We took advantage of today’s unseasonably warm weather to check off a few items off of our to do list…

Kelly put another coat of poly on the back steps.

And another coat on the deck threshold.

And while we had the door down, we repaired more of the rot on the deck door. It was starting to go when we bought the house – since then we dutched in new wood in the worst areas… So today we applied a wood hardener epoxy to the rest of the original rotted wood. Then once the epoxy set up we filled the divots in the door with wood filler… Still to come sanding and painting.

Then in the basement we started to build the wall that will separate the shop from the rest of the basement.

But like all projects, there is always little additional things that come up along the way… And in this case a big little thing… As I was laying out the wall next to the gas meter, I smelled a faint scent of gas. Upon further inspection, with the help of some soapy water, I found a fitting that had the smallest little leak that probably has been leaking for years! Well the only way to fix it correctly was to take apart the connections, which in this case actually required us to demount the gas meter, redope the pipes and put them all back together… Not a quick task.

Ok back to the task at hand. We attacked the pressure treated base plates to the concrete with tap cons using a hammer drill from the tool library.

Cut the edge of the existing bead board wall to straighten it and installed a new post at the end of the wall.

Then we started putting up studs in the other side of a door opening. You can see it is going to be a double stud wall for a sliding pocket door… More to come.

And lastly for the day, Kelly put the last coat of poly on the steps & threshold… Finally done!

Many thin coats works best with polyurethane and this is a special UV & Water resistant exterior poly. The interior stuff just won’t hold up. Whew, what a day!