Summer action

I have been trying to find the occasion to write what we have done, small and big, but time always fly away. 

At least today, I manage to make concrete the attempt to document some of our minor efforts during the summer.

Some of the small things we have manage to do have been in the pipeline forever. It feels as the whole past year has been sucked up into work and kids and our own logistic/activities without leaving much space for anything else. Also the energy has been limited. 

There is much more that has happened in the last months, so I hope I will manage to catch up in the future to summarize things that I would like to have documented, from both small and bigger house projects of all kind.

1) 

I sadly do not remember why but clips that were holding some cables in the basement fell off. I then asked to try to find news ones, but what I got was not exactly the same product, was some metall hook for fences, as far as I understood.

I then tried to fix these new hooks to hold the cables, but that didn't turn out to be perfect as it was very hard to hammer them into the ceiling and I manage to create more work for me to fix. Holes that will need some adjustment. 

The ceiling, the cables and the holes

2) There have been a lot of small issues with a couple of doors/locks/keyholes. I still have one to fix that has been wrong since we bought the house and probably for decades. But I have put some effort in trying to fix (again) the keyhole for the pentry door. The holes have been just made into the void, basically and the screws have been not manage to get a proper grip. I have now tried to fix it with some linseed putty, with the hope that when it gets hard it actually holds everything together and not that it becomes to brittle and fall aparts again.

The keyhole with the putty

After being "repaired"

Similarly, I repaired also the bathroom door. Also there, one of the screws couldn't get a grip and seems that has been just poorly placed. A bit annoying as this was done by some pro and I would hope that when you pay for something (and not cheaply at all), it would actually give you some insurance on the quality.

Anyway, I removed all the parts of the handle and then I applied once again linseed putty hoping that it will also hold things in place.

The injured wood

I put the putty in the previous holes

I put back things and I am hoping for the best :)

3) As summer is summer, there are also a lot of outdoor projects ongoing, mostly a general maintenance of the garden.

Being inspired by some neighbours with some similar system, I have invested in an automatic sun driven watering system to be used when we are away (and even when we are not).

I also got some old barrel that I have then oiled with linseed oil and filled with water.

The barrel

The sundriven watering system

The system set up for test

I have still to set it up actually properly, to be able to water the plants and so on. It will require me to cut the little pipe and puzzle it together in a smart way. But I want to move the barrel closer to the pump so that it is also less in the way with all the piping.

4) Finally, earlier during summer I had the chance to check the roof as part of the two-years inspection after we painting it. When doing so, I noticed that there was literally all sort of things on the gutters.

Especially before autumn, it will be great to have the regular task of cleaning them out. If they are stuffed, the rain will just overflow with the risk of causing damage to the house structure instead.

Mattias jousts on a long ladder for cleaning a gutter

Also this is not a trivial activity as for reaching some parts you really need to be safe and sound on a ladder. But work is in progress at least!
 

90% done on the roof

We are finally almost landing, after the metal sheet reparation, with the painting of the roof project.
Of course, not everything can always go smooth, but at this point in time we seldom expect that of any house project we start.

Hopefully in August the final touches will be handled to complete the operation. This means some base color for the balcony windows metal, some extra layer on a gutter which had been painted of the wrong color and some finishing where scratches and marks have been left.
Sadly, not everything will be patched (like a scratch on one of the windows that I have renovated few years ago) as of course we enter a dispute with the contractor and we know how these discussions go.
Pity that I had just asked to be on the lift to fix it myself, rather than go through the uncomfortable tunnel in the roof on Oscar's room.

We are back in washing the roof for preparing the painting

Also as a surprise, our contractor came in company of other coworkers, which we had told him clearly it was not our wish. We have had a deal with him and we wanted him to pursue our job.

Of course he wanted to get it done, so he didn't care about that and I must admit, of the three, he was definitely the best one in painting. 

So now the result is uneven to expert eyes as mine have grown to be.

