It’s the weekend after Thanksgiving.  We had 18 people for dinner on Thursday.  We had 6 turkeys to cook, 4 for church, 2 for us.  I got up at 3am to put 2 of the 20 lb turkeys in the oven.  2 were already there.  Went back to bed.  Got up at 4:30 to take those 2 turkeys out and put 2 12 lb turkeys in.  Know what, the 2 big ones are sitting on the stove top and the 2 smaller ones are in the oven.  Must have an elf doing the cooking.

When those 2 were done, Michael left with the 4 turkeys and a dozen and a half baked apple pies.  They were from the supermarket.

When he left, I started peeling about 15 lbs of potatoes and 10 lbs of sweet potatoes.  People started arriving at 1pm and we had dinner a little after 1:30.  The last person left around 4:30 and all the food was gone except for some scraps of white and dark meat that I put into bag in the fridge.

Got up early on Friday.  I had an appointment with the propane company to inspect our furnace and write a service contract.  They were coming sometime between 9:30 and noon.  I left Nashua around 6:30, just around sunrise.  It was eerie coming down Rt 3 on a Friday with no traffic especially at the junction of 3 and 495 where it’s usually backed up by then.  But nothing.  I sailed into Gloucester around 7:30.  The parking lot at the Northshore Shopping center was packed when I went by.

So, around 8:30 the propane calls and said they had too many emergencies and cannot come out.  I told them it was a new furnace and they said it would be under warranty and call them back in the spring.

Michael came out later in the morning. I used the leftover turkey and made a turkey pot pie for dinner.  More leftovers.

A couple of weeks ago, we went to Floor and Decor to buy hardwood floor.  During that time, Michael had gone off and found a better choice for the backsplash in the kitchen.  We went early on Saturday and pick up the tile (I had already returned the previously purchased tile).  Once we got back, he started to remove the hood vent.  That was an ordeal.  The installation instructions left lots out and there were no videos that we could find to show us.  We finally got it down and he started to tile the area under the cabinets.

On Sunday, it was church and then off to Shrewsbury to meet a former co-worker of Michael for lunch.  For the past several days they’ve been reporting on this storm heading our way.  It was gloomy, cold and windy all weekend.  We got back to Nashua around 4pm and stopped at Costco.  We came out of Costco about 20 minutes later and the ground is covered in snow.  We got home and unpacked the car and stayed warm for the evening.  I got up this morning to find both cars (we left the Prius C in Gloucester) buried in snow.  Michael cleaned the driveway and I finally left at 5am.  The roads were a mess but I wanted to get an early start.  The back roads weren’t any better but the speed was lower and no one else was on the road.  I made it to work and listened to the morning news about all the accidents.

We got a little under 10″ of snow.  Part 2 of the storm is coming tonight with predictions of 3 to 12″ of new snow.  Welcome to Winter (even though it’s still Fall).

The picture is of Plum Cove taken on Saturday.  Notice the white caps.  It as very windy.

When I bought the flooring for the 1st floor, it was $4.19/square foot.  Last week we decided to order the flooring for the 2nd floor.  The place I bought the 1st order wanted $5.19/sf.

So I did some more searching and found a place, Floor And Decor, in Saugus that had it for #3.59/sf.  So, last week we stopped by and ordered 758 sf and was going to have it delivered to Nashua.  That saved us the sales tax.  A couple of days later I get a call from F&D wanting to know if a tractor trailer would fit down our street.  I said absolutely not.  After some more research, I called them back and asked if we could pick it up.  The flooring was in Manchester, NH.  So, I booked a UHaul van that could hold 3380 lbs.  We both took the day off in Friday and drove to Manchester.  They loaded 37 boxes of flooring (about 2200 lbs) and 7 rolls of underlayment and off to Gloucester we went.  Go there about 1pm and started to unload.  Because of my bicep injury, I didn’t want to put much stress on it.  So, I pulled the boxes and Michael brought them into the house.  He put about 10 boxes on the 1st floor and decided he didn’t want to overload the floor so the rest went to the basement.  Just as we finished, it started to rain, so we headed back to Nashua getting there around 5pm.  Then cost of the van was $121 and about $35 for gas.  We had also brought the newer love seat with us.  Now we have the 2 recliners and a love seat in Gloucester.  I’ve ordered a nailer but it won’t be in for a week or so.  We need to bring some the flooring up to 2nd floor so it can acclimate.

We are heading out again on Friday for a long weekend.  We are planning some Christmas events at the house.

