Opening Up

Door Progress! Bob and Joe are hard at work cutting out a section of the wall so I don't have to climb through a window to get into my studio (or go all the  way around the house outside.) It's a labor intensive procedure as they have to cut through two layers of boards and remove a stud and a cross member.
It's funny, in the photo above you can see clear through the window (to Joe's right) because Bob removed that this morning. It's thrilling to me to see this advancing the great cause of Rita's studio...
Our friend Jonathan the Electrician came yesterday and rerouted the wires that ran through the wall. He made it look so simple. I was so pleased that he was able to come; I dreaded that I might have to wait a week or so and we really couldn't cut the hole in the wall until he rewired us. You can see the new path for the wire up and over what will be the doorway.
The living room is a real mess right now. It's hard to answer the phone because all the chairs are pushed around and the rug is rolled up and in my present studio. The beginning of a big transition!
Bob is wielding that drill because they have to drill holes in the wall so that they can see where to use the saws all. Joe is marking where the header will go. Me? I'm getting ready to order pizza for dinner. I have to do something to help out!

Windows Are The Eyes of the Studios Soul (or something!)

I heard banging before we embarked on our mystery trip to obtain (ahem) art materials and what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a window! Installed! Bob actually got it in today... YAAAY!!!
It was a misty, foggy submerged kind of day, but look at that: I got a window!.
This side of the studio looks pretty complete; those little cross pieces in the corner of the window were only to hold it in place while Bob affixed it in place. We also picked up the wood stove for my studio- really cute! A Norwegian make of wood stove called "Yodel". It will fit so nicely and not take up a lot of space. Thanks again to our good friend Joe.
One again, I feel we're on the road to progress in the studio department.

Fog, With the Possibility of Windows...

This was supposed to be a picture of one of my windows, all installed in advance of rainy weather. Yesterday, Bob finished the trim around my doors, I painted the frames and then he proceeded to frame out the windows. The first time Bob put the window in the frame, I almost ran into the house to procure the camera but thought to wait until he finished. I looked up a few minutes later, and the window was removed because he needed to make an adjustment. About an hour later, I run into the house to grab the camera as the window was back in the frame. No sooner do I emerge from the side door, then I spy the window mysteriously vanishing from the hole. Turns out Bob needed to make another adjustment. And then it was too dark to photograph so you have to be content with the above photograph of the beginnings of our very graphic breakfats. Ummm, that's "breakfast" but the way I'm feeling, "breakfats" is more appropriate. And it only the beginning of the holiday consumption fest!
But I'm very excited, as we're off to Joe's factory to bring home my wood stove for the studio. That way, we can work in warmth and comfort and joy. Also, we're picking up another interesting potential art making material. I'll leave you in suspense as to what we're getting... should be an entertaining future photo!

Round Things

Here's what I'd like to be doing: insulating my studio, especially with the wind howling and there being a dusting (still too much!) of snow on the ground. It would give the illusion of warmth... But we're waiting on window treatments (there is still plastic in the openings) as our good friend Joe has been otherwise occupied. Also, I need to locate where I want outlets and switches as electrical work needs doing before wall surfaces get covered. Bob calls me anxious and impatient; I think I'm enthusiastic and eager!
In the meantime, here are the unusual things that (some of us) stick in our mouths:

Lovely packaging! I think that's what compelled Bob to put these in the shopping basket at the Chinese grocery store. Here's what I liked, on the reverse of the package:

I know that I go out of my way to procure foodstuffs that require "oxygen absorbers" (and their accompanying warnings!). Also, the advisement regarding artificial colors is thoughtful. I carefully monitored Bob's behavior post-consumption to see if he exhibited hyperactivity, or difficulty operating machinery after he ate 1 and 7/8s of these little puppies. You will notice that I did indeed give the green blob the ol' college try. Check out the interior:

I guess the confection itself is sort of "cute" but it's guts are this weird brown. And consistency? Like a large gush-y caterpillar and it tasted like soap! Bob is certainly a more adventurous eater than myself and he finished my portion as well as his own. He even made vague comments as to how it was "interesting" and "not too bad".  ("Go right ahead", I volunteered, "There are four more and they're all yours!" How often does that happen in our house when discussing dessert? Like never!) I am certainly an advocate of trying new things, I simply don't believe that you have to finish everything on your plate. But let's be honest: it's entirely personal what to eat or not eat. Bob runs from the room when I start to eat (vast quantities) of raw cookie dough. Yum!

