George MacDonald

I have read quite a few books this year, but the ones I like the best were written by 19th century author George MacDonald.  Born in 1824 in Scotland, his published works include many books on theology, and collections of his poetry.  He was quoted quite freely by both C.S. Lewis and Neal A. Maxwell, two other of my favorite authors.  But the books I like the most are his works of fiction.  Those who know me best are no doubt wondering what happened to me as my taste in fiction is pretty much restricted to Mark Twain and Charles Dickens.  So far this year I have read five of MacDonald's books, in the order I read them:

1. Phantasties

2. The Light Princess

3. Far Above Rubies

4. There And Back

5. The Princess and the Goblin

I also began to read Lilith, but gave it up after just a few pages.

As you will no doubt recall, the reading of Phantasties was one of the key elements in C.S. Lewis' return to his Christian faith.  That, in fact, was what drew me to MacDonald in the first place - my respect for Lewis and love of his writings, particularly The Great Divorce, in which MacDonald makes an appearance.

I must say, however, that of all the books written by MacDonald I have read so far, Phantasties was my least favorite.  It did not resonate with me, and I often considered it tedious and difficult to follow.  My favorite to date is There And Back, which has an interesting story line and is packed with his theological ideas, which I enjoy.  My next favorite is The Princess and the Goblin, which I just finished.  This is one of those books that you begin reading for the story line, and pretty soon begin thinking, "Hey, I think he is trying to teach me something." There are some great lessons hidden in the story line.  The Light Princess is just a fun little short story.

I have also partially read some of his other books, including Hope of the Gospel and Unspoken Sermons, both of which I found interesting.

So there you have a little of what I have been doing to relax when time affords it.  I recommend you download some of his books (I have quite a collection, all downloaded for free) and try him out.  If you don't like one, try another, and let me know what you think.  As for me, I am off to begin another.

And Finally . . . . . The Cabinets!

I hope you all went back to the first post I published this morning - 7 posts ago - and followed them through in order.  This is the last one.  Last Friday they installed the cabinets and they are just as wonderful as we hoped and planned they would be.  The color is perfect and all the space will be a great blessing.  And there is so much flat space to work on with the island.  It is, as we intended, massive.  It is hard to imagine just how big the kitchen is just by looking at photos, but give your imagination a whirl.  Then come see us sometime after the end of September to see the finished product after the flooring is in.

 The view from the family room, SW to NE.

 The north wall from the west, showing room for the dish washer, sink and much storage.

 Same view from the east, showing the fridge, and all the storage.

 Nice little fold out "pockets" in front of the sink to hide cleaning pads, etc.

 To the right of the sink there are divided drawers that pull out all the way, as well as a nice bread board.

 The east and south walls from the west.

 A little closer shot.

 As seen from the fridge.  This is where the double ovens will go, surrounded by lots of storage space.

 And this is where the gas cooktop will go, with a venting microwave above it.

 And some counter space to the right, between the cooktop and the ovens.

 And here is our favorite pull out spice drawer, with - did I mention - lots of storage space.

 Deep drawers under the cooktop to keep the big pans. And notice that they also pull all the way out.

 A lazy susan with two shelves in the corner.

 The north side of the island.

 On the sink side of the island - pull out, hiding - trash containers.

 The south side of the island, by the ovens.  Notice that pesky yellow electrical cord.  We spent so much time trying to measure it just right and it still ended up out from under the island.

Under the island on the SW corner - and example of the slide out shelving so you don't have to dig back behind everything on your hands and knees.

And that's it for now folks.  As time permits we will post more when we have progress to report on the flooring, the paint, the fireplace, and the carpet.  Stay tuned.

Taping Texturing and Painting

With the arrival of the kitchen cabinets imminent, we had to hustle to get the wallboard ready.  We hired a guy to do the taping and texturing, and he was not as smitten with our sheetrock hanging as we were.  He offered, and we accepted, to finish the few places still needing wallboard, and then taped & textured, including putting on rounded (bullnose) corners.  We love that touch.  He did an excellent job, and it was completed in time for us to get the kitchen painted and get all of the sheathing replaced.  A bunch of it was worn or buckled with water, and a bunch of it had been cut out, so we just put down all new.  Oh yes, we also needed a different height for the wood we will put down later this month.

 A great job taping.  Notice he has a more reasonable sized scaffolding.  That ledge is looking good!

 Even the living room ceiling looks good - as does my little patch job.

 There is that beautiful door again.  The dining room is looking better than it has for ages.

 And there is the kitchen.  They even put wallboard around the under the sink plumbing and made it look as good as all the rest that would be seen.  Notice that you cannot even see where the old door was.

 The other side of the kitchen.  They were kind enough to allow us to leave the refrigerator in the room as long as we wrapped it up good. That was really nice.

 And here is the texturing.  That ledge is looking better all the time, especially with the bullnose finish.

 After the texturing was done we tore up the remaining old particle board and put down 1/2" chip board sheathing.  Except here under the sink where we put "rock board" that should not swell should it get wet.  It is the same thing we have under our tile in both bathrooms.

 A look at the kitchen with the new sheathing and a fresh coat of primer.

 The dining room with new sheathing, and primer.  It is really starting to look like home again.

 A couple of more photos of the dining room from a different angle.

It is nice to have that big glass door in the wall, at least during the daytime.  It really lets in the light, and that is all the light there is for now.

Sheet Rock

With the insulation in, we pressed ahead with all vigor in getting the sheetrock up.  We had a deadline to meet as the cabinets were to be delivered at the end of August.  James & Peter came over on a Saturday and James came back the following Monday and helped again.

 Remember this little wart on the west wall of the living room.  It seems that every day we are surprised at what we put up with for 23 years in this house.  Things we really didn't like but never took the time to fix.

This particular wart was caused by the fact that when the house was built, some 50 years ago, one of the ceiling joists from out in the garage stuck out just 1/2 inch from the wall in the living room.  And rather than sawing it off, the sheetrock guys just rocked over it.

 So as you can see in this photo, I cut around the sheetrock, discovered what the problem was, and cut off the offending piece of wood with my Dremmel multimax. (did I mention how many cool tools I have acquired for this project?)  Then I replaced the sheetrock. We are getting really good at sheetrock fixes.

Peter looking for action.

 James, using my Dremmel to make an even edge on the old sheetrock.

 Peter in action.

 We had a lot of fun that day, with lots of laughing.

 The kitchen with all the wallboard up.

 Not too bad of a job for a bunch of amateurs.

A close-up of our work around the whole house fan.

Insulating

One of the principal elements of the project is to insulate the living room ceiling so that all of our heat and cool doesn't escape through that thin layer between us and the roof in that room.  Especially in the Summer it gets really hot in that room, it having a southern exposure.  Then we also had to replace a bunch of insulation that was removed as other work was being done.  Fortunately we had a lot of help.

 A couple of "before" photos, looking up into the attic from the entry way.

 All done except the living room ceiling.  Starting to look good.

 And speaking of looking good . . . . . here is some of the help I had.  For working on this ceiling I rented a couple of pieces of scaffolding, one 3' and another 5'+. Peter is standing on the lower one, with the insulation bundle on the higher one.  This scaffolding beat using ladders all to pieces, and made hanging the sheetrock on this ceiling possible. It was worth every penny.

 And here is James on the high one putting up the insulation in the highest point of the ceiling.  In spite of what others might think, one gets the feeling that one is way up in the air standing up there.

 The finished product.  Aren't they good?  You can even see the sheetrock already on the ledge on the left.

 Here is a good shot of the living room ceiling, with the scaffolding in the foreground (bottom) of the photo.

Also, if you look closely you can see where we will hang the ceiling fan in the middle of the room.

 The entry way.

 The kitchen.  See how nicely the ceiling looks without part of it hanging down?

And finally, where the door used to be.  That Jerry Quist did a great job of forming this up.