Chipping Away!

This window needed to go in. The Church needs its eyes open!

Lemme get the wonder bar…

 Couldn't find any of the three wonder bars we own, so pry bar it is! (This might be an old joke, but it occurs to me that that wonder bar is aptly named- we are always wondering where the HECK it is!)

First let's get the plywood out!

C'mon now…

After some ughs and grunts, it came out!

I've got a "gut feeling"…

…that the window is going to be awesome!

Engineer Mike made a temporary handle, of course. 

Once we remove the handle, the window, recently glazed and so as of yet unpainted, is ready for full sunlight transmission! It's facing west, so by afternoon the sun streams in like crazy. So we had it tinted.

So did the tinting help?

Well, let's see…

Um…can't tell!

 With my little point and shoot camera, I wasn't able to get a good contrasty picture in the sunlight. But we could tell a difference in person. It's just nice to have a window back in! It's been such a lovely summer that the light and heat feel good.

The phrase "chipping away at it" feels very appropriate to sum up this summer's work. Window by window. And meanwhile…

We've both been putting in a lot of time beating back the chaos at our other properties. One such project was putting up a retaining "wall" between our new cement and the neighbor's yard, which somehow managed to be many inches higher than ours!

How did their lawn get so high??

So we dug and measured, ram a plumb line because the cement sloped, and laid the giant beams in.

That's a good 6 inch difference in height! 

So in went the wall.

"Cutened" up. 

Cuter, plus no landslides onto the new cement, hopefully.

Well we didn't have long to wait to test it. The Great Flood of Royal Oak put it to the test, and I must say, it worked beautifully. The rest of the yard was under water, but no mudslides!

Follow the Lights!

Every May, my birthday rolls around. And every May, my beloved husband finds something sweet and amazing to surprise me with.

It wasn't these...

These beauties were the by-product of his search for the perfect gift from Craigslist! He did find an amazing little piece of furniture for me but it's for home, not the church, though it does have quatrefoils on it. 

We had been looking for light sconces for some time, and our search had schooled us in the prices and quality we were likely to find. 

These had been polished.

We knew they were neither cheap, nor easy to find in quantity. So it was with utter amazement that he found this set of five doubles and two singles. All for one low price. 

Score!

Yes, they will need some love, both aesthetically and electrically. Someone had wire-wheeled some of the metal. I used Brasso and elbow grease on the one on the left, and it has a very different tone than the polished one on the right. But I will figure out how to make them match, never fear! They will be a beautiful addition of light to the Church!

Meanwhile, the protective plywood came off the front windows, and the front of the Church saw first light, again.

All closed up.

One eye open...

And the other...

Who's that in the window?

Why, it's Grindstone Mike, putting the final touches on the paint. 

Soon it will be time for dinner. How's it going, Dr. Fisher, of the Institute of Barbeque Grills?

Oh it'll just take 15 more minutes...

Right! Well, we'll check back in 20... 

Painting.

The windows look just great!

Just a few more to go...;)

They sure do let the light in!

Meanwhile...

Assistance from a guest!

And so it took a few hours, but the lads were able to find all the right places for all the right parts, and we did dine on burgers and dogs. Our first grilling in Grindstone Corners!

Yay-Be-Que!

Let's light it!

Glazing Over

The Church has had its eyes shut for a few months. We took in the windows for repair and reglazing. We started by sanding down the old wood and giving them a few new coats of paint.

Red on the Outside,

Brown on the Inside.

To keep the inside weather separate from the outside weather, we needed to glaze the windows. Glazing is when you put a special glazing putty on the inside edges and smooth it down.

I got the job!

I've got the gloves for it!

But I had to be schooled first. Dr. Paul Fisher of the Institute for Glazing Old Windows gave me a tutorial. First take a glob of glaze. Then roll it out like a long snake. Then stuff it in the corners with your big Polish fingers.

Well I don't have big Polish fingers, so I had to use several smaller fingers.

Roll and Stuff.

It looks a bit like someone stuffed their old gum into the windows. But there is a tool that takes the lumps and bumps out and gives it an edge.

De-lumped

I used it. 

