10th Year Anniversary Railing!

 

This was supposed to be a jubilant post, my first of the New Year, touting all the good things happening. Soon (not soon enough) a new president, vaccinations coming, celebrating 10 years of life at The Bauhaus Chicken Coop and most importantly- a new railing up our stairs to go with that amazing balustrade that Bob constructed... (what did we do before the railing?!?!?)

But instead, I find myself (and almost everyone else I know) reeling from the crazy-town, rethuglican, trump-inspired mayhem that happened on Wednesday. This is me RAILING against the mob. Has anyone out there ever seen anything like that storming of The Capitol? I mean, many of us are old enough to have witnessed the Viet Nam War on TV or Nixon resigning... but this truly was like a page out of the Shit Hole Country playbook. Scary, disheartening, appalling, disgusting; how many more words can we conjure to describe what we saw. Stupid, ravenous, ill-informed followers of The Orange Menace being egged on by the (non) president himself and many of his fist-pumping evil henchmen, seeking to overturn an election because they didn't like the results. 

But here's another shot of the railing, before I go off the rails:

Look at the way it seamlessly ties into the balustrade! Bob meticulously painted the uprights the same color as my closet shoji screens and the railing is the same ethereal pale blue of the balustrade. I am going out of my way to find reasons to go up and down the stairs, so that I can enjoy using the railing!

Thank goodness that I have a railing to hang onto as Wednesday and the insurrection at Capital made me weak in the knees and sick to my stomach. If I hear one more rethuglican try to imply that "antifa" was present, I'll puke. I needed that railing on Wednesday night after hours-straight watching this awful violent mob smash glass, smear feces, put feet up, stumble around- pointlessly!- like a bunch of drunk teenagers with nothing better to do... I'm sure we all saw some of the (low life) "highlights": no, I'm not even going to re-introduce them. May they all go to prison and rot. (*1)

(Looking back down). I'm exhausted and full of wine and cookies, antidotes to the toxicity and poison that we've all witnessed. But I really need to end on a good note so lets take a minute and toast Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff! Thank you Georgia for delivering the Senate! Thank you Stacey Abrams for tirelessly working to get the vote out! Democracy is alive and (somewhat) well.

(*1) At the very least, we can expect many of these epsilon sub-morons to get sick with COVID as this was a super-spreader event par-excellence! No masks, no social distancing and lots of open-mouthed, spittle-flinging screaming and chanting going on.

Would Ya Look At That!!

 

Wowee! It's like moving into a whole new hacienda! Bob's balustrade is all done; painted, installed, in place and ready for service. It's so beautiful and makes climbing the stairs an exciting adventure.

Bob worked so hard on this... masterpiece (there is no other word for it!) It changes the whole dynamic of the upstairs landing. Why I actually vacuumed this area this morning in tribute! Here's the balustrade on Bob's work table, prior to us carrying it up and erecting it:

This allows you to see the pattern straight on which is harder in real life as the hall is narrow and the angle gets distorted. (It looks like stained glass with the colors of Bob's studio in the background!)

Bob and I posted images of the balustrade on Facebook and it was greeted with raves. It's the only way anyone can enjoy it as the house is (obviously) off limits to visitors due to COVID. Just wait until next year. When vaccine is widespread, we'll have a Balustrade/Railing Festival and invite all of you to a champagne toast and stairway climb!

Now What's He Doing?

 

Good gravy! Bob's so full of projects that it'd make your (or my!) head spin! (*1) Now what's he doing?

Yes, it involves our stairway. We've lived here for just about ten years (a decade!on January 3rd...) and Bob has always said he'd make us a lovely railing in an effort to help us ascend to the dizzying heights of our second storey. 

And now he's sprung into action, making good on his word. 

See that lattice work at the top? That's all that's been between us and precipitously plunging to an untimely death for lo! these ten years. This lattice was erected in the midst of a snowstorm, shortly after we moved in here. There was nothing- NOTHING!- on the edge of the landing. It's bad enough that I suffer from extreme fear of heights but one day our then-dog Jules started backing out of the room at the end of the landing and all I could think was, "My god! Our beloved dog is going to die!" So we dug out these two pieces of lattice that were stuck in what was then the carport and hastily installed them. And there they stayed for ten years! At least it worked...

The first thing Bob had to do was level off all those white vertical slats that the house's previous owner had sawed off at oddly irregular heights. That accomplished, Bob then added a top member and wide upright boards to offer a place to screw the plates that will hold the railing into.

Looks better already! Bob has a really great idea for this whole project. The railing is going to be a simple metal bar but the screening at the top that will replace the lattice... Just you wait! I'm really excited!! It will be magic! (*2)

(*1) I mean, I can vacuum and clean up assorted animal poop with the best of them , but Bob DOES things like re-roof part of the barn and make driveway gates and chop up thirty cords of fire wood. Big stuff. Things I can't do! But I've been entrusted with spackling in nail and screw holes and probably painting. I can't hurt myself on those things...

(*2) Remember how wonderful the gate was that Bob made me for my birthday? Well this will be amazing in a whole different way. Stay tuned.