
You know, I'm tempted to believe you. Although not a fan of being on ladders herself, Coco does tend to be a little, you know, nutty AROUND the ladder. With that same, "You tip it over and throw that thing in order to reach out your arms and catch yourself, and I'll FETCH it! OKay? Okay? Okay?"
She and Joe Pesci would have an interesting conversation.
Posted by: jm | October 17, 2004 11:51 AM
For some reason, our lab doesn't seem to enjoy ladders too much, but boy does he like our scaffolding!
When we had our upstairs gutted with all the crappy 1970's windows removed, he would step outside the window and hang out on the scaffolding with me while I did some trim work. Our neighbors were horrified, but the dog didn't mind. He would curl up and lay down on the extra wide planks that I made and watch the world go by...kind of like a cat on a tree limb. Sometimes we would just go out the window together in the morning, with coffee in hand. I would sit on the scaffolding plank, while my dog would curl up with his head in my lap hoping for an occasional ear scratch.
I'm sure people thought I was nuts...well I am, actually, but that's a whole 'nuther story :-).
I really enjoy your site. Fantastic!
Posted by: Patrick | October 19, 2004 5:33 PM