It's been a while I know

Hi all!
It's been a while and I bet you are wondering if the house fell on me or something. The answer is no, but the last year has been full of surprises that come with being a new Dad. I'm working on many new stories for you and am planning to expand the scope of this blog to include the house of course, family, cooking......all the stories of a broken down cottage in Connecticut.

A New Construction.

My wife Tina and I have started a new construction. The foundation is laid and the framing and plumbing are in the works. Ok it's sort of a modular and it's being delivered on or about July 10th.

Yes, him again. Mr John K. Rupp

To preface this story Mr John K. Rupp loves to give lessons, he was a teacher to young apprentices and I'm sure some of them have found twelve step programs by now. His favorite lesson is "controlled demolition" with emphasis on control. I apparently haven't learned this skill because all I have to do is look at a saws-all and boy do I get a lesson. "Oh, Wendell you sure do love that saw, remember it's CON-trooolled demolition". Then we usually wrestle for control of my beauty, I mean saw.

As you maybe understanding my greatest foil in this home renovation is my father-in-law. I love to poke at him and he is a pain in the ass. However, I do have to give the man his do. From day one he has been by my side or more accurately on my back pushing my wife and I forward. Dear old father-in-law is a mule head and a few other choice adjectives, but he slept on a blow up mattress in a gutted room with little heat for weeks to finish what he started. It's really surprising he still signs of all his emails to me Dad. For all he's done he has my undying gratitude. If you are reading this post oh father-in-law, I did see what you did with the saws-all in the bedroom and you cheat at rummy.

See you next weekend? Ah, Dad.

Blog from the beyond

There is a place in every home that is special, in my house it's the crawl space. In fact that's where I am now. It's really a safe place despite the possible asbestos, 12 inch clearance, broken shards of glass and rusty steel. All I needed was a really long extension cord and ahhh a happy place. Why am I happy in this dusty universe, because I guarantee  no one is coming in here to get me. Certainly not my wife and Mr John K. Rupp carpenter extraordinaire is too "husky" to crawl in after me. The first day I went into this black hole he gave me a military folding shovel and a flashlight and asked me to get in there and find charlie.... I mean the bathroom cold water pipe. I was perplexed as to why I wasn't issued a side arm as well, but thought better of a long discussion. After digging through 20 feet of dirt, debris and injuring my rotator cuff I found it. Not the pipe, but nirvana. I realized when my father-in-law asked me how it was going I could reply, "still digging". All the while I could relax in casket like comfort. Who knew? 

I will have to say you can learn a lot about a house in here. View structures not seen since the flooring was laid. All this house's faults and victories are under here and so are mine. Come in and join me. Bring beer please.

We made This Old House!

The January/February 2009 issue of This Old House stars yours truly. My wife Tina and I did a series of shots for the magazine. It was very glamorous especially me stacking this cord of wood shown above. Our old house is coming along very nicely and so are my grey hairs.

Here I am planting a tree near our newly completed bathroom in the background.

Look at me I'm modeling. I must confess a considerable amount of retouching went into getting rid of my horribly hammered fingernail.

April 21st,2008

Hello cute house on a salt marsh somewhere in Connecticut. Cute. Norman Bates' had a cute house on a hill too. It contained a few less surprises than did our home. By ours I mean my wife Tina, at least she is as of this post date. I know you've heard this before, but if your relationship can survive a total renovation or restoration you and insects will survive WWIII.

I don't mean to sound so negative, but gallows humor is a natural when it come to total home renovation of this level. This of course is aided by the fact I work side by side with my father-in-law, Mr John K Rupp. My father-in-law a native of South Jersey is a 35 year plus union carpenter and building inspector. If I do something wrong I hear about it first from father-in-law side, then the carpenter side and finally the inspector side. He usually works close enough to me to see what I am doing wrong and then waits ten minutes to tell me for effect.  I hear it now "ahhh Wendell what did you do now?" followed by my eyes rolling back in my head then hearing "this is how I'd have done it". Then I smile really big and say "thank you for showing me my error, I am so glad you are here". In my happy place inside my head where no one can hear, that's a different language all together. I will of course be introducing other cast members in future entries. No one is safe here including myself.

Why am I writing this blog? Maybe it's therapy.