Lake City (population 5,063) sits on the south side of Lake Pepin, where 100 years ago Ralph Samuelson invented the sport of water skiing. After some trial and error, both in making the skis and developing the technique for rising out of the water on them, the 18-year old Samuelson, while being pulled behind a boat driven by his brother, became a local attraction with national news coverage. He gave birth to an entirely new recreational sport, which flourishes world-wide today. Lake City, his home town, has annually hosted “Water Ski Days” honoring Ralph’s achievement. This year was the 50th celebration, and in a special event, the city unveiled a $75,000 slighly larger-than-life sized bronze statue of Ralph and his plywood skis at the exact moment he first rose out of the water at 4:11 p.m. on 2 July 1922.

Coincidentally, we were in Lake City during “Water Ski Days” to help our friends Tony and Georgia Zugay with some house projects. We met the Zugay family in 1983 while serving together at HQ United States Air Forces Europe at Ramstein Air Force Base, Germany. We’ve been close friends ever since, and have watched our respective children grow up, get married, and raise their own families. Over the years, we have helped them with projects, so including them in our travels was a no-brainer. They are both in their eighties now and not only appreciated but needed our help.

Some years back, they purchased what was Georgia’s childhood home. They’ve done significant improvements since buying the 100+ year old house, most recently adding a two-car garage with associated pavement. Tony was a career engineer, and he ensured the garage included specific design features, which complimented the house. Georgia has a good eye for landscaping, and together they have created a great summer home in Minnesota. It’s also nice for them having two of their adult children and their families living nearby in St. Paul.

Their number 1 project was to replace the lath and plaster kitchen ceiling with tongue and groove wood. Georgia had also prepared a four-page list of her projects, but working on these had to be secondary to finishing the ceiling. MFI and Tony coordinated in advance of our arrival and agreed on how to install the new ceiling, what light fixtures to use, and the desired lighting pattern. Tony procured the materials, and he and Georgia picked out a very nice white wood stain, faint enough to allow the wood grain to show through. We set up paint and wood cutting shops in the garage.

Tony uses a reliable local electrician named Gary (also in his eighties) and arranged a meeting between Gary and MFI the day we started. The two hit it off immediately and agreed on the electrical scope. Gary would bring appropriate power from the basement panel to the new 3-gang kitchen switch, MFI would install and hook up everything else, and Gary would return to energize the new system. This required climbing into the tight attic space above the kitchen, which Gary was more than happy to avoid.

The kitchen included a small nook with a 6-inch lower ceiling height. Before buying the house, this ceiling had been damaged by an upstairs water leak, which caused the plaster to crack and sag. Because of the damage, we decided to remove the plaster from this small area and put up sheetrock before installing the wood ceiling. While I did the demolition, MFI and Gary worked on the electrical, and Tony began staining the wood. Georgia later helped with the staining, and their efforts were huge in keeping us on schedule. Neither of us even had to pick up a brush, at least for staining the new ceiling pieces.

The house was built in the early 20th century, so the ceiling was plaster over wood lath. I share this because the demolition was a massive mess, even though we tried to cover everything with plastic sheets. Because the kitchen still had to be used, we cleaned up multiple times throughout the day. Argh!

The nook afforded us the opportunity to develop our installation technique over a small space. Our goal was to complete the ceiling without any visible nail holes. To do this, custom clips were hammered into the grove side of the ceiling slat where they could then be screwed into the ceiling joist. We marked the joist locations with painter’s tape. One of the hardest things to do was ensure the tongue of each slat fit tightly into the groove of the precious piece. We used clamps to accomplish this until they weren’t long enough to continue. Afterwards, some fit snugly without much effort, while others took some persuading with a rubber mallet. The measure of success for our technique was how well the final piece fit against the wall. It had to be trimmed along the grooved edge for a tight compression fit, so I mocked up a short template piece to get the dimensions right. This worked perfectly as the last slat rotated into place like a glove!

Our technique was sound, but the main kitichen ceiling came with more challenges. First, because the plaster remained in place, we had to locate the ceiling joists by drilling holes and hope the rest were on 16″ centers. This held true for about half the ceiling, but then the remaining joists were offset from the first half. Once we located them, we snapped chalk lines. In this way, I could hold the next piece up against the ceiling, mark the joist locations with a pencil, and install the clips on the marks. The second challenge was the width of the kitchen required at least three pieces, occasionally four, to form a row. We had to cut those pieces to ensure they joined below a joist. This took longer than expected until we found our rhythm. The next challenge was discovering not all pieces were exactly the same width. This made the tongue and groove fit critical because being too tight or too loose at a joint caused the next row to be misaligned. It took a few mistakes and several pull downs before we modified our technique and regained our earlier pace. The final challenge was having to work with arms above our heads while balancing on ladders. We were physically exhausted every night, and it took weeks before the shoulder soreness subsided. Fortunately, we experienced no injuries.

Next we had to install the lights. MFI found easy-to-install cans at the local Menards (Minnesota’s version of Home Depot). All that had to be done was drill a 6 and 1/4 inch hole through the thickness of the new wood and old lath and plaster ceilings. The lights had metal clips, which held the cans against the ceiling. Electrically, MFI only had to strip the wire ends and push them into connectors provided on the back of the lights. The first of two difficult and nasty steps was climbing into the attic. Difficult, because MFI had to crawl across the joists through decades-old loose blown-in insulation and nasty because the insulation was filled with rodent feces. She made three trips: one reconnaissance and the other two for determining the can locations, laying out the wires, and making the electrical connections. She was my, not to mention Gary’s, hero.

The second difficult and nasty step was drilling the eight holes for the cans while trying to control the sawdust, plaster pieces, and feces-infested insulation raining down. It took all of MFI’s strength to manage the weight of the drill, while I assisted by pushing a wooden pole upward against the bottom of the drill (except for when I took this video). MFI definitely had more shoulder strength than I.

The finishing touches for the ceiling included: painting and installing crown molding around the main kitchen, a fascia board along the 6″ transition between the kitchen and nook, and a 1″ quarter round in the nook. Here’s my best attempt at capturing how the completed project looked. Tony said he was pleased, and it turned out much better than he expected. We know him well and, therefore, took this as a huge and sincere compliment.

The Time with the Zugay’s was a perfect example of how we intend to spend this retirement journey. We were able to help dear friends and got to complete a very challenging project. Tony and Georgia were delightful as always, and we once again added to an already vast history of memories with them. Thank you both for your incredible support. We love you!