Not much to report this week.  At least the Step System alarm didn’t go off.  On our way to Gloucester, we stopped at a Floor and Decor store in Saugus.  I had been looking for hardwood floor for upstairs.  The flooring I got in June was 3.89 sq ft.  The price has risen to 5.16 sf.  Don’t know if that’s tariff related or not.  So, I started looking elsewhere.  Floor and Decor are opening a store in Nashua next year, at Exit 7 where Staples and Bob’s Shoes are.  Anyway, F&D had solid light oak flooring for 3.59 sf.  So we purchased over 700 sq feet and 7 rolls of padding.  They will deliver it to Nashua so we don’t have to pay sales tax.  It would have cost more than that to pay the sales tax and rent the truck.  We’ll take the flooring out over several weeks.  It needs to sit in the space it’s going to be installed for at least 72 hrs.  We still have to get a nail gun and watch some videos on how it’s done.  Maybe we’ll take a Friday off and spend a long weekend installing it.

Other than that, Michael finished painting the sides of the stairway and the risers.  I spent some time working on the network.  Even though the router is in the living room, the signal to my room is degraded.  So, I installed a range extender and that seemed to help.  We are going to move the TV and the networking stuff to the corner by the stairs and see how that works.

I did take a couple of pics of the upstairs.  I’ll upload those later.  Yesterday we got a late start.  Had to stop at Market Basket in Gloucester to pick up a deli plate, drive to Dracut to get Michael’s car and then to church.  Got there at 9:30am.  After service, we had a Session meeting (which is what the sandwiches were for) that lasted almost 2 hours.  It was 2:30 before I got home.  Also, while we were at F&d, Michael spotted some other tile he liked better for the backsplash in the kitchen.  We’ll go back to pick some out but that meant returning the current tiles we had bought.  Home Depot took them back without a hitch.  I’m at Home Depot at least 2-3 times a week for something.

This actually covers the entire Veteran’s Day weekend.  We went out to Gloucester early Saturday morning.  We were going to go out Friday night but the traffic looked bad so we just got up early and left.

Michael did some more touch up (which will never end), then tackled the stair treads.  He sanded the stairway to the upstairs and applied the first coat of polyurethane.  It’s water based so easy cleanup and quick drying.  He tore up the rest of the cardboard covering so it’s all gone now.  He sanded the steps to the front entrance and to the basement.  More polyurethane on those stairs and another to the stairway going upstairs. Michael brought up a second dining room table that we found on FaceBook.  This table extends to 90″ and came with 8 chairs, all for $160.00.  We had to rent a truck to pick it and take it to Gloucester.  That was a long Sunday.

While Michael worked on the floors, I tackled getting a desktop system in place.  I brought out a system that my friend Mary had owned but I hadn’t used it much in 6 years.  It was up to date with software and applications.  So, I booted it and it hung.  I kept rebooting it with different results.  Finally whatever it was got cleared and the system booted successfully. I got a message that the version of Win 10 was not going to be supported after this month so I left it and went to bed. I got up in the middle of the night and it was hung, so I rebooted it and left.  Yesterday I created a bootable Win 10 USB drive with the latest update (1903).  I couldn’t get the system to boot from the USB so I brought the system back up and started the installation from that.  I was working on my laptop and holding my breath every time the other system rebooted.  Finally after about 2 hours, a final boot brought Win 10 1903 up.  I left it running for the weekend and it turned out to be pretty solid.

Michael brought my recliners up to see what they looked like in the space.  He finished the touch up where the TV is and we put the TV and everything in place.  We might move the TV to the corner where the chairs were but it means running another cable which I have in Nashua but not in Gloucester.  That’s next weekend.  When Comcast installed the original cable, I had asked if they could run a new line and the installed said I needed an electrician.  Pish posh!  I’ve been running cables for decades.  There’s space around the Furnace/AC vent which is in the closet between the kitchen and living room.

That’s it for this weekend.  It’s starting to look like a house and not a work in progress.  Oh, forgot 1 other thing.  The last 2 weekends, when we left, the alarm on the step system was sounding.  Each time I called the city contractor.  The first time, the guy whacked something and it started working.  The second time, another guy looked at everything but never called me to tell me what the resolution was.  On Sat, we get there and the red light is on again.  I called them again and they came in about 30 minutes.  The guy says the pumps are working but not going anywhere.  Duh!  So he calls the city DPW to come out and pump the tank.  He mentions something about maybe a check valve wasn’t opened.  DPW gets there and I tell him there are 2 ‘water’ shutoffs in the driveway.  One for water, the other for the septic system?  Maybe?  He’s reluctant to turn on the valve until Anita came by.  She told them the original house never had a water line from the street.  The water for that house came from Anita’s.  So, the guy takes this long rod and inserts it into one of the holes.  Viola!  Success.  They didn’t need to pump, so problem solved.

We left today with the red light OUT.  I’m going to install a camera that points the outside box that will alert me when it hears a sound.  That’s next week.

The last picture is how Michael got back up after finishing the stairs to the basement.