A-Door-able

And yes! I realize that there is blue painter's tape all over the panes of glass! It took soooooooooooo long to prepare to put a finish coat on: First I had to brush off all the loose paint. Then I had to wash the panes of glass so the painter's tape would stick. And then I applied the varnish coat (so as to retain the lovely layers of patina gracing the door.) I decided to leave the tape in the photos to remind me of the labor involved.(Actually, the blue tape looks pretty jaunty.) The day had started just great, warm and sunny and I shed my sweater shirt and started preparing the windows. By the time I was starting to paint on the varnish, there was this wicked cold wind and clouds had obscured the sun. I hope the finish dries okay. But every step makes the studio feel more like "home". The door still (obviously) needs trim boards around the frame, but the hinges are on and it works! Windows are next on the agenda.

And as a total surprise, my very thoughtful sister Beatrice presented me with a lovely bouquet. I thought she was giving to Mommy, but Beatrice says, "It's for you and Bob and you 25th non-anniversary". That was really a great treat. It's a very cheerful arrangement, and still looks terrific, even a week later.

Behind Door Number One...

For those of you who weren't here for dinner the other night, here's a picture of my (small) side studio door. It's actually installed and framed and working!

Here it is from the inside, looking out. (The plastic opening to the left of the door will be my only vertical window). I'm so thrilled; every completion, no matter how big or small, gets me closer to having a studio... and a studio that I designed with windows and doors where I wanted them.
Here's a wider overall studio interior shot:

Our friend Roberta remarked the other night that the vertical striping of studs and the black tar paper made a pleasant pattern. she also observed how good the new lumber smell is! Next stage is the other, double French door- and then real windows.

Twenty Five Big Ones

Doesn't this look weird? It's our laundry that came in from the cold- and it smelled great, too. But it looks (to me anyway, but we all know where that goes.) like some sort of odd layered dessert. What's a trifle? Doesn't that have layers? I guess you had to be here... (Very old painting in the background!)
In any event, Bob and I successfully celebrated 25 years of being together. This year, our anniversary was late, late, late. (For those of you who don't remember, we celebrate when the frost kills the basil). We officially celebrated Monday, but went up to visit our friends Don and Elizabeth in their new New Bedford digs on the weekend. We spent an utterly relaxing time, looking at art, walking their dogs, eating interesting food (that we didn't have to prepare!) and not working on my studio. It was a much needed break.
Of course, I forgot to bring my camera on this road trip, and spent the entire weekend lamenting this egregious oversight. Somewhere between Columbia and Foster, Connecticut (who knew? Foster CT?) there was a rock painted like an eagle and an even better on painted like a lizard (nice and mottled and gnarly). There was also a hot dog wagon shaped like (gasp) a hot dog and a few other choice things that got away. I suppose having taken (yes, this is true) over 7000 (that's seven THOUSAND) pictures for the last auction has something to do with my resistance to dragging my camera along everywhere. Just maybe, but you should have seen the things we saw...
Including some very good art: a digital show with interesting kaleidoscope images of birds grooming their feathers and the colorful geometric patterns they generated. Some nice subtle drawings, too. Also our friend Don Wilkinson's one person show at Colo Colo Gallery- very different scanned images of small figurines made huge and heroic. A true departure for Don!
Tomorrow we continue work on the studio. I do have one door that works, which is a major achievement, thanks to Bob's persistence and determination. The double French doors are slated for installation too. That will be a big step towards civilization. Bob had the light on in my studio yesterday when I came home. Despite only plastic on the windows, it looked cheerful and made me believe that I really will get in
there soon.
Oh and here's a gratuitous photograph of the last flowers I picked this year.

More Fun With Food- And Progress!

Looks like another dinner that talks back to Bob and me! Incredibly, that was salmon and potatoes (and very good!) This is what happens to artists after slaving away endlessly at studio building. (A variation on "empire building").
But wait: we actually played hooky the other day and took a much needed trip up to MassMoca. Nice weather, great art experience (except excuse my for mentioning maybe like 75 too many Sol LeWitt drawings? I mean, I like Sol LeWitt every bit as much as the next artist, but hell! It started to be sort of silly after a while. I've already seen a million LeWitts at DiaBeacon...) Anyway, we had a much needed break and then back to reality.

This is a better picture than the other day. The walls are all up and painted and there are fewer things interfering with seeing the overall effect of my studio. Doors and windows are slated to be installed this week. Can we stand the excitement?
Shockingly enough, I am on blog post number 301. I was so surprised to see that figure crop up on my "blogger dashboard". We have been here almost three full years- that's also shocking in its own way! Bob and I have really managed to accomplish so many of the things we fantasized about. That is including the above project. I know there are many family members and friends out there who never thought we'd get this far on my studio. I'm pretty amazed, too! Much of the credit must go to our good friend Joe who us a really talented carpenter, along with being a great photographer. He's guided us through complicated patches and just plain old showed up to work. God knows, he's probably had better things to do, then bang more nails.

