Blue Ox Did It!

Today was the day. All week long I couldn’t stop wondering if Eric down at Blue Ox Mill was going to come through for me. Three weeks ago I took him down a sample of casing and two weeks passed without me even getting a bid. Finally, last Friday I went down ready for a fight to either get my samples or my millwork.

It turned out Eric had been sick. Last Friday, he first he tells me 2 weeks. I explained my situation, that I needed the mill work by this weekend because of the party I’m having on Wednesday. He said he would try and get it done but made no guarantees.

So this morning I called around 10:30 and much to my relief the millwork was ready to be picked up. Yea! Not only that, but a few pieces were run in redwood even though I requested poplar to save some money. I need 14, 6-foot pieces of the casing and 2 of the pieces of poplar that came from the lumberyard were split. One, he could run, but only about half is usable. The other was too far gone. So Eric ran two pieces of redwood, and didn’t charge me extra, and gave me the partially split piece of poplar at no charge. On top of that, all of the plinth blocks are redwood. With the extra pieces of casing I have the attic I can do one whole door in redwood.



I went down on lunch to pick it up. Eric was standing out front when I pulled up, so we went back in the mill to gather up the wood work. We got to talking about the building. It’s just a great place. So full of character. I had been told that the building was one of Eureka’s early power plants, but I know for a fact that there was a power plant and coal gas plant at the foot of H street. That is where Thomas Petch worked, after all. Eric told me that the power plant at the foot of X street, where the Blue Ox Mill now stands, was built for the trolley car system. Works for me.

Anyway, after we loaded the wood in to my truck we go back inside to settle up the bill. After that I head out the door and I’m half way across the parking lot when Eric comes to the door. He yells something out to me but I don’t quite hear him. I thought he said, “Tell everyone about the quick turn around time”. I yelled back that I would be sure to tell everyone how he came through in a pinch. He yells back, “No. No. Don’t tell anyone about the quick turn-around. I don’t want to ruin my reputation”. We both laughed.

In other news, I got another call from the marble people today. This was another woman than who I spoke to earlier in the week. She was basically telling me the same thing, that they don’t have the twoseeem marble and it would either have to be the threeseeem or I would need to wait. I explained that I had had the exact same conversation on Monday or Tuesday. She had no idea what I was talking about. I went on to tell her that I needed the marble on Monday, and if they couldn't make all of the cuts I would just take a large slab and cut it myself. This caught her off-guard and she said she would need to call me back.

She called back 5 minutes later and assured me the marble would be cut and ready to go on Monday, and I could pick it up by noon. I was happy. It is going to work out, but it is not ideal.



The way the corner cabinet is built in between two doors, two pieces of casing come done on top of the marble. That means that ideally I would install the marble first and then the casing. Well, I can’t wait for that. There are three doors that need to be trimmed out, so I can do one whole door and all but one side of the other two doors. I will ballpark and cut the short pieces of casing that will meet up with the marble and primer and paint them with the other doors. After marble is install Monday or Tuesday, I can cut them to length and slap in those last pieces in place, and then quickly putty and paint over the nail holes. It should work.