More plaster; more casing. Shares needed.

Photo copyright Aji, 2017; all rights reserved.

I hate weeks like this, when I have no time to do my own work and the days are nothing but a long series of interruptions. Also, migraines. None of that will change before Friday, unfortunately, if then; I have my fingers crossed, because I really need to get some work done this weekend.

We were back to a full crew today, but given that the plasterwork was confined to the two very small rooms (bath and utility room), it was silly to try to fit three people in them. So Clarence took the lead on the plasterwork, with Carlos helping him, and they got the bath finished and three walls of the utility room done. That's the north wall, looking upward; the work around the vigas is amazingly clean.

Tony, meanwhile, with his many power and table saws, went upstairs to do more casing work on the windows.

Photo copyright Aji, 2017; all rights reserved.

Most of it was just cutting and sanding the wood and setting the sills loosely in the windows. They'll be tacked into place once I get the painting done. The upstairs bath, however, is completely painted (except for the ceiling touch-up once it's tiled), and so he was able to do this:

Photo copyright Aji, 2017; all rights reserved.

I had to take this late in the day, so the light makes it difficult to see, but that window is fully cased, with a complete sill at the bottom. It's beautiful.

They'll start the second coat of plaster next week, and Tony will be able to finalize the upstairs casing in our bedroom, although the rest of the upstairs will be a couple of weeks out yet. With regard to the former, it turns out that we'll only need a second coat; they're doing a float finish, not a slick one (more traditional adobe texture, in other words), which saves us a lot of time and money both. If Clarence remembers to bring the samples tomorrow, we'll choose the color, and see about getting the mica, and very soon it's going to look very different: smooth but with depth, and much warmer.

In the meantime, I have to start plotting out what we can get and when for the next stages. They can't install the plumbing fixtures without the flooring going in, and while we've already got it for the upstairs bath, we'll need it for downstairs (and for the kitchen and utility room). Then, of course, there's everything the kitchen needs: appliances, sink, cabinetry. And there's flooring for everything else, although that part is a few weeks out yet even in the best-case scenario. We're not sure yet whether we can get the water heater through Lowe's; we may very well have to go through someone else, which frees up the Lowe's cards for the other stuff, but I don't have a good fix yet on the what and when. And nothing happens without the septic system, but that's going to be a long haul, raising that kind of money. So we still need consistent shares:

• Wings's PayPal account, for donations to the house fund. [My best estimate on what's been raised so far on this $30K stage is $7,500, leaving a balance yet to raise of $22,500. $7K+ of that is going to have to be reserved for the septic, and labor's ating us alive on the daily, so that's going to mean a lot of juggling.] If that link doesn't work, it's tied to his e-mail address: wingsoftaos [at] newmex [dot] com. Also, that link? It's a direct one now, rather than via the "Donate" button, so it should work better.
• His Web site, for sales (always preferable, and the base upon which the whole project hinges anyway, along with paying our day-to-day living expenses) — and just by the way, he's got some really incredible new works up now.
• Our Amazon wishlist, which contains Lowe's cards that will allow us to purchase some materials more cheaply than here in town, and also allow us to divert the extra funds to labor costs.

Tomorrow and Thursday are likely to be at least as screwy as the last two days, so folks should just expect to see me when you see me. Probably at 10:00 at night again. For now, as I said last night, all of you who have helped us so very much have our love and gratitude.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2017; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.