Scotland 2012:  Work Day 5

The scene:

It was a beautiful day today.  Cool and breezy but bright and even sunny for a few hours.

The work:
The big accomplishment today was finishing the floor in the dining room.  David Hailey drove the final nail in at 6:15pm.

Bob Hill and Ryan Haney worked all day on the roof on the leaks.

The library painting was completed including the walls, pipes, and floor.  Shown in front of the "Tuttle Library is the crew:  John McClendon, Cindy Tuttle, Jennifer Hawkins, Bill Wilmoth, and Mickey Pleasants.

A shopping crew went to Glasgow and successfully returned with a painting to go above the mantle in the dining room and a sofa for the library as well as other important purchases for renovation and furnishing.  Ed Causey was given a special hand-drawn "duration" award at dinner for chauffeuring Janice McClendon, Audrey Lassiter, and Susan Hailey on the all day shopping trip.

The website team finished 8 of 16 pages of the website and added an Events feature that was new.  Since we were in the room the roofers were using for access the window was wide open and sometimes it was pretty windy.  Working hard were Chris Lambert

and Martin Ritchie and Annette Foster.

"Leisure Activity notes":
Which setting would you choose on the Scottish dryer?

More tomorrow!



 

Scotland 2012: Work Day 4

The Scene:

There was a period at midday that was cloudy and then sunny—Clara Gay and Annette Foster went up on the roof for a few minutes to enjoy the view.  It poured about 5 o’clock and it’s a light drizzle for evening.  Martin Ritchie who is helping us with the website revamp (and lives here) says he’s never seen it rain this much for so long!

The work:

Today we started laying the dining room floor and got about halfway finished.  There are still 2 leaks near the window (which the rain has helped identify!!) so a certain area may have to be left undone until the leaks are resolved.  Here’s Jerry Causey stapling the floor with Larry High.

With Prince and Dawson (volunteering from Mozambique) helping.

 The library wall painting was completed and painting the floor was begun.  Cindy Tuttle designed the finish for the library walls.

 Annette worked with Martin and Chris Lambert on revamping the Overtoun House website and you can see the work in progress at http://overtounhouse.com/ .

The fun:

The team fits fun into the day.  Here are some sample moments from Friday:

Vivian Hughes heads up the lunch feast with Jo Ellen and Larry High behind her.

David Hawkins (in an Alabama shirt!) rests a minute with George Hughes.

Modeling the new fashion accessory “ankle pads” is David Hailey.

And we close today with a snap of our after dinner devotional.

More tomorrow!

Scotland 2012: Work Day 3

The scene:

Question: Does it rain every day in Scotland?  Answer: No, some days it snows.  Rain again.  To us Raleighites this is a nice steady very serious rain.  Today Bob Hill told us the forecast this afternoon was a 12 hours of heavy rain with storm conditions.  But it cleared up!

The work:

Today the walnut flooring arrived for the dining room. 

Since the goal is to lay the floor on Friday (tomorrow!) the target is to finish painting today--which requires that all the repair work get completed.  Baseboards were removed to access the wiring and they must be put back.

All but one of the leaks were repaired allowing Riley Pleasants to replace the wall panels that had been removed.  Beautiful carpentry job!

There’s been lots of repair work to get to this point and a lot of innovation has been used to complete the repairs.  Here Bob Wilmouth patches a hole in the floor using the “patented drop the wood in” technique. 

Our roving photographer (David Hawkins) caught these other scenes in the dining room:

George Hughes and Larry High study their handiwork.

David Hailey on the stairway to heaven.

Outside the dining room, John and Janice finished painting the “McClendon bathroom” today.

Susan Hailey talks to Betsy while Jennifer Hawkins and Mickey Pleasants are hard at work cleaning the dining room table top.

Joyce Causey finished drapes for several of the B&B rooms.

Ed Morris, David Hawkins, and Annette Foster went into Glasgow to get white paint.  The B&Q home repair store is owned by Lowes and once inside the store you’d swear you were in the US.  Ed and David are on first name basis with Jimmy in the paint department.

On the way home we stopped to look at the swans on the ponds on the Overtoun House grounds.

Annette worked on the website redesign with staff of the Overtoun House including Martin and Mairi Ritchie, Melissa Hill, and Chris Lambert.  They are rewriting content and along with Susan Hailey, providing pictures and documents. 

Audrey’s scavenge of the day was a chef’s coat for Vivian Hughes!  What else will she find in storage here?

Several of the team have remarked on how much preparation was done before the trip so that the team here could just execute.  Just to mention a few:  Susan Hailey ordered the furniture and other purchased items, Audrey Lassiter planned the design and colors, Riley Pleasants and Jerry Causey worked on engineering design, and David Hailey prepared the devotions and handled the monetary affairs.  Kristen Muse helped on travel and insurance and the office staff assisted with all of these tasks.

Time to get back to work.  More tomorrow!

Scotland 2012 Work Day 2

The scene:  Today was a pleasantly cool one.  It has rained all day, hard at times.  The house has such big windows that it still feels very bright.  Outside its very green and misty.  BTW, it stays light til after 10 pm.

The work:

The planners let us know that the big focus for today needed to be the dining room if we intended to finish this week.  Susan Hailey, Jerry Causey and Audrey Lassiter are masterminding the day.

Folks were working on the water leak which entailed tearing out wall around the bay window.  And floor had to be torn up to run electrical wiring.  Continual cleanup was needed to keep up with the needed “demolition” in order to make progress.  Mickey Pleasants and Janice McClendon are so happy!

We had super help from two young men from Mozambique—Dawson and Prince—who came to give assistance to Overtoun House.  They hauled out trash, moved out heavy scaffolding, and helped with cleaning the woodwork.

Tremendous progress was made on cleaning the mahogany woodwork which is looking looking beautiful.  Clara Gay worked on it most of the day along with help from Jennifer Hawkins, Mickey Pleasants and Sandra Holloman.  Here’s Clara.

Jennifer Hawkins, Mickey Pleasants, and Cindy Tuttle cleaned the big windows. 

John McLendon sanded the walls prepping for the painting to come.

Ed Morris, David Hawkins, Audrey Lassiter, and Susan Hailey went on a shopping spree to Glasgow to buy prep materials for cleaning the woodwork, drapery rods, spackle, and paint for the dining room walls, library walls, library floor, and the bathroom.  Audrey continued her successful scavenger hunts in the basement, attic, etc. finding a framed needlepoint picture and a small chest to be put to good use.

The big event of the day was the arrival of the mantle for the dining room.  The funding to purchase the mantle was donated by the Pleasants family in honor of Clyde Pleasants.

Meanwhile John and Janice McClendon finished all the prep work on the bathroom—all scraping, removing a shelf unit, and removing wallpaper.

Ed and Cathy Morris went grocery shopping.  Great meals today thanks to Cathy Morris, Vivien Hughes, and Jo Ellen High.  Grits for breakfast.  For lunch we had white bean soup and the delicacy Scottie Hotties (which were named by Kristen Muse on a previous trip) sandwiches.  Rumor has it that dinner is spaghetti, salad, French bread, and chocolate cake.   Here are our Cathy and Jo Ellen planning our feasts.  

We’re becoming the well-oiled team that Susan promised!  More tomorrow.

Day 1 or is it Day 2 already?

The Scotland Mission Team left Raleigh on a 1:30 pm flight on Monday to Philadelphia and then onto Glasgow Scotland.  We arrived Tuesday 7 am a bit worse for wear but raring to go.  The conga line massage in Customs and Immigration was done by Joyce Causey, Vivien Hughes, Audrey Lassiter, and Sandra Holloman.

The scene: We rode the bus to Overtoun House with sunny weather and beautiful landscape that is intensely green. Someone remarked that it looked like western North Carolina.  Overtoun House is up a long drive out of the town of Dunbarton and looks much like a castle. 

Susan Hailey gave some of us the full tour from the basement to the rooftop.

The rhododendron are so tall they looked like crape myrtles.

The work:

Considerable time was spent assessing the state of the 3 rooms we will refurbish.  The before state showed us some significant challenges.

Folks set to work in the dining room repairing the wood subfloor and repairing the wood molding on the doors and walls.  Larry High is removing nails from the flooring and Riley Pleasants is fixing a hole in the subfloor (isn't carpentry a lot like dentistry?)

The library crew removed storage items, organized donated books and bookshelves, and got the room ready for painting.  Here are Annette Foster, Sandra Holloman, Jennifer Hawkins, Susan Hailey and Mickey Pleasants.

We need to get sleep!  More tomorrow.