Panic set in. We left 91 High Street on Thursday night with the house in shambles. The deck was sort of an idea, but for the most part it was a randomly cut out board bolted to the side of our home. That single board took Scotty and I six hours to configure. Diana spent six hours excavating the black mold from a single room. We still haven’t heard the end of it…
Collectively we made the decision to get up at 5:30 on Friday morning, shake off a short night, hit up Dunkin Donuts, and be pounding away at project central before 7am. It was roughly 7 pm when I pushed the last screw into the final piece of decking – thanks to Kéa helping me countersink and place all the joist fasteners. Inside, the entire upstairs morphed from prepped to painted.
After six excruciatingly long days, we decided we needed a day off. Should we sleep in and use a down day to scrub off paint and blood? No. Everyone was up early due to our freshly created construction time zone. What do you do at 8 am on a Saturday? What all good Rhode Island Swamp Yankees do on a spontaneous Saturday. Hello Block Island.
We had family join us for the hour-long nine mile ferry ride out to the block. It was a surprisingly cold and windy day for July. Sweatshirts were mandatory, but we didn’t let that get in the way of showing Scotty a little bit of Rhode Island history or famous clam chowder at the National Hotel. Nothing horrible happened and we had a nice day off, so I am officially apologizing for a really boring read. Don’t worry, we’ll be back at it tomorrow and something is bound to go wrong.
We have Foo Fighter tickets for tomorrow night at Fenway Park in Boston. The forecast calls for T-storms and heavy rain, so I’m really hoping the weathermen are wrong. It will be Kéa’s first real rock concert and we both really love the band. Diana and Scotty admittedly know two songs, but they’re game and being good sports. If all goes well, we’ll get a full day’s work in the books, hop an Amtrak train at the historic Kingston RI Station just up the street, and catch Dave Grohl belting out some iconic grunge. As long as the weather gods don’t want to be my Monkey Wrench.
91 WHY Street 