Day Twelve: Twas the night before....

With our contractors having two well-deserved days off, today was a day of consolidation and preparation for the coming weeks. If you like football analogies, today was 3 yards and a cloud of dust. If you're a fan of the theater, this was a matinee full of understudies. If you like science, this was like re-reading a dense chapter to see if you could understand more than the 10% you picked up on the first pass.


Between us we made some nice progress. Around the house were a series of small, odd jobs:

• Closing up several registers and returns in the basement. For some reason the in/out duct work in the basement have six total vents, which is way too many for a 10x15 room. A little sheet metal and aluminum tape and voila! we're down to one register and one return. 
• Cutting down more trees. These were small-ish evergreens that surrounded and obscured our deck. Given our concern that our tree-cutting could make us the black sheep of the neighborhood, we did this under the cover of dusk/dark. As Mr. T said after cutting down more than 100 trees back in the 80s, "I pity the fool!"
• Scouring the walls. The white, painted walls in the furnace and laundry rooms were in dire need of some bleaching to get rid of some mildew. A few buckets of clorox and water and a mop to apply them and now we're in the clear.

This was a pleasant surprise. The stairs into the kitchen and down to the basement are carpeted. We knew we wanted to replace it but didn't know what we'd find underneath. It was kinda like rubbing off that grey/silver stuff on a card to discover what you'd won! Turns out our 64-year-old house has nice, solid wood stairs and risers. They need some patching before we can paint them again, but that will be it. The only slow part was pulling out each of the dozens of staples with a pair of pliers.


Stairs with carpet:

Stairs with wood revealed:

Beyond the house was another big run to HD for a smattering of items that we'll need to finish the bathrooms and several other rooms. When you're on a first name basis with everyone in the plumbing and hardware sections, have you made it big or are you in need of some new hobbies?


Here's the latest on the bathroom. The bullnose trim is up. Grout will arrive on Monday. Then the hangup is waiting for the paint to arrive because the guys want to paint behind where the vanity and toilet will go. They're always thinking.