Of course, if the edges of the window aren't smooth and sharp,  the tool that uses the edge as a guide isn't able to make a nice straight line. 

Uhh...maybe some paint will help!

Yes, the paint did help. After I painted, I had to scrape the excess paint off the glass and clean the glass. 

At last, we were finally able to install a window! 

New wood inserts to keep it all snug.

Of course there were some adventures along the way.

Whups.

Pilot holes had been drilled, but the wood was pretty dry, so it cracked. But practice makes perfect, and we did practice! 

Perfect!

And the Mastermind behind it all...

Pilot holes, baby.

...had a very special event to go to, so time to get cleaned up!

Cleaned up!

Patent #4, and counting. Fancy-schmancy dinner in Rochester, MI. Mr. Zaitz receives his patent plaque and some very nice words. Mrs. Zaitz receives a delicious dinner and a big helping of gratefulness that she hitched her horse to this guy's post. 

Hiatus

It had been over three weeks since we had last said goodbye to the Church, unplugged the wax melter and shut off the lights. Three weeks of December bustle, of Christmas parties, Church events, and seeing family and friends. Three weeks of shopping and eating and making merry. It seemed like a long time, and we worried about the Church. But the Church is so snug now with its new insulation, drywall and excellent Geothermal furnace that everything looked exactly as we had left it. Well, almost everything...

OOPS!

We were babysitting two plants from Rybak's Ice Cream store for the winter, but they cannot live on sunlight alone. They do need water...

The Blue Hydrangeas made it - but they are fake...

I even left them on the Robo-Saw with its awesome swinging arm and a few bottles of water, but apparently the saw drank the water and left the plants to fend for themselves. 

Now that the church is comfy-cozy with its spray foamed long underwear on, the windows are the only weak link. So it was the windows that we worked on. I didn't snap any pix of the work because (as if it wasn't evident) sanding and caulking windows isn't very glamorous, nor is it adrenalin-producing. (Really I just forgot...)
I did manage to sneak a picture of Mike working on the trim between the ceiling and the drywall. There is a bit of a gap there and the trim will fill that nicely. But again, it's not super sexy work, though he did his best to make a nice pose...

Nice form, Grindstone Mike! 

We did have a leisurely week off in the Thumb, and some of the time was spent just nesting with the critters.

"Could you bring me my fez and slippers, please? Yes, all four slippers!"

I don't know if it was all the extra sleep I got, but I started daydreaming about the bathroom ceiling. 

An Empty Canvas

So I searched for ideas...

Hmm... classic but a little pretentious?

Uh, no.

This should have been at Graceland! 

Well, perhaps we'll just stick with something more tasteful, like this for example:

Is that a cumuloNIMBUS cloud?

Or maybe something artsy:

We call it "Pearls and Paint Chips"

I call it ugly. What do you say, Iggy? Pass or Fail?

ZzzzzFailzzzzzzz!

Maybe we could get a giant print of this picture for the ceiling: 

"Ah what's that lovely aroma?"

OK, maybe not. But something must go on the ceiling. Can't wait to see what we come up with!

Uncovering the Window

For as many years as can be remembered by the living, there has been a red circle with a white cross in the front of the Church.

Here's the story of the uncovering of the Quatrefoil window.

First light was quite exciting!

Now you see it,

Now you don't!

 I couldn't take pictures of bringing the window down since I was holding the lowering rope! But she is down, and ready to be loved. It's not clear yet whether she will be restored or will become a museum piece. She's in rough shape.

Most of the glass was intact, but in order to repair the window, all the glass had to come out. That meant all the brittle glazing had to be picked out. I did the best I could, but it became apparent that the glass was really not worth saving in this case. Yes, it was old and original, but we think the reason it was covered it because it's too fragile for the westerly weather it had to take. So new glass will have to be made for it.

Antique brittle glazing + dry rotted wood = bye bye glass.

I did manage to remove the center glass without mishap. And never fear, I saved most of the pieces for the future. I'm sure a project will arise that will call for antique warbly glass.

The bones.

Exciting!

Meanwhile, the other window is coming along...

Primer

Nice sanding job!

We're still debating colors, so stay tuned...