It seems like we haven’t been doing anything when we haven’t posted a blog. Normally there’s always time to sit down and write about what we’ve been doing and what we hope that you would be doing: having fun, exercising and getting outside.

Right now we’re in Portland working on Daniel’s new house, rather his new old house, which was built in 1888. But before we get into the remodel in Portland let’s just tell you that we had a busy week just before leaving for Portland. Week before last Stanna’s brother David and his wife Pam came down from Denver. The weather cleared enough for us to do a great 5-mile hike right in one of Durango’s mountain parks. As you can see “Durango records wettest May on record” so it wasn’t possible to get out much at all.

Besides catching up with news about their family, grand-babies and recent wedding adding a fourth spouse to their five grown children, David & Pam took home some of our purged loot. Best of all is  knowing the 60-pound dish-packed box of Beekley China will have a home at their cabin in Estes Park.

First on our agenda in Oregon, before tackling the house remodel, was catching up with Polecat.  Don & Janice just happened to roll their only home into a Portland state park the day before we arrived.  We all had to get out, even in the rain, so we hiked a popular Multnomah Falls Loop trail.  They had eyed a fresh fish market earlier and hoped the skies would clear long enough for a fresh salmon barbecue.

Daniel’s new house in SW Portland, located on a hillside overlooking the Willamette River, was built in 1888. His plan is a total remodel of the basement and two floors, that includes gutting of the kitchen and entire second floor. The short-term goal is to get moved in by August 30 and that would mean making the main floor totally livable with an entirely new kitchen.

We arrived in time to be involved with the demolition work in the upstairs: only took one hard day to take out every wall of the second floor. Gutting the kitchen was a little more involved and took about three days, because I had to remove appliances cabinets, plumbing and soffits. Daniel originally thought it would only require a 10 yard dumpster but I think the pile is now close to 20 yards.

Since his house is over 120 years old it had multiple layers of wallpaper, in some places as many as eight. We rented a steam wallpaper remover and it took a full seven-day rental to remove the wallpaper from the first floor walls that were over 10 feet high. Many places we could only get down two or three layers to an impermeable layer which Daniel is just going to sand and paint. Most of the interior construction is with lathe and plaster but the serious remodels show the various stages of sheet rock from the earliest types to the more modern.  The first-generation sheet-rock with the brown paper covering absorbed steam too easily and prevented us from taking off a layer of wallpaper directly attached to that oldest drywall.

This trip coincided with the end of school here in Portland so we got to see a number of functions for our granddaughters, the most interesting of which was at Sophie’s elementary school where she participated in a fifth grader “states float” parade and the final day “clap-out.”  Clap-out was pretty remarkable because all the younger elementary school students and parents of the fifth-graders lined the central school hallway as the fifth grade graduating students exited their classrooms and received a clap-out and high-five from all the gauntlet of well-wishers.

Our final project at the house was ringing-out and planing the remodel’s wiring. Lots to be upgraded and since they’re going to finish out the basement as well, a number of new circuits need to be added. Two weeks in Portland sure went fast.