Somebody pinch me

We're at a stage with the renovation project that I didn't think I'd ever see. We have some color on the walls, one piece of carpet lying on a floor, and decisions made about the rest.

All winter long the house looked like a skeleton. We knew Pat was working hard on the rough-in and beefing up the structure, but they were all tasks that took time and didn't look a whole lot different from week to week unless you knew what to look for. Some fresh lumber appeared here and there every time we stopped by the house, which contrasted against the old.

Now we've reached the stage where every step makes the house look much more like a house. This week Leigh taped, mudded and sanded the downstairs. Pat subcontracted him to do this work while he focused on other things. Pat built the tub surround. The plumber was out to install the tub (Am I dreaming? The girls and I are super excited!). I picked out tile for the tub surround and apron, and even found an artist in Wisconsin who will make me three custom tiles with impressions of actual Battel maple leaves in exchange for some syrup. I might have him do two maple and one tile from the huge white pine by the road.

I actually wrote a check for 50 percent down on most of the vinyl and carpeting. I kept holding off in case I found a better carpet remnant for any of the rooms, though Bob didn't see why I couldn't just make a decision.

Last week Bob and I went to B.C. to get more paint. We had to take a detour and I noticed a Habitat for Humanity ReStore with a sign advertising a great bargain on brand new laminate flooring. I was disappointed to see that while it was a very nice value and enough for our living and dining room, all the stacks had SOLD on them. Instead we walked out with a brand new piece of 12x17 carpet that is perfect for the guest room. It's exactly the right color -- in fact the same sage color we had just painted the room earlier that day -- with pretty ivory leaves. It's a nice low-pile plush. The cost was the same as I would have paid for the much lower quality sage remnant I had picked out at our local carpet store. I think there will even be enough to do the office.

The first week of May we spent painting, painting, painting. Diane had the week off work, so the girls were with her from mid-morning to late evening most days. Bob was in the fields doing some test plot planting much of the week, so I painted upstairs while Leigh and Pat worked on the house in other ways.

Yesterday was a big day for the old house. Leigh sanded all the drywall and finished up the downstairs, so all walls are ready for us. Bob couldn't plant because of more recent rains, so he took the day off. We loaded up the girls in the morning and arrived at the house to meet up with the tree service. They took out the two big, dying maples by the front porch along the driveway. It was sad to see them go, but Mark was watching them and said many of the logs were rotted out inside. We had asked them to round up our bill to $1,000 and grind out as many stumps as they could for the price. They were able to remove everything in the front yard and side yard, and were charitable in throwing in a couple to have those areas completely cleared out. They said that price didn't include clean-up of the wood chips, which was fine with us because we could have taken care of it with several wheelbarrow loads. However, they had the equipment there to clean up the wood chips from the two big trees anyway, so they were kind enough to just take some scoops and do it anyway. Watching the two robot stump grinders at work was pretty cool.

Bob took the old linoleum floor out of the guest room yesterday in preparation for our neighbor, Tony, to install the carpet. He also pulled out the half of flooring that was left in the girls' room. Some old issues of the C.C. Chronicle and S. News were under the floor as padding. Bob found one from about 1983 advertising Return of the Jedi. He first noticed that X-rated movies were advertised right in the paper then. Wouldn't see that in a small town paper today.

Yesterday afternoon I dