Labor Day = much actual labor

Having a whole four days off together seemed like the perfect time to invite parents and friends up for a weekend of work and play. The rub, though, was that it was floor-refinishing weekend.

The advantage of the cottage not having been touched in years means there are incredible bones to work with. The disadvantage is what we discovered about some of those bones. The living room and alcove floors, having lived under the previously-mentioned carpet for too long, were in decent shape and "only" needed an entire day of R going bucky on them with a rented padded sander. The kitchen and the bedrooms? They were a whole other story. Layers and layers of red, brown, gold, blue, and turquoise paint, plus tar underneath the linoleum layers, gave us a giant run for our money.

You know the old adage "measure twice, cut once"? It should be "x 100" when your house is on an island and the nearest hardware store is a ferry ride and then 10 miles away. The sander we'd rented just wasn't doing the trick, and was making R want to tear out her beautiful head of hair. So, Saturday morning, we woke up at 6:15, took the first ferry back to Bellingham, and were back at the cottage by 9am, with a totally intense drum sander.

While sanders were going in each bedroom, and hand sanders, too, N and T were sweet enough to tackle massive honey locus offshoot weeds in the backyard. In the pouring rain. Yes, they are amazing.

After a hard day's work, we hit the town for burgers and beer at the Beach Store Cafe (you can't even believe the deliciousness of this food!), and the next morning, we feasted on a crab and veggie scramble on the front porch, the crab courtesy of a neighbor's generosity, and marveled at our stunning adventure. Labor Day weekend resulted in excellent progress!

August, they're right about you

Taking advantage of a vacation cottage that's only two hours away is predicated upon actually having days off to do so. For me, that means weekends. For R, it's a little more complicated. If one week, she works Friday, the next week, she'll work Saturday, and the week after that, it'll be Sunday. August was such a month, cruel 'til the end, which meant we were only able to come up together one time. That was the weekend I'll fondly remember as Prep-The-Crap-Out-Of-The-Living-Room-Walls (three days), then Prime-and-Paint them (three hours). It was also the weekend I discovered muscles I didn't know I had, while vacuuming the 10' ceiling from the top of a ladder, sanding and TSP-ing every inch, and making a well-informed decision on a lovely Atrium White, selected from four minutely- but significantly-different whites. I also discovered that among R's infinitely amazing qualities, she's a rockstar with a caulk gun. Possessed, in fact.

Bye-bye, gross wood paneling! Thanks, excellent super-sticky Daly's primer!

As a matter of fact, they are different!

The rest of the month, R took advantage of a couple of four-day breaks during the week to finish painting the living room, and to get ready for our next adventure: Labor Day weekend.