Thursday, December 31, 2009

Oooh Baby It's Cold Outside

Happy New Year to all.  I'm in the cold clutches of New England for the holidays.  Right now it's snowing again - between the 14 inches we got just before Christmas while Carol was here, the 8 inches we got while I was up in Vermont with my son, and now, back in Connecticut, we're getting a few additional inches of the white stuff....I've just about had my fill and I am longing for Ocracoke's balmy 40's.  It's been mostly in the teens and twentys, but I did see (feel) a touch of below zero in Vermont, just to remind me of what that's like.

My brother and I went to look at a job this morning - building a screen porch onto a house we built many years ago for my good friends Ed and Shirley - My Favorite Customers Of All Time. (Marcy and Lou, you are a very very close second and I hope you-all will get to meet in March).  We are looking at getting the job started in pretty short order and questioning how deep the frost is relative to getting a backhoe in to dig for footings....a different set of questions than we ask in Ocracoke, eh?

We do have a historic project going here as well - it's funded by the State of CT Historic Commission and involves restoring the roof structure of an old two-story building that has been community owned - something like a grange hall- for over 150 years.  As our Ocracoke project is, this is done to Dept. of Interior Specifications, but this one involves also an architect and an engineer who jointly wrote the specs...and way way over engineered the structure.  But, what to say?  On behalf of the guys who built it originally, we have gotten a few laughs over the extensive engineering language specifying the modulus of elasticity/bending strength required for the oak pegs!

Our guys have been starting in the mornings by chipping ice off the scaffolding and ladders.  I have to say I don't miss that, but I have to admit that I do miss this old New England architecture.

See you soon.

5 comments:

  1. Where in Connecticut are you doing this project? I'm a Connecticut resident who's been following this blog (from a link provided, I believe, by Phillip Howard on his Ocracoke blog)-- and was struck by this entry. Good luck on both of you projects! Too bad it snowed again today.

    Happy New Year from CT!

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  2. It's the Eastford Union Society Building in... Eastford. Northeast corner, aka "The Quiet Corner". It's a beautiful area - maybe you know it?

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  3. I know it slightly; I used to work in Tolland. It must be beautiful!

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  4. Just checking in on the project... it is sure great to see Granny and Pop's house being restored to original conditions. Pop told me lots of stories about the building of the house and Granny told me a lot about things that happened over the years. You truly have a special place.

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  5. Hey Joan, check out my latest post - we're making progress. We'd love to hear some of those stories...if you are ever around be sure to stop in.

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