Neither Quick Nor Easy

But so is the way of progress. Finally. Since the weather started to cool off, I've dived back into the staining of the wood. Right now, there is only one coat on the window frame and on the doorway, but that's 20% done! At least with these two items. I'm anticipating that both the window and door will be done by the end of the weekend.

There's a white strip in the left-hand window frame (that's not a picture of it, so don't worry if you can't see it), and we can't figure out if this was just a non-stainable wood filler or if somebody decided to fill the crack in the wood with plaster. Don't laugh. We've already had to chip plenty of plaster out of the kitchen door frame, so it's a definite possibility. There was also some flexible caulk like what you would use on a tub or a sink filling a larger crack in the frame. I'd like to call these creative solutions, but the part of me that's got a stick up my ass is still a little stunned that anyone would cut a corner like that with such a beautiful piece of wood. Anyway, I haven't figured out what to do about the white vein in the frame, but the lazy part of me that thinks I'm too rigid has seriously considered using nail polish. What this really tells me is that I have a bit of research to do before addressing this problem because I strongly suspect that beauty products are not the answer.

Here's a picture of mr. flyskim (left) starting the kitchen door at the header. We stopped after this piece was done to remove the last of the paint from the cracks where the parts of the doorway were joined. On the right is the doorway with its first coat of stain completed. When both the window frame and the doorway are done, I can prime and paint the windows themselves. We'll probably also make a trip to Rejuvenation Hardware this weekend to pick up new window rope and weights and new hardware. It'll be a joy to have both of the double hung windows in proper working order. We've been propping the left one open with a volume of Shakespeare's collected works almost since we bought the house three years ago.

And even though the heat officially broke a week ago, it didn't become really livable until yesterday. Over the weekend, it was still all belly, all the time. That, and looks of pure misery and hatred because, you know, the hot weather was all our faults. But now that everyone has cooled off, things are getting back to normal with the exception of a slight escalation in the ongoing kitty domination war to make up for lost time.