Off to frozen northland

We can only keep our work crews around for a short time. Before we sent Chrissy and Randy and kids off to the frozen northland in Minnesota, grandma gave them new hats that she had knitted herself. Don't they look great? James is upset that he is leaving his cousins and Florida fun.

We'll have to finish the painting ourselves.

Early Thanksgiving

On Sunday we had an early Thanksgiving with the Wilcoxes, Kannases, and the Thompsons. We even had a flock of wild turkeys greet us at the farm.

Painting crew

Hello, master painter! How is the painting going? Let's go in and see for ourselves!

Did you recognize the rooms from earlier posts? Next Monday they tile the bathrooms so we should be in the house soon!!

Worker Bees

When people come to visit, they are given chores to develop their worker bee traits. Here are some examples.

After the chores, there is time to relax and play games. We're in the tent until the inside of the cabin has been painted. Sixty degrees is a bit nippy for Floridians to go swimming, but not for visiting Minnesotans escaping the snow and ice.

Knock down and gutters too!

Today they applied the "knock down" coat to the drywall. We had the choice of "orange peel" (which I suppose would be a good Florida choice) and "knock down", which has a more rustic look. We thought the latter would look best with a log home. Here you can see the coat being sprayed on and then knocked down with a big nylon icing spreader--at least that's what is looks like. It will be dry tomorrow and ready to be painted.

The gutters went up too. They pulled them out of the fabricator in the truck (one 52 feet long) like Mary Poppins pulling furniture and things out of her bag. The gutters are white and the drain spouts copper colored so they disappear when they are on the house, as you can see in the last photo.

Mudding and Chinking

The mudding is done. Here's proof to Wendy that someone else did the 20 foot ceiling. That is not me up there.

Next another crew comes in to do the texture.

We also worked on finishing the outside with chinking to give everything the official log cabin lock and make sure all the joints are leak proof when hurricanes come by and the rains are horizontal rather than vertical. (Remember that hurricanes are like warm blizzards--except with blowing rain rather than snow.)

The "Finicheros"

You've seen the drywallers at work. The next crew was the "finicheros." (Spanish for "finishers" or mudders, my new Spanish word for the day). Our "Mexicans" turned out to be from Salvador. I guess in the eyes of Floridian construction people, anyone from south of the border is a Mexican. In three hours they had the entire house taped. Here you can see them with their taping machine that applies the mud and the tape at the same time. This is followed by the mudder on stilts who puts on the top layer of mud.

Here's how they do the edge of the ceiling and the wall.

Next they will skim everything to make it nice and smooth. Then the next team comes in to do the texture. We should be able to paint by next week.

When Randy and Chrissy come next week, they'll help us design the stairs.