A Mason, a Glazier, a Candlestick-Maker

Well, when I'm not making random obser- vations about people in this world wanting to bring about Armageddon such as in the previous post, I work on the house. This week has been quite productive, and has more than likely done quite a bit to elevate the level of lead in my bloodstream. Earlier last week I could have been found squatting in various places beside my house, squishing mortar between the blocks of my foundation. The lime in the mortar dissolves what skin doesn't get abraded off by the sand. The mortar dye outlines each fingernail in black. My career as a hand model is officially over.

I've had to work on the windows for some time. Namely, I've needed to replace the putty that holds the glass in on the outside. Many of my windows look rather like this sad example from my back porch. I decided that I'd just go whole hog and do the full makeover treatment. Having gone as far as ripping my aluminum siding off and painting the house the original colors of 1926, I was disappointed that the aluminum storm windows stuck out. Instead of noticing the house, I'd only notice the fugly storm doors up front and the ugly storm windows. So, I pulled the windows out of the frame, heatgunned off the flaking paint, chipped out the putty, put new putty in, smoothed it so it looked nice, unscrewed the storm windows from the outside, pulled their insides out, and painted those with enamel. The reglazed windows have to wait until the putty hardens, which evidently takes a week or two. Once all the other stuff is dry, I reattach the storm windows to the house and reinsert the glass so I have at least some protection from marauding bugs. Meanwhile, the sash windows cure like hams in the garage. The three painted windows are above.

Before all this, on Monday, I decided to make the storm doors disappear. I've taken quite a few pictures of the front of the house, but found myself trying to block the view of the storm doors, as in the first picture. Pleased with the way the railings disappeared with the application of brown paint, I gave the doors the same treatment, which is an improvement. By tomorrow I should have the dining room windows done. From there, I move on around the house, hopefully finishing all this mess by the end of summer.