We’re excited by all of you who checked out our site over the weekend – thanks for tuning in! And special thanks to our friends here in Sitka who have been feeding us the last couple of days. Life savers!
Well, now that all the demolition is done, it’s obviously time to start reassembling. We’re definitely feeling the urgency! A little backstory: Matthew’s dad was planning to be here for three weeks this month and we were looking forward to having him be our project manager. The two of us are capable of an awful lot, but there are definitely a few things where we need some guidance (to say nothing of extra hands and humor!). At the last minute (probably after hearing that Sitka was experiencing the highest-per-capita level of COVID in the entire country last month!) he decided it wasn’t the best idea to travel across the country and risk exposure to the virus. Completely understandable, but we miss you, Jim!!
In his absence, we’ve called in some reinforcements to mentor us on patching walls, repairing rot, helping with the wall re-plastering, and tiling. It’s a relief to know we’ll have some help … but those folks are a little busy for the next couple of days. Besides, our priority task right now is to work on smoothing out that wall texture. Yesterday and today we started this process, and although it was a crazy amount of work, we feel that we see the path forward. And it will be a MAJOR improvement! However, we bought out the local supply of our preferred brand of paint remover and had to call on our friend in Juneau to buy out Home Depot’s supply. It should arrive via air cargo on Tuesday morning.
And so, we found ourselves in a holding pattern this afternoon on the green house. Fortunately, since we’re also moving out of our house at the end of the month, there’s plenty of other stuff to do! We refocused our energy today on packing up more of our personal belongings.
Here’s a few photos of the last couple of days.
Digging into the shower to make way for a new fixture 
After several experiments over the last week, we’ve determined that applying a paint remover to that ugly wall texture is the way to go. On Sunday, Kayla applied 1.25 gallons to the walls in one of the bedrooms. 
On Monday, we worked on scraping it off, and got some sort of wall mange. It does seem to be working! But this took A LOT of energy to scrape down 1/2 wall. We just think the layer of remover was too thin yesterday. We’re waiting for a new supply of goop to arrive on Tuesday and we’ll go after it again. 
Matthew also worked on patching the ceiling around the kitchen light fixture, but ran into a slight drywall issue. 
Meanwhile, in the world of packing/moving: how many erasers, staples, rubber bands, and tape rolls does one couple need?? 
Things are looking a little empty around here… 
For sale/giveaway!
Wow, and thank you for playing My Walking Stick. Mary Boose and I danced, well she danced to that in one of the Sitkans Can Dance Shows. I was on stage but hesitate to call what I did dancing.
Aloha, Jeff b
Thanks for being such a consistent listener to my radio show, Jeff! “My Walking Stick” sure is a fun song – I’m sorry I missed seeing you dance to it!