This is one of my inside corners. I was originally having a window installed on this wall, too but decided I needed the wall for working on more urgently. And I'm glad; there's already a surfeit of light being admitted through windows and the doors. And there's the requisite evergreen on the rafter to propitiate the gods of studio construction. The scratchy area of paint is where the rafters used to go. I'm glad for the extra ceiling height! And it is sort of funny that I have windows back into the house. This particular window will be the door between my studio and what will be my storage room. That will be a big day, when we cut through and make a hole between the new and the old!

Roofin' in the Rain

Bob and Joe valiantly climbed ladders and got the plywood on my studio roof last Sunday in the rain. It was warm so not as miserable a task as if cold weather had accompanied the steady mist, but not nice weather at all! But they got the job done and now it needs the ice and water shield roofing applied. Give us a warm, sunny day, please.
The studio looks more and more like a real space. We toasted the heroics of the roofing crew with a glass of wine- under cover of the freshly sheathed rafters. Never mind that over night it pored and there was three inches of water in my studio Monday morning. Bob and I swept and vacuumed and it dried just fine.
This what I made for dinner for the roofing crew:

Yes, it's a meatloaf shaped (sort of) like a house. I assumed if I made it shaped like my studio, it would resemble a mistake. Anyway, the roof is completed as yesterday, Joe returned and under failing light, he and Bob once again scaled to the heights and laid down the ice and water shield. Go ahead and rain!

Today Bob and I are getting a load of fire wood.  Oh boy! More physical labor! Then we're stopping at Home Depot to price siding and get a gallon of paint to match the house. Progress is with us. The end of the exterior phase of studio construction is approaching. It's beginning to seem a reality that someday I will actually work in that space. We are taking a break from work on the studio after we get the siding up. Heaven help us! will we know how to do anything besides work?!!

Rafters Away

This morning we had all three walls up. Thanks (again!) to our saintly neighbors who came to our wall raising rescue at the end of the day yesterday. Our friend Joe had car trouble and our neighbors came over and assisted in the raising of the third wall. We would have felt so entirely deflated if they hadn't helped! We feel like we're racing against time and weather and work and so many variables... That's Bob up on the ladder, Thursday morning, shimming up the place where our walls meet.
Today was exciting because after a few delays and a measuring meltdown or two, we actually made good head way in erecting the rafters.

Each rafter had to lifted in place, measured and taken down so that a small notch could be cut in the end farthest from the house and relifted into place and then nailed. I got to be on the low end, which as I am really, really, really afraid of heights and detest ladder work (and have odd depth perception to boot) is fine with me. But mind you, the "low end" is over my head and there's all this open space and I wasn't comfortable at all. Bob, who is definitely part monkey, scampered up and down the high ladder, with that 20 foot long 2x6 board on his shoulder. I'm tired and I carried only a portion of the weight of all these rafters; I can imagine that Bob is exhausted. But we got most of them up!

Holy cow! It actually looks like a building! The space is nicely defined now: it has volume when you stand in it, or look back at the studio. (This is the side nearest our backyard, looking towards the driveway.)
I'm certainly glad, when I look back on all the work that we've done on a simple addition, attached to the house, that we weren't crazy enough to have attempted building a whole house. I don't think either Bob or I are natural born carpenters, but we're getting it done!

Brake Dancing

(And I am aware of the correct spelling of "break dancing"...) Bob and Joe and I worked on Sunday, starting early and measuring and whacking and chopping with the best of them. I have learned all manner of useful and informative carpentry terms; things like headers and sole plate and jack studs. And my favorite? If something is a tiny bit over or under (when taking a measurement) it's referred to as (and I am not making this up!) a "cunt hair". Apparently even Bob had heard this colorful term many years ago when he was briefly employed as a builder. And also, interestingly, what with Brazilian waxes and the general depilatory habits of the young this is becoming an archaic phrase. Will wonders never cease!
So onto my general discussion of all things studio building related. We realized by mid-Sunday afternoon that we were going to run out of 10 foot long 2 x 4's. It was agreed that I, as the least able to saw and nail, would be dispatched to the nearest Home Depot to secure more stock. For some reason, I wasn't in the mood, but finally I got in the truck. It is fortunate that I didn't get right on the highway, but noticed that I needed gas. I filled up and started to pull out of the station and promptly had one of those almost out-of-body experiences as I depressed the clutch and brake pedals and the truck just kept moving forward. I then realized why: I had no brakes! The truck rolled out onto Main Street with (unusually!) no one coming from either direction, as I was making a left hand turn across traffic. Somehow, with much coasting and careful down shifting, I managed to make it home, through several traffic lights and one woolly intersection where a major route hits the highway. Joe went to get wood instead.
So with one thing and another, we are still waiting to raise that third wall. It should happen tomorrow and then we can go onto the rafters and roof. And I'm still alive!