Spectacular with the high pressure water

This contractor has turned to be quite tricky with the terms of the contract and we have had already quite juicy and long mail discussions about charging the trip to Stockholm to pick up a special high pressure water machine, which was nowhere to be mentioned in the contract.

For not mentioning that some parts (like gutters) are above the roof foot and instead he had been not included them (despite us pinpointing them in the color schema we had done).

One of the windows shade has the right color

One day they didn't come because it was too warm to paint. The last day they painted it was the warmest of them all and, despite the temperature, they were there painting.

I guess all the rules are changed depending on the convenience.

Of course it is hard to check carefully the quality of the painting from the ground. But in some cases I managed to have a quick inspection and I will demand a final inspection before we let him go. 

First layer. Not exactly a masterpiece. Too thick and too sloppy in certain points.

After some remark, I saw him doing some adjustments but well, again, it is simply not easy to check everything without being there close by. 

The most impressive change of them all is the tower. We really believe this is the most appropriate shade for it according to the pictures and the findings. 

The tower is being painted.

There, now it looks more genuine with this dark shade of green

I am eager to close this chapter as this has turned out slightly more sour than I would have wished.

Just been painting

The last couple of weeks I have been painting a lot.
Possibly to compensate what I haven't painted (and should) in the past months.
Anyway, the focus has been the gutters & co, using of course linseed paint. I must confess that this was quite fast when done in the basement and satisfactory considering the decent result.

It looks like an armor

 A good amount of parts to try to make sense of

What to paint, gutters, some of the roof metal work and downpipes

As usual we complicated a bit our lives, but in this sense we needed to have the same colors as the house also on the pool house (well, need. I am not sure anyone will check, but I think it makes sense to have some coherence).

We chose "Aluzink" as metal this time, to try it out, because generally cheap and because it should be also rust resistant on its own.
So, for our case it actually fixed some of the problems we had.

Painting is ongoing

I really like the finish look

Just get done one after another..

This roof foot became a little bit too thick, but as it is under the tiles it is not as important.

And as often, the white is not actually easy at all. I am going to need many layers!

It took me a while to get this "done", as once mounted of course there were some scratches and I hadn't painted with a layer everything, because I thought it was not going to be used, plus, everything occurred much faster than I have planned for...(again the contractors timeplan didn't match mine and that was not really communicated so that I could speed up the drying of my painting...)

Now, there, everything is mounted. I just need to paint a lot!

Again painting in white has been quite time consuming, as it didn't really cover properly (in reality I need to retouch some green part because I have been a bit sloppy.

There, we are getting close to the final result.

An updated tower

When the work for painting the metal on the roof started last year, casually, some "older" metal suffered of the powerful washing that was performed. Well, in theory that is just a mere coincidence, but we are rather convinced that the reason why some serious holes appeared was surely not just because it was time...

Nevertheless, since our idea was to have metal sheets in titan (rheinzink), we agreed with the plater that we would have to wait this spring to have the work done, once because of course they were occupied but also because the rheinzink can be worked only when the temperature is over 10 degrees.

The metal was patched by the roof painter for surviving the winter. 

We booked so that they'd come in June and so they did. They remove most of the old metal and while I confirmed that they were going to use rheinzink, they stated that they were going to use, to my total surprise, galvanized metal.
Galvanized metal is not to be recommended to be used anymore, the roof experts say, as the passivation layer make the surface too perfect for being painted.
But this is nothing strange with the contractors. You agree on one thing and it turned out to be what they want.

"Cultural" metal sheets

Before having something we really don't want, I managed to suggest to use "cultural" metal sheets, which is metal sheet that has a prepainted layer at production. 

Luckily, not only they agreed with this and they had the material in their shed, so that is what it should be.

The point of the tower, between the roof and it, where the metal needed to be changed

Eventually, everything was done and the work concluded.
So, now the roof should last with this patch even longer (I wonder why the first roof company didn't fix it).

