A Visual Before and After

Giving Thanks

It's been a busy month at the church. David and the crew were racing to get the steeple up and beat the bad winter weather. First, we had to deal with a bit more rot where the steeple once was than we would have liked. That put us behind about a day. When you're renting a lift, every day matters.
The frame, fortunately, went up quickly.

Then we waited for the delivery of the windows and louver vent. I climbed up there and the view was wide and sweeping.

Now, I was completely ready to put a spire on the steeple but there were issues. David had never built one and was concerned about wind. The manufactured ones at online shops with names like "the Steeple Store" were very pricey. Deb and I were checking out Leisure Time, our local flea, and we saw this:

It was copper, and while it wasn't probably more than thirty years old, it had a really nice patina. The price was right. I bought it, thinking it was meant to be. To cap off the steeple with a non religious homage to the river.
I'm glad I did. While I was having dinner with my friends in Paris on Thanksgiving (mine, not theirs), Don, my roofer, sent me this photo from my phone.

The windows and louver vent were installed and the weathervane was put up. I was really struck that the pitch of the main roof, pitch of the steeple roof and the "pitch" of the sails on the weathervane were all in proportion. Sometimes, you realize that it's best to go with the flow.
While dramatic things were going on top of the roof, subtle things kept occurring inside. I finally tackled the front staircase:

 The process took a few weekends of sanding, staining and varnishing.
It's almost done. I'll have a new picture with all the spindles when I get up this weekend.

And when I get up on Friday night, there should be a floor to ceiling bookcase in front of the rear staircase.

I'm always happy when my books get a home and my bedroom becomes more private. I haven't been up in nearly three weeks. I'm homesick.

Back to sharing my home with tools and David

It was so great to take the summer and early fall off from renovation but I've decided to go for the mad dash of completing the steeple before winter. Here's the hole in the office loft roof where the steeple once was:

If you stand directly beneath it, it looks like this:

It's a four by four footprint; the base will be eight feet tall and the steeple/spire will be another 6' or 8'.
I want to make sure that the structure looks like the church that it once was and not a schoolhouse.
I'm drawing a lot of possibilities and will have to come to some conclusion by Wednesday. I've ordered the two windows for the north and south sides; David contributed a window for the east side and I'm going to find a louver, maybe octagonal or chapel style for the west side; the side that faces the street.
David has already blocked off the area; it always reminds me of preparing for surgery:

My big task this weekend was dealing with the office loft staircase. Last weekend, I stained the treads:

This weekend, I stained the side tread ebony and painted the north side and risers high gloss white.
It was a ton of taping and working on stairs is always tricky but I do like the way it came out. David had the handrail milled and I oiled it hoping that it will get darker like the counters. People who know wood say it will. I also painted the twenty eight spindles that will go up this week and I'll have a finished staircase. This morning before I hopped the train, I laid down a nice thin coat of fast drying poly.

My deck is covered with leaves. I took the leaf blower to it in the morning and it looked even worse by the end of the day. That is the price I have to pay for this view when I lie down on the deck and look up:

And then, if that's not enough, there's always the mighty Hudson river: