It was back to work this week, so our progress has slowed considerably. Renovations of this magnitude take 500+ hours, so that means at least a year of Saturday afternoons with two of us. Today, we started by scouring a local lumberyard's going out of business sale. We scored 2 sheets of 1/8" bendable birch (hard to find), and 1 sheet of regular 1/8" birch. We'll need more but this is a good start at a great price. Our best deal was 3 full sheets of 3/4" douglas fir marine plywood for $17.50 each (usually $70+).
Jack spent the rest of the afternoon removing flooring in hard to reach spaces, grinding off screws (check out the sparks!), 
and jacking up the roof beams to allow the new flooring to be slipped under the outside stud wall. As with all renovation projects, it is definitely harder than it looks! 
Success!! Replacing the floor is such a huge job. We will be very happy when we are on the other side of that part of the project.
Meanwhile, I worked on the front picture window. It was covered with years of grime, moss, and aluminum oxidation. The tracks were full of insect webs and other yucky stuff. 
I used my power broom ($2.50 blow gun on large air compressor) to blow all the crud out of tight spaces. Speed Ball (cleaner that will take the skin off your hands if you don't wear gloves) and scrub brush took the grime off the glass and aluminum. I used SOS pads and wet dry sandpaper to remove the oxidation and polish the aluminum parts, and then finished the whole thing with Windex.
Now, it looks like this:
One down, eight to go. Now that I have a process, hopefully it will go faster.
One down, eight to go. Now that I have a process, hopefully it will go faster.
I didn't go after the exterior window oxidation yet. That will have to wait until the inside is farther along. With any of these *small* tasks, we find ourselves having to draw the "where to stop" line.