Or Would I Rather Have a Swimming Pool?

Apparently the gods that preside over such things as barn raisings and STUDIO construction misheard what I requested and decided to deliver a swimming pool instead. In case no one noticed, it pored last night and despite Bob and my best efforts to cover the nascent wall in tarps, water accumulated. It was a tough day anyway; we had to buy more 2x4's in the morning and we had just gotten underway with sawing and hammering when it started to rain.

This puddle is a foot deep! Nice soggy wood... Bob uncovered it this morning so that it could dry out but it's still pooling up between the studs.  Here's a shot that looks like a Richard Diebenkorn (an abstract painter who worked on a series of "Ocean Park" paintings that this resembles):

Well, at least it looks like art! We went to South Norwalk to an opening at a "pop up" show that both Bob and I were in last night. The rain held off until we had arrived home, which was one good thing anyway as we were very tired (as is now the norm!) We had spent some time schlepping all the wood into my present studio so that it wouldn't warp. Here's Jules inspecting the newly rearranged studio:

Yes, sort of an obstacle course but at least the wood is safe. Now I have to go back to work tomorrow so it will be Wednesday before we get to complete this wall. We had hoped to have at least that one done this weekend. No wonder it took Mommy and Daddy ten years to build our house!

Houston, We Have A Floor

Bob and I are so tired! We carried 15 sheets of 3/4 exterior grade plywood around just for fun. That's after schlepping 12  2x6 20 foot floor beams- but I get ahead of myself. The above photo is from yesterday. We put all these metal hangers brackets (that Bob manufactured in his studio) on the aforementioned 20 foot long beams. Each one had to be measured, cut, had the bracket afixed and then get nailed in place, 16" on center. The lay at a 90 degree angle to the 4 x 6 beam (that you can sort of see) in the center of the picture.

The above is a close up of the beams and the brackets. (And a face mask.)
Today we finished up the last two beams and started in on insulation and then the plywood.
I have learned that there is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more to "simple" carpentry than I ever would have suspected. Things like making sure every step is level and putting down insulation and moisture barriers and caulking all the cracks in the insulation with spray in space foam product. It all takes time and concentration.

This picture is a bit overexposed but it shows that we were somehow able to do laundry, too! I took this at lunch time, when we'd finished up the insulation. I think. Boy, that seems like days ago. Like I said, we're both really tired.

So at 6:00, we had finished the plywood, which we had mostly covered with tarps and then I realized I hadn't even documented the finished wood deck. But here's a corner. That's Bob crouching in the upper right, trying to secure the tarp. It was neat to walk around on this flat, solid surface. Bob and I must have screwed in three million screws. (Yes, I am trusted with an electric screw gun! And believe me, it went so much faster with the two of us screwing around.)
We're hoping there is no torrential monsoon before the next stage which involves framing walls and erecting the roof rafters. More fun!

Flamin' Hot

It's been so hot (tell us something new!) that it's been hard to get anything done. And I suppose it's influenced what's happening in my studio because that's a corner of "Money to Burn" above... do I really need to be sewing flames in this persistent heat event??!?!!?
And it's my Birthday Week (is that an oxymoron?). My birthday always occurs during some unpleasant and sticky weather; that's what I get for being a July baby.
Bob and I tried to get some digging in yesterday morning, before the sun came around the house:

We managed to finish digging this one side, and back fill it with gravel and rocks. All the "spare dirt" got trundled wheel barrow-wise down to the dirt road that leads to Bob's studio. (We're filling in low spots there). We were drenched in sweat and plenty crabby. Note the glass of water on the window sill... plenty of water is getting consumed.
And I started digging on the farther side, succeeding in at least removing the top layer of sod and dirt before turned twelve shades of crimson and abandoning my efforts for shower and air conditioning. Still too hot and I'm getting antsy. I want to see the drama of rising walls!
Here's another shot to reinforce that we actually worked in this weather. My sister referred to it as "prison labor"! Ha!