September 17—More finish details and a critical repair

Kai had called to let me know that the screen for the vegetable cooler had arrived, so I wasn’t surprised to see it. Here is a photo of it.

I now need to find a place that will plate it for me in copper, which is what I have decided to do—if feasible—rather than powder coat it.

The range hood garland looks pretty good from a distance, but up close, the edges of the border lines are very ragged from when I pulled off the blue tape.

Jim is supposed to come late in the afternoon today and touch up the edged for me, since he has a steadier hand than I do.

Kai will be on vacation next week so he has been working very hard to finish the closets, so the painters can get to them while he is gone.

These shelves are in my closet. This is my tall pole with a high shelf above it for stuff—of which I seem to have a lot! The two shelves behind the clothes pole are also for stuff.

Looking in the door, you can see the tall pole on the right and the upper and lower poles on the left. The upper pole is very high, but I measured to make sure clothes would actually fit above and below.
Kai and his brothers had finished putting the corrugated steel on the carport, but it is very hard to tell unless you are right under it. I was astonished to find that the steel really does not show from anywhere except inside the carport or from up the hill.
If you look at this picture long enough, you will be able to pick out the new thing. The little roof is finally on the brackets over the barn back door! We have been waiting all this time for the corrugated steel for the main house and Kai finally installed this roof as well. Isn’t it cute?
Here is a better view from the upstairs barn balcony.
Here is the carport roof, also taken from the barn balcony.

I painted a sample with the stencil to see how it looked. I love the way it looks but I found out a lot of other things about stenciling as well.

First, it was a huge pain to cut the stencil—literally! My right forefinger was numb/painful for a week after cutting through a 3 mil acrylic sheet. Also, the lines at the top will only work well if there is one element on each stencil. With two, like I have here, the slots are too long and the lines get smudged.

After doing this one example, I realized that I need about ten copies of the stencil—only with one repeat each—so I can tape them up and do every other element all the way across the room. Since you need to let the paint dry on one element before you do the next one, going all the way around the room with only one stencil would take months! I need to get online and order stencils from a service which cuts them for you, but of course, my internet access is down— @%$@@#D^^$#&(*&)$%!

The electricians had installed the bathroom lights which are very, soft moon-like fixtures. The wall sconces have not arrived yet, so I bought some “Hollywood dressing room lights” cheap at the local hardware store to get passed inspection later this week.
The hallway cans had also been trimmed out, and now function. These lights had originally been set up by our lighting designer as wall-washers and there had been a lot more of them. We had pared down the quantity because of cost—and then went to the 6" cans because we had had so much difficulty with the insides of the 4" ones in the cottage. I am now concerned that the sliding door closet will be quite dark, but I guess we will just get used to it.

Here is Jim cleaning up the lines on the range hood. After about two minutes of painting, he asked if I had a squared-off brush. Since we had moved everything from our basement up the week before, the answer was yes, and I went to fetch one. He had a much easier time after that and I can’t figure out why I didn’t want to use one myself—I guess I was depending on the tape.

It did look better when he finished, but he acknowledged that it was harder to do than he thought. Anyway, however it is now is the way it is going to stay. Everyone seems to like the fact that it looks a little primitive. Jim says that otherwise it would look like a decal instead of a painting.

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