Northwoods Woman

After 2 years of getting poured on with rain, dumped on with snow and sweltering in the heat of the amazonian summers of the Northwoods, it had started to grow moss and other… things on it’s surface.

But not wanting it to go to waist, we pulled a few pieces out and set them up on sawhorses to dry and then I sprayed the crap out of them with bleach.  Straight up, nothing added.  If that wasn’t going to kill whatever was growing on it, nothing would.

Worked like a charm!  Unfortunately, it also “bleached” it a little, but I didn’t care.  It was perfect for what I wanted it to do, and that was trim the windows and door in the studio.

Now here is why I love it so much.  See all those curves and gouges?  This is what Rick & I have dubbed “Wormwood.”  Little wormies and other creepy crawlies got under the bark of these trees and developed these little pathways to do… well, whatever it is that creepy crawlies do..

Here’s what we haven’t found out about it yet:  what kind of wood it is.  It has to be a type of hard wood because we went through 2 saw blades and countless times of blowing the fuse on the table saw cutting the stuff.

Now tell me that isn’t just downright sexy around those windows!

It adds a whole new layer of design to the building.  I like using lots of different types of wood… everyone gets to jump in the pool!

It also played a roll as trim on the outer walls as well as the ceiling under the loft (pictures of that in a future post).

In addition to the windows we also got the door decked out in this marvelous stuff, put in baseboards, installed the ceiling under the loft and put in the flooring.

Phew!

Now we are going to wait for the electrician to show up and finish the writing and get the lights hooked up, get our HVAC guy over to hook up the stove, and start tackling the outside.

So in the meantime, I’ve begun moving items in so I can use the space for what it was built for:  making my jewelry.

And that will happen as soon as I quit doing my happy dance.

Using materials that were just hanging around the garage doing nothing worth bragging about Rick quickly had the risers cut (I think that’s what they’re called) and started routering out the notches for the steps.

I had no idea of how this was going to come together and I didn’t for one minute doubt that the man knew what he was doing, so I left him alone to putz on other mindless weekend stuff so I wouldn’t interrupt him.

No thumbs were beaten with hammers during this process.

Many hours later we had… stairs!

I think people 6 miles away heard me scream with delight!

Are they fancy?  No.

Are they functional?  Yes.

Are they exactly what I wanted?  Hell yes!!

Thinking that since he’s spent most of the day on that one project, he’d put everything away and call it a day.

Ummm… notsomuch.

Apparently the man was on a mission, because before I knew it he had the railing all cut and put together for the loft.

We hauled that bad boy into the building, trudged up our respectable stairs/ladder and secured it in place.

Have I mentioned how much I love this man?