The metal patched seen from above.

Painting in different formats

Metal sheet and windows are usually among our favorite subjects when we want to "show off" how much we know about how to handle such things in old houses. Not that we can really compete with the real experts, but at least we can pretend to.

As we started the painting of the metal sheet in the roof this summer, we have seen some progresses.
We have got all the base paint done (well, almost, some details have casually got out of the plan) and a first layer of paint all around the cornice plus some details in the other shade of green.

Around the window it is dark green, while the cornice is lighter

As we have found out when going arond the roof last time, the cornice should have a stripe of pale yellow on the lower part. But I guess the exakt right color for the exterior of the house can ben analyzed for the next round of paint in 10 years time.

This is not the only painting that is getting partially done! This summer for some completely weird reason I haven't managed to make big progresses on the painting of the windows. Despite the good weather. I can only blame myself to it. I don't know where time has flied.
Anyway, since it was already more than a year that on a window in the attic the windowsill was missing because the frame was rotten and we had to remove it all, I thought it was about time to avoid getting more water in the walls, considering the autumn is usually a very mild season (no storms, no violent rain, no wind.... or rather, the opposite).

Mattias is studying the situation and trying to understand what to do

The first thing we did was getting the plaster under the metal. When we removed the plate, half of it went off.
Then, I took care of do some rust protection procedure for some rusty spot of the metal and Mattias finally had the chance to have few months for planning when to hammer all together.

High concentration for making this job right

I then took occasion, while he was hammering the metal, to paint the outside part of the frame on the other window. After all, it is just two years that that window has been missing and maybe it would be good to have it fixed before winter comes.

There still a layer to go and I have still to fix the inner part of the frame (and the window, of course)

When the hammering was over, I painted the first layer of rust protection on the new mounted metal. Next step is the next layer plus painting the first real layer of paint on the outer frame.

The day was possibly on the very tail of summer

Now, one has just to find few days in a row where it doesn't rain too much...

Being a doctor to the house!

As a owner of an old house, one has to learn to take care of it in the "right way" (especially, in our case, the right way can be a bit complicated).
Now, the most interesting one is related to the garage doors. The garage doors project is a very good example of an eternal one (still details need to be refined, although this summer I spent some time painting minor parts, including the new irons).
The frames are landing on the ground and thanks to that they absorb humidity and they are slightly rotten on the bottom.

Linseed oil injection for the door frame

For taking care of them, a hole have been drilled on the side and I am on a daily base injecting linseed, so that the wood get saturated of it and will not absorb anymore the humidity from the ground. 

I just wonder if I am doing right. The oil comes out of the holes when I am pushing it in (I guess it means I have filled it..) and I wonder how long I am going to do this. The wood has to stop to suck the oil in. 

I am waiting from a notification from the door frame...

Since we are on the garage doors topic, I will follow up on my trip to the blacksmith, which was (finally) fruitful. 

Not only I got fixed a minor detail on a candelabrum, but I eventually got fixed also the handles of the garage door. With how much they cost, I could have probably bought 3-4 of them, second hand, but I thought it was worthy to think that these were the handles that all the owners of our house had held when opening the garage. 

Maybe I should be more cost oriented and less nostalgic?

Internal side of the door

External side of the door

What is missing?
First of all the plates to have around he handle and the key hole.
As we have had the carpenter adjusting the lock plate and adding some rings to the irons, since the doors were not aligned, I have also that minor painting to do.

The final healing procedure is related to the metal in the roof. As we have started the painting project, of course we have got some water leak that has made some nice humidity stain appear just above the piano and has made a minor mess in the tower room.
I am not sure I can state it is a coincidence that we have had someone on the roof and all of a sudden (although he has swore he didn't wash that metal since it looked rusty) we get a water leak, but indipendently of his action the metal is not in the best state ever.
This of course was completely invisible 3 years ago when we did the roof renovation... right!?
For once I will not try to hunt down our roof company, as we have had already plenty of discussions with them at the time of the work.

