Labor Day Painting

Last year at Labor Day, I used the 3 day weekend to paint part of my house. Since house painted is such a daunting task, I decided to break up the painting into sections. Three day sections. Every year in the beginning of September. And this was the 2nd annual Labor Day paint fest with the area of interest being the upper half of the west side of the house. It's not exactly the most enjoyable since I'm up about 15 feet in the air on a ladder, but it's amazing how quick you get used to it

It's really not too much to show, but here it is:

Before:

After:

More Dining Room Art

While waiting for the paint to dry during the Labor Day project, I took a bike ride downtown to Art in the Pearl, where I had found the "Imagined Forest" piece the prior year. From what I was told, there are 900 applicants to this show and only 90 are chosen, so you can imagine there is some pretty darn good stuff.

One particular artist caught my eye, not because her media was presented on metal and I like shiny things, but because one of her pictures was of trees, similar to the "Imagined Forest" that I just purchased. It turns out she is good friends with the artist of "Imagined Forest", Jim Brown. Not only that, her and her husband were at the University of Kansas the same time I was. And to think I never ran into her in the drab engineering hall...

So here it is. There is no title, but it's of a monastary in New Orleans. I think it compliments the "Fiddler's Light" pretty well, which hangs at the opposite wall in the dining room.

The picture is actually a photo transferred to a polaroid, then split off with heat and attached to a sheet of aluminum, that is raised off of another sheet of aluminum. I liked that extra dimension that gives, so when I hung it, I raised the picture off of the wall, giving it yet another layer. The darker border around the picture is the same aluminum sheet except that it's sandblasted. What's really weird is that the border matches exactly the color of the dining room wall. Though the picture is small for the large wall, I like it for now but I'm thinking this picture would also look great in the upstairs bathroom, with the shiny metal against the dark aubergine walls.

The artist is Chris Dahlquist. She has a lot of other great stuff so check out her website.

Leaky South Window Fix

For Labor Day I decided to celebrate by being laborious. Actually, the truth is that the wet Portland winter is just around the corner and I really needed to rain proof my picture window in the front of the house that faces south. Though it's not that obvious in the picture below, the ship lap siding above the window is cracked. Water leaks can sometimes be maddening to find, but I'm fairly certain this has got to be the reason. By the way, other than mowing the lawn and general house chores, this is the only work I've taken on with regards to the house since finishing up the dining room remodel. Hence, a stale blog.

I was a little worried that once I got the old boards off, I'd be looking at dead air space (no insulation), but fortunately I uncovered some insulation so the project would continue as planned. One thing I did find was that there is no blocking from the first floor wall to the second floor wall. This is beneficial, I am told, from major damage should a fire break out by slowing the flames from spreading to the second floor from the first. Obviously, it would have been wise to take of this now with the siding off, but there's only so much time.
With the new boards on:
And the final product: