11/7/2006

Went to vote. Looks like the Democrats have swept the house and senate as well as many offices in OH, which means we will have a Democrat for the new Governor of Ohio come January.

This was meeting day for the monitoring group which consisted of Kathy Siemens, Claude Luke, Jon Smith, and I. We brainstormed the radon issue. It was decided that the 4 inch radon tube under the floors will connect to a vertical pipe in the unused SE chimney. Due to a fire in 1956 before we bought the farm the chimney was damaged by excessive heat. Thus it has not been used since I came here in 1957.

The front portico steps were put back in place. Good job in lining them up by Derrick and the skid steer.

French drain trench is totally filled in today. Troy Migli and I cut a live white ash tree to replace the 8 by 8 inch by 11 foot timber in the wood and coal house and corncrib. Our meeting went well today. Drainage digging at the barn was decided on as the course of action to drain the downspouts from the main barn. The barn survived the vertical fall of 3 feet 9 inches well but the milkhouse was damaged more. The brick mason was here today and got busy replacing brick on the outside of the house and summer kitchen – about 100 of them. The inside bricks will be replaced by ARC people before plastering.

Floyd Simpson

11/8/2006

All of the trenching at the barn for the downspouts has been completed and seeded with straw covering. Some of the front of the house yard was also seeded. More leveling of the filled in trench around the house for the French drain was done. Silveo, the stone mason came and started work on the stone basement steps. Tom Anderson (ARC) and Blain came out to inspect the progress with Jon Smith leading them through the house, etc. Silveo and his helper who is also an accomplished stone mason are hard at work taking out the massive entrance stone that was pulled out of line by the Hughes Corp. people when they put steel bands around the foundation of the house prior to mining. Troy Migli and I cut the ash tree into logs that will be taken to the sawmill to make the uprights in the two outbuildings. We had to spend considerable time in clean them up as the big ash tree fell on the field road through the woods. Amanda and Jon Smith worked late on the “scratch coat” of plaster that goes on over the exposed brick in the NE parlor. After the scratch coat a burlap coat is put on and plastered into the first coat. Then a finish coat of very smooth plaster is put on last to make the final coat. Houses of this era had this three coat of plaster technique and since this house is on the National Register of Historic Places it is being restored as per historic methods. In this day of modern house building a single plaster board is put over the studs and it is taped between sections of wall board, painted with a thin plaster like mixture which hardens quickly and then sanded to make a smooth wall when painted. The modern method is quick and appealing to the eye but it is the accumulated science of the old system. A close look at the modern wall board or plaster board will reveal three separate systems too. The plaster is simply sandwiched between two paper like coverings with the “finish” coat of paper on the domestic side.

The ceiling of the parlor room is hard work as they are about 10 feet high. Amanda has done most of the scratch coat today, this is hard work but little Amanda seems not to mind the height or the tedious job.

The basement fan is running all the time, the constant readout meter shows a decrease from 4.4 to 2.1.

Floyd Simpson