 

We got it, finally.  A little more than a year from the clearing of the land and 2 years, 3 months after deciding to buy the land and start building.

 

No pics this week.

Michael finished the bathroom and pulled up the cardboard floor covering.  Good riddance, dust everywhere.

Last week when we were there, the step system (sewer) alarm went off.  Had to get on the Gloucester website to find the number to call.  I called and reported the problem.  The operator said she would pass it onto the trouble team.  A technician called a few minutes later and I told him what happened and he said he’d be out either Sunday or Monday (didn’t make any difference since no one was there).  He called Monday after noon and said it was fixed.  He whacked something in the outside box.  I used to do that when I was in field service.  He didn’t say what he whacked but he said it was new so maybe it was the 1st time the pump had to come on.  The other annoying thing was that the downspout was right next to the box so you couldn’t open it.  We had to remove part of it to gain access.  I fixed it today but didn’t put the screws back so we can easily remove it again if we have to.

The other problem we had from last week was an outlet that stopped working.  When the electrical service had been restored the week before, I noticed the microwave clock flashing.  I didn’t set it.  Last week we went in, the microwave oven was dead.  I thought, maybe, it had taken a power it.  I plugged it into another outlet and it worked just fine.  So, yesterday I looked at all the circuit breakers and some of them had test buttons.  I tried several of them, no luck.  I took the outlet cover off to see if something had come loose.  Nothing noticeable.  Then yesterday afternoon I plugged a trimmer in to charge.  After a couple of hours, I tried the trimmer I plugged in, still dead.  Read the instruction and a white light was supposed to flash when charging.  Took the trimmer to another outlet, starting charger just fine.  Back to the 2nd outlet, I unplugged the door bell chime what was plugged in and noticed thee GFCI button had popped.  I reset it and looked over at the 1st outlet and it started working.  I don’t know why the electrician had 2 outlets at either end of the kitchen on the same circuit, but now I know.

It was cold last night but the furnace worked just fine, kept it as 68 all night.  I got my bedroom light and a pole light in the living room fitted with wi-fi enabled bulbs.  Now I can get Alexa and Google home to turn them off and on and dim them.  I can even change colors.  The living room light has 2 bulbs.  I can set one to green and one to red, just for Christmas.

More painting next week then need to start on the stairs.

We finally got to spend a night in our house.  The power was restored last Sunday morning and the cable was restored on Tuesday.  The router had lost it’s setup information so I couldn’t find out anything about the house.

We got there Saturday morning.  While Michael started to touch up the places where the painter’s tape had removed some of the wall paint, I started to restore the network and get the cameras running.  I also did a couple of loads of wash, sheets and towels so the washer and dryer got a workout.

For dinner, we tried out the oven.  I heated up a Costco sausage and pasta dish.  This morning Michael made some cranberry and some pumpkin bread for church. Michael started to install some of the blinds.  I wiped out a local Lowe’s the other day of their 31″ mini-blinds.  He also installed the pendant light over the sink.  The glass portion looks like someone had melted it so I’ll be sending an email to Pottery Barn for a replacement.

As we started to load the car up to leave, I noticed a whining sound outside.  Upon investigation, the alarm for the sewer system was flashing.  We had to remove part of the downspout that was blocking the latch to the sewer control.  We tried resetting it but the alarm continued.  We shut off the power to it and when I got to church, I called the city and reported the problem.  They’ll look at it sometime today or tomorrow.  Hopefully it’s not something major but it should be under some warranty.

This has been a week that I won’t ever forget.  On Wednesday night, a storm came through.  A massive storm with high winds.  Rockport reported gusts of 69mph.  Guess what happened?  A branch from a tree just opposite our driveway came down and ripped the electrical service and Comcast cable right off the house.  A pic shows the damage.  Fortunately, there was no damage to the house itself.  I contacted the builder and he contacted an electrician to put up a new conduit and contact National Grid to come out and hook it up.

We were there on Saturday to paint (yet again).  Someone from Nat Grid came by around 9:30am to access the situation.  Since he only had a ladder, he said he would have to contact the bucket trucks to re-install the wire.  After lunch, some other from Nat Grid came out to check on the rest of the street.  They said it would be fixed on Saturday.  The house was down to 56 degrees.  We had stopped at Gail and Debbi’s house to pick up a dining room table and chairs.  They would come by at lunch to bring the other chairs.  We went for lunch at Willow Rest and afterwards didn’t feel like painting any more.

We decided to come back on Sunday.  We approached the house and noticed that the power still had not been restored.  I contact Nat Grid again using their less than helpful menu system to report the problem.  About 9am 2 bucket trucks showed up (from Indiana) and within an hour had the electrical service restored.  Thanks GUYS!  We saw bucket trucks from Tennessee, Indiana and Ohio.  Without them, we ‘d be in the dark for weeks.  On Friday I saw that 30% of Gloucester was out including all of Annisquam. On Friday there was some 200K without power. By the end of Sat only 1700 (including us).

Anyway, back to painting.  We had previously primed all the windows and some had 1 coat of semi-gloss.  Michael wanted them to be shinier so I got some hi-gloss enamel.  The windows actually needed a 3rd coat.  The 3rd coat took like 10 minutes per window to apply.  By the end of Sunday, all the windows had been given their 3rd coat and were dry so we removed the painters tape.  We took up some of the cardboard to reveal some actually gorgeous white oak flooring.  We got my bedroom done but the bed is still not setup.

The other problem we have is lack of cable.  I called Comcast on Saturday and they said someone would be out on Sunday to fix the cable.  Nothing happened.  I called Comcast when we got back home and they said they had to pull a permit and it could take as long as 2 weeks (which they doubted). You have to have a permit for everything in Gloucester.  I figured out last week that we have spent around $5K in permits to build this house and we still don’t have an occupancy permit.

 

It’s actually a long weekend, with Columbus Day on Monday.  We went to Gloucester on Saturday, early.  The 1st thing we noticed was the new railing on the front steps.  It’s very nice and will be helpful during the winter months when there’s ice and snow on the granite steps.

Most of Saturday was spent on priming the window and door frames.

On Sunday, Michael’s 2 nephews met us in Lowell at the church.  We took them to lunch and headed up north, leaf peeping.  With the time we had, we settled on Mt Kearsarge, about half way on I-89 to Vermont.  We finally got to the gate at Rollins State Park.  There were about 10 cars ahead of us.  45 minutes later, we finally get to the gate.  The reason was the upper parking lot was full so they had to wait for a car to come down before a car could go up.  We paid our fee (I got in free since I’m ancient).  At the top, we find a space to park.  Michael and his nephews went to the top, I stayed in the parking lot.  When they came down, we headed down the mountain and on to apple picking.  We stopped at Gould Hill orchard in Contoocook.  Apples were picked and we were on our way home.

Monday was a holiday so we went back to Gloucester to do more painting.  Michael finished priming the windows and door frames while I started paining the primed windows.  I got 2 windows in the living room, 2 in the kitchen and 1 in my room all painted.  Michael’s former co-worker came by and we took him to lunch.  Then we took him on a tour of Gloucester and Rockport.  Our first stop was Wingaersheek Beech.  The winding road is 2.5 miles from 128.  It’s a very shallow beach and is hugely popular during the summer months.  Well, Monday was grey and a little cold so there was a couple of dozen cars there.  We watched 3 people put kayaks into the water.  I’ve included a couple of pics from there along with a couple from on top on Mt Kearsarge.

After a tour up the coast to Rockport, we headed back to the house.  We said goodbye and continued painting.  We gathered up our stuff and left around 3:15.  It took us 1:45 hrs to get back to Nashua.

Next week, more painting.  We might even stay over night since there’s nothing going on in church that we need to attend to.

 

Went out Friday of the week.  Left Nashua at 5:10am to beat the traffic at Rt 3 and 495.  Stopped at Burger King in Beverly to find it closed.  Found out later that if we had waited 5 minutes, they would have been open.  We did bring some breakfast sandwiches with us.

The posts for the front step railings have been put into concrete.  Given the amount of concrete, it won’t be finished until next week.

I had bought a finishing sander so Michael spent his time filling the nail holes and sanding the boards where the filler had hardened.  I started to setup the kitchen.  I ran several cups of water through the coffee maker before declaring it open for business.  Got out the microwave and Michael heated the breakfast sandwiches while I made coffee.  Our first breakfast in the new house.  While Michael continued with the sanding, I started to unpack.  I got some dishes out and some silverware and ran them through the new dishwasher using the 30 minute cycle.  By the end of the day, I had done 3 loads of dishes.

Went to Willow Rest for lunch.  The place was empty.  Food is still good and not expensive. Then back to the house.  We finally quit and left at 3:10.  We had hoped to stop and see Ann before 5pm but the Friday traffic was horrendous.  I kept forgetting it was Friday and not Saturday.  Finally, we gave up on seeing Ann since we would have arrived at her place just as she was having dinner, so we went directly to Nashua.  We stopped at Costco and got some more things for ourselves and Gloucester.  Trying to figure out exactly what we need so we can spend the night in Gloucester. I think we would get more done if we spent more time there than on the road.

Next week, hopefully, the railing will be done.  We also found out that you have to put the screens on from the outside.  That’s OK for the downstairs ones.  Will ask the builder to install all of the screens next week.  Then we’ll continue painting.  I’m afraid it’s going to be spring before we finish all the interior work.

No pictures this week.