A True Money Pit

The Geometry of Two Barns, 2006, Oil on Panel, 12x16






Not much to report today. I didn't work on the large panels Tuesday as they weren't quite dry from the previous day's layer. I spent most of the afternoon putting the color down on a few more pieces, some of which may go in this show as they turned out nicely.

Naturally, because I am getting close to the frantic stage of trying to get everything done by this weekend, this also happened to be the week that our friend and contractor, Steve, sent his crew to fix our ailing front porch. We knew the roof was bad because parts of it were usually on the ground after a good rainstorm, but also the ceiling was sagging downwards, the front corner was listing to the left and just for fun I thought it would be really nice to have a few lights out there, not to mention an electrical outlet. They were also going to replace the support posts underneath the floor while keeping the existing floor structure and posts intact. However, when they removed the siding and looked at the structure underneath, they discovered that what I had thought was simply piles of bricks, wood scraps and cinderblocks left by the somewhat eccentric old farmer who used to own the house, was in fact what was supporting the entire porch. Great. Then we realized that the existing turned wood posts (you can see one of them on the lawn in the photo below) look really stupid on our classic two hundred year old farmhouse. So everything except the frame of the roof has been removed and we will get a shiny (and plumb) new porch with lighting! and a bill next week that is nearly twice as much as we had expected.

Can't wait until we get that exterior painted next spring. Who knows what they'll find when they scrape the paint off and how much that will cost us....