September 3, 4, & 5, 2008—Gravel in the courtyard, floor in the kitchen

During the week, we had also marked all the spots where lighting for the driveway will be placed. The lights are about 40' apart all along the driveway. You can see one stake by the blocks in the foreground, but the other stakes don’t show up in this low-rez photo.

Each light consists of two bullet spotlights which will be mounted on pressure treated wood posts. With low wattage bulbs, these lights will give adequate lighting for the driveway without being visible from down below.

The gravel pile had been much diminished by the end of the week. Next week we have soil, sand, flagstone and rock coming, which my assistant will install.
It was very hot by the afternoon on Wednesday and we were planning to move our basement up from our old house the next day. My assistant and I worked very hard organizing the barn to make room for all the new stuff.
Here is a picture from the corner when we were done. There is a lot more space available for the move-in.

We also went upstairs and unrolled the big rug. It had been washed and packed for storage with insect repellent and I didn’t want it to stink up the house the first time we opened it. I actually couldn’t smell anything when we undid it, so maybe it was a good thing we opened it, because it’s possible that the insect repellent was too old to do the job anymore.

At any rate, it looked wonderful—much more red than I remembered it. It also has some olive green in it, which I am not too keen on—despite the colors I have used in the house. I also want to make sure that it doesn’t fight with the floor color—or paint colors for that matter.

When we arrived on Thursday with the movers, the cork floor installers were busy laying down our kitchen floor.
Here is the almost completed floor. It has a pad—almost like a rug pad—underneath the panels of cork, so it is quite soft to stand on. Jim, who has a hard time standing on concrete for a long period, should really love cooking in here.
Here come the movers with the first load.
I took this picture and then got involved in directing traffic. This is one of the storage benches disassembled into two parts for shipping.

I thought my camera was in my job bag but it had fallen out in Jim’s car the night before, so I don’t have many photos from Friday. The heat was terrific—I clocked it at 106° on my car thermometer! The movers arrived with the second load and tempers were short.

After everyone left, I went to the house to do some more work on the range hood. I had planned to just sketch in the green vine and leave, but it went so smoothly, that I painted the whole thing and took this picture with my phone to prove it.

Next week, I will add highlights to the olives and then add the yellow background, which is rubbed on over the whole thing using a rag.

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