It is hard to see from the pic, but there are a lot of small holes.

The rubber mass that has been sed for protecting the metal has started to get loose

More on the bad state

Today there will be a plater (plåtslagare) coming by and check this out. I know this is not going to be a smooth operation.

Since he is here, I will also ask him to check the possibility to do the fitting for the eaves for the pool house. We want to have it in aluzink (so it should be easier to paint) but there is not available from the producers. 

I am a bit concerned in having two companies working with the metal there, although it is a minor project and I would prefer to have just one (and the more competent one on the matter).

Let's see...

Just a minor hole in a very peculiar corner, not sure this is a culprit to the water leakage

Roof and night tables

During these months in which I have down prioritize the blog, we have managed to buy quite some furniture. Finally the house is doesn't feel too empty and even the walls are not suffering any longer of being completely empty and abandoned.
We have even eventually changed Oscar's bed from a crib to a loooong bed.

Jugend bed matching Lightning McQueen blanket 

The bed is a typical cast iron Jugend bed. Sadly some of the small balls decorating the bed were missing and I have asked the blacksmith to fix some. He did, but now I have not yet fixed the color of them. They should be golden as in brass, but they are of course in iron.
Anyway. Next to the bed there is finally a "proper" night table. Before that there was a white office style drawer that Mattias had in his student dorm. Practical but not really matching the style of the room (I bet Oscar did care a lot about that detail).
I am still excelling in taking pictures, so the one above doesn't do justice to the bed and neither the night table.

Oscar's brand new night table

Improvements can be done at any time, but let's start with this and hope he will manage to open the night table drawer and the door without making everything falling on the ground.

The night table has a matching "little sister", which has been given to Oscar's big sister.  

Isabella's nighttable

Isabella's room is coming together. At her desk we see also a chair that has been "recently" bought. I have found out that that is a chair from IKEA, from the 60s, from the Desiree' serie (more info can be found here

Isabella's room

While we still try to fix the interior of the house (and furniture is just one of the issues, of course), we have minor and major projects outside (as already mentioned). 

We are back on one of our favorite subject. The roof. 

When we did the roof renovation we wanted to have all the metal (plåt) painted with linseed oil. 

That didn't work out as the company we hired for the work was not exactly up to the job. 

We then eventually found a pro for this kind of jobs and after two years he has finally had the opportunity to scheduled our roof.

It took anyway a while to start, but now at least there are progresses.

The tower is getting properly washed

I think I take better pictures when we talk roofs and such

After washing the metal, there is a base layer of color to put. Hopefully, we won't have the roof looking like this before the humidity in the air increases and then it is not possible to paint any longer.

The tower is getting refreshed

Standing on the top of the house (almost)

I find it fascinating to go close to the roof and see a lot of details that otherwise are invisible (or less visible).

The cornice is not exactly straight. But it seems by design (for letting the water reach the down pipes)

The old metal is of course not in top notch shape. That is also a reason to paint it. Not just because I am crazy and want to have specific color everywhere.
By looking so close to the metal, I have had also the opportunity to study a bit the old color. From the pictures it is of course impossible to identify the variations and except knowing that before 1976 (when the Svenssons bought the house) there was a roof with clay tiles where the metal was brown and whitish, we have no much clue how the roof was originally. Except, it seems that the tiles were the same as in 1958 (so the clay ones).

A detail from the metal that is most likely original in the house

Our attempt to have two shades of green to have the same variation as in the pictures from 1909 is not that wrong. However, as the roof foot was pale yellow, it seems that also the cornice was having the metal pale yellow.
But not all the way up! At the certain level you can see that the deeper layers are a darker green.
Interesting and also a bit frustrating. I would have loved to have the roof with the right colors (and tiles) that the house had 1906.
If I live long enough to go through another roof renovation, I will try that reconstruction (I will probably be too senile for it!)