When Life Gives You Limes...Make Caipirinhas!

Okay, so in the "You are so obnoxious because you think you're cool just because you not only know how to pronounce (and spell) caipirinha, but you also know how to make (and drink) one" category...

We've had a lot of problems getting the floors in (they really know how to limbo up in the big HV), so I haven't been much for posting lately. That, combined with a wedding in North Dakota, a white-water rafting trip to Maine, etc., etc., and well, we've just been busy.

But now that the floors are in, John is doing the careful balancing act of keeping the renos on track while trying to manage my sanity as our first summer in the country quickly dwindles down to perhaps, a nice long Labor Day weekend (Pray for sunshine people!!).

In light of all this, quite frankly, we need a drink.

For instructions on how to make a caipirnha, click here. Below John shows his masterful expertise at muddling the sugar and lime...sans muddler.

As far as how to drink one...I might recommend "Very carefully." Saude!

Floorgasm!

So we've had major progress on the whole floor situation. Once climatized, our main man Mark (who wasn't sojourning in the South of France as I had suspected) got his crew of five guys together to put in the pine flooring in the house -- all to the uber-geeky tunes of The Monkees.

First bit of excitement was having a driveway full of cars and trucks (six in all!), it means that progress is afoot...as seen here:

The second bit of excitement (aside from "Last Train to Clarksville") was seeing all of these guys pull together to get the flooring in on one and half-floors of house (I guess about 1,200 sq. ft.) in 1.5 days, start to finish. Here they are sawing the pine that will be lifted up through the window.

And best of all, when they left us (work-site immaculate, BTW), we got to take in the near finished product...FLOORGASM!

View above: The living area looking towards the new French doors, to be stained.

Watch the above space for when the kitchen is installed.
And below will be the view that our cooking goddess Jean will have as she prepares a meal for her peeps, Julia Child-style.

All I can say is..."Yeah, I'm a Believer!" (Thanks Mark and crew!)

Housekeeping Notes: John has mentioned to me that in a prior posting I said that "pine was cheap." He begs to differ as the bills from Herrington's came to a bit over $3K (YIKES!). But that includes pine for the entire main floor, plus new bedroom downstairs, as well as materials for window trim, nails, adhesive, etc. That said, Mark mentioned to us about some past client who spent $20K on wood flooring material (mahogany?) and another $20K on installation. (Gulp.)

Flack Alert (Here's the PR chick in me coming out, god I hate myself in these moments, but still...): A shameless shout-out needs to go to Herrington's; the contractors love them, they apparently discount, deliver and John loves the back-office folks who are quick to respond to any questions concerning billing, etc. www.edherrington.com

Next up is the guy who will strip, sand and refinish the floors. He enters the scene next Monday. We're going to let him work in seclusion so that no kitten paws get stained and the new floors don't get my Saskwatch-like foot prints in the polyurethane.

Climatizing Wood...and Other Excuses for Taking a Summer Holiday

Somewhere between the philosophical riddle of "If a tree falls in the forest, and there's no one around to hear it," and the idiom that "A watched pot never boils," lies our latest home renovation dilemma, climatizing wood.

Yes, in our latest installment of how the home renovation turns, we recently had our timeline derailed not due to mice gnawing at the electrical wiring or dangerous combinations of hot wires embedded in plastic sheets charring the home insulation, but by the failure of "one of the cooks in the kitchen" to get the wood into the house to begin the "climatizing" process.

"Climatizing wood," you ask? "What's that?" Well, that was precisely my question, and being new to this whole home ownership/reno thing, as well as being a jaded if not cynical New Yorker, when I heard about the climatizing thing, I damn near fell off the chair...we'd be losing two weeks while our cheap planks of pine settled their little two by five and two by seven butts into our home -- and got used to its level of humidity. Surely there had to be something more devious at play here. A contractor's vacation perhaps. Or even worse, perhaps a hint of contractor ennui.

But armed with my Google tool bar, answers came quickly. Within minutes I learned that wood, indeed, needs to be climatized. And while I've never seen wood climatize in any of those home reno shows I've been watching for the past four years (Flip This House, Flip That House, Property Ladder and my favorite, the BBC's Location, Location, Location) according to woodworkingshows.com: "The relative humidity where the lumber is purchased may be different than the humidity in your workshop area. You should climatize the lumber in the environment in which it is being worked to obtain the equilibrium moisture content of the wood. While 72 hours of climatizing is generally recommended, two weeks or longer tends to achieve better results."

@*#$%!!!

And so, "the floor guy" is off galavanting about with other, less boring floor projects, or hanging with his kids at the Copake quarry, or perhaps even sipping wine in the South of France, all while we wait for the wood to work its magic.

In the meantime, our painter Bob and his crew who also did all the dry wall and sheetrocking is moving along with the painting at a furious pace. When we went up last Saturday, the first coat of paint had already been put on throughout the main floor along with the new bedrooms downstairs. Once its complete, I'll share the photos with the deets on the paint colors.

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Late-Breaking News: The wood, apparently, has climatized. Our floor guy will be working away on Thursday and Friday this week to "get 'er done."

Whew.

Photo captions above and right: Wood, climatizing.