We left Maryland late Thursday and arrived at Zelda early Friday morning. This will be Jennifer and Jessica's last trip before heading back to The University of Tennessee for the fall semester. Both of them have been a huge help over the summer.
On Friday, the morning was spent at Lowes, Home Depot, Wal-Mart and TJ Maxx. We picked up a couple of mirrors at TJ Maxx for the master bathroom. Building supplies were obtained from Lowes and Home Depot and food supplies from Wal-Mart. In the afternoon Brent removed some tree limbs that were in the way of the location of the new carport. Unfortunately, the installers never showed up on any of three (3) days they were scheduled. He also spent some time repairing the pressure washer and had it running great at the end of the day and was able to pressure wash the front steps. Jessica, Jennifer and Lynn spent the bulk of the afternoon cleaning all the windows, painting more shoe molding and touch-up painting.
Saturday morning, amidst the chance of rain, we built the forms for the top step and poured the resurfacing cement. We were a little surprised that the step took the entire 40lb bag of Quikrete Concrete Resurface
http://quikrete.com/ProductLines/ConcreteResurfacer.asp, so a trip back to Lowes for another bag was required. Dodging the rain drops, the second step was formed and poured in the early afternoon. While the steps were curing, the entire crew cleaned out the storage barn. We did not find any snakes but did come across a couple hundred spiders and our new cat, Chip. Chip has been and still is living in our shed and is very friendly. Of course we have been feeding him and he has adopted us. Who ever buys the house will have a cat, unless Sarah decides to take him. We removed the forms on the steps and they turned out great. The newly surfaced steps received a heavy down pour of rain in the evening with no problems.
We then cleaned out the entire upstairs and removed all tools and any building materials. This clean-up also occurred down stairs such that we are now down to one (1) room with all the tools. Next weekend the majority of all the remaining tools will be brought back to Maryland with a few locked in the storage building (Chip's house).
After cleaning inside, we tackled the brick structure on the side of Zelda. Not sure of it's original intention, but we are going to make it a pagoda. After removing a lot of trash and soil, the concrete pad was pressure washed. Then all the bricks and overhead structure was pressure washed as we plan to paint everything white.
On Sunday, Brent started work on the upstairs fireplace. The first step was to put concrete under the firebox to strengthen the structure. Next weekend he will tile the hearth and surround. Lynn worked on the fireplace in the living room/library by spraying painting the beige colored bricks black. This really makes the tile work stand out. Brent also installed all the remaining shoe molding upstairs, which included the master bedroom closet and the other three (3) upstairs bed room closets. He also installed the shoe molding in the master bathroom shower where the tile meets the ceiling. This really made a finished look. The girls started painting the pagoda, but it was too windy to use the sprayer. After painting for an hour, it started to rain so work moved inside.
We accomplished a lot this weekend and will miss the help of the girls next weekend. We did not meet with the real estate agent as planned, due to a short schedule and along list of activities. Pictures of the progress will follow shortly.
