The Golan Home

With the first layer of plaster finished, its time to clean the lintels from their protective coat of flax oil, give them some texture and coat with an oil that will give it a rich color. Armed with a sander (bought especially for the occasion!) and some other accessories, I went to meet Shimon this morning at his office. He wanted to make sure that I know what I’m doing.

Well, I don’t. Never did such a thing before, so a couple of trials and a piece of wood were needed to figure out how to do it – and off to the house.

It was not simple. The oil soaked deep into the wood and it was not applied evenly. A lot of the beauty of the original wood with its great orangey color was gone because of it.

It was great working on it, though. Working outside, on my very own house, on a beautiful day, doing something physical and productive – it felt good. And, it was the first time I actually did something that contributed to the construct of the house!

Half way through, Gali and Omri showed up with sandwiches and coffee and the three of us set their in the sun, chatting about the house, eating, enjoying these good times.

I’m not sure the result is altogether that good. Only three out of six beams were done (the power cord wasn’t long enough. Really), but Shimon will take a look at it Sunday and we’ll decide how to proceed.

The den lintel after sanding (using a steel brush actually).

Just for comparison, see the bathroom lintel below for what the lintels look like before sanding.

Last night I met with Yaron, our construction supervisor. For some time I’ve felt that things are not going as they should, and after talking with him a couple of times things did not improve much. Last night we decided to part ways.

It’s too bad that it had to end this way, in fact, too bad it had to end – with all my traveling and my constant feeling that I can’t step to far away from work, someone like him is very needed.

This weekend I’ll be polishing the wood beams, the pseudo lintels. It’s pretty much the only work I’ll be doing myself on the house.

For some reason things are moving rather slowly. The tile guy finished about 3/4 of the work and stopped before doing the roof balcony so the insulation guy could do his work. We are now waiting a few days to see if there are any leaks.

Meanwhile, the rain is pouring so the plaster guy is waiting for the outer walls to dry before putting on the next layer. That will require at least two solid sunny days and another week of sun for it to dry.

The carpenter didn’t start working at all…

Otherwise, another issue is nearing conclusion. More on that shortly.

Finally, I know it does not look like much, but it’s a lot to me – rooms with our beautiful Italian tile:

The den, looking towards the kid’s bedrooms (above), and a look into the master bedroom (below). The wall right in front will have a closet all along it.