I Asked For One Apple Cinnamon Muffin………She Gave Me Three.

Lady Galadriel Elf Queen of Lothlorien: And what gift would a Dwarf ask of the Elves?

Gimli the Dwarf responds: Nothing. Except to look upon the Lady of the Galadhrim one last time, for she is more fair than all the jewels beneath the earth.

Legolas the Elf who is part of the Fellowship along with Gimli asks later on what he asked for from the Elf Queen.

Gimli replies: I asked her for one hair from her golden head……she gave me three.

 

I asked the other day for an apple cinnamon muffin that the Editor made up at her school with the children in her class. She came home with three……

And that my friends is how the brain of a Lord of the Rings nerd works. A line from the movie pops up into my head and then I apply it to a real world situation. Or vise versa for that matter. Yeah, I get it. I know there’s something wrong with me.  So you just have to bear with me. Maybe someday I’ll snap out of it. Probably not any time soon though so don’t hold your breath.

Welcome once again to the Hobbit Hollow Construction Blog! Glad to have you back as always.

So son Terence is doing well over at Manhattan College in the Bronx. He has found that he has developed a taste for the chocolate milk at the school cafeteria. He may have already gained a couple of pounds. I hope he’s learning something there at school, as well. That would be nice. Isn’t that what college is supposed to be about? I better not have to go into my pocket to outfit this kid with a whole new wardrobe cause he’s gained too much weight or there’s going to be hell to pay.

So I got this app called Spotify for my phone. It’s really great. You can download music of all kinds into your phone. It really is unbelievable.  You create a playlist of whatever songs you want and store them on your phone. Then you can listen to commercial free music while you’re working. It’s great. I downloaded every Beatles song the other day. Most of them anyway. So I’m over at the house listening to this Beatles song that I’ve always liked and I’m listening to the words and they just struck me as very strange. ” A soap impression of his wife which he ate and donated to the national trust.”  From “Happiness is a Warm Gun.” What does that even mean? And how does something like that even pop into your head? I thought weird stuff popped into my head. Those guys thought of some really strange stuff! I’m actually thinking I’m going to be alright.

So on the Hobbit house front we had Jeff the mason stop by to help us out on finishing a couple of items.  At the four corners of the house I wanted to finish the exterior of the concrete with a product called  Sika 1-2-3. I needed this done before I start the siding and the horizontal trim work below the windows. So the timing was pretty good. Check it out.

Jeff applying the Sika 1-2-3

After he applies this to the wall and it dries a bit you put a horizontal broom finish on it. It gives the exterior of the house a little texture if you will. Check it out. It’s not fully dried here.

The four corners were done in a similar fashion.

So now I can begin the horizontal trim and the siding without having to protect it from the mess you make with the Sika. We’re good to go.

The other thing he did for me was on the inside of the house. In the hallway we had some serious honeycombs in the concrete. If I remember correctly it was basically the last truck of the day got a little tight at the very end. ( Honeycombs are not something you eat. In the world of concrete this is a void where the concrete did not consolidate properly leaving a void in the finish.) I had to set up a scaffold for him to work from. He used a product called structolite with cement added to it. You apply that to the ceiling and then trowel it til it’s nice.

Jeff applying the bonding agent to the ceiling before he starts putting the structolite on.

If you look closely you can see the honeycombs in the ceiling. You can’t just patch the spots or the ceiling will look stupid. You have to patch the whole ceiling.

Hallway wall finished nice.

This isn’t a very good picture of how it came out. It looks good though. I had always planned on doing this regardless of the honeycombs. That’s why there are no design details in the hallway. I wanted to be able to show people the different ways that you can finish concrete.

I spent the day doing a bunch of odds and ends. One of which was getting the window templates made for the curved window trim. Hmmm. That took a lot longer than I thought it would. (Like most things at the Hobbit House.) I also continued my quest with the electrical. Which is starting to come together pretty well.

Oh yeah, one other thing I completely forgot about. Went over to that Mother-in-Law’s house for dinner Wednesday night. You know, to pay a visit and all. Actually the Editor made the meal and Mother-in-Law did the side dishes. So I get there and my Mother-in-Law is walking around in a nightgown. What’s up with that? So I said to her, “Are you going to get dressed for dinner?” I mean, it was 6 pm!  I don’t understand. Why do I always have to be the bad guy and state the obvious. I’m getting these dirty looks. I really don’t know how I get myself into these situations. Now it turns out she’s going to come over on Wednesdays and cook for us. (She is a pretty good cook though.) But if I get home on Wednesday and have to watch her traipsing around my house in a  nightgown the deal is off! That’s crazy. Why did I agree to this again?

See you soon!

Jim

Another picture.

Grasshopper on the side of the house.

 

 

5 thoughts on “I Asked For One Apple Cinnamon Muffin………She Gave Me Three.”

  1. Hi Dad!

    I haven’t been too good with keeping up with your blog posts, but I finally read your latest one and I started cracking up. I hope those muffins were good. I don’t even think muffins exist over here. That’s a problem. I hope you enjoyed Block Island, too!! I’ll be checking in on this thing every so often (or at least, better than I have been!). I love you!!!

    Reply
  2. Yeah Jim, it was a favorite show of a lot of people, yours truly included. And like I said about round doors, not now, you have enough on your plate as is. But I think you could pull it off. As far as the contest….you might get a chuckle or two out of it, it really was quite a sight…I am still amazed and greatly thankful that no one amputated a finger during the construction phase. Mainly because I refused to let them drink beer while they were waving power saws around. The contest came about because SIKA was pushing their new marine grade adhesive-sealant, and I was doing waterfront construction, and we both wanted good publicity. Type in “Proudly Sinking, Hudson’s one-day fleet”, and you’ll get the NY Times article. I won’t tell you how many beers it took between the Sika rep and myself before we finalized the idea of the contest, but I’m sure you will get a pretty good idea.

    Reply
  3. “When you can walk across the rice paper and leave no mark, you will have learned, grasshopper” Funny, he doesn’t look at all like David Carradine. Hi Jim, glad to see you still making progress. Sika products….brings back memories. I once organized a contest using Sika products…long time ago. Anyway, I checked out the Stockholm Hobbit House, interesting, they used cement block construction and it is a bit small. Round door, see, it’s not so difficult to do a round door. Due to the space considerations, they had to make it an outswing door, which is ok unless you are sleeping while there is a big snowstorm, then you have to stick your head out of the tiny window and yell “Hjalp! Jag at insnoade och far inte ut! (Help! I’m snowed in and can’t get out!) And if my Swedish is terrible, blame Microsofts auto-translate, not me. As always, best wishes…..john

    Reply
    • I thought he had to grab the pebbles out of his teacher’s hand before he could leave the temple. It was something like that. Wasn’t it? That was one of my favorite shows way back when.

      The round door is not the problem. It’s the air sealing of the round door that is the issue. I asked the guy at Klearwall if they could do it. The guy was like “No way. I don’t see how that is possible.” It is possible but I think it would have to come after a successful first Hobbit House. I also was a newbie as far as air sealing and Passive House design. It is intense. For me this house is as much about getting to the Passive house standard as it is making it a Lord of the Rings type home.

      Maybe someday.

      Take care!
      Jim

      Sika contests eh!

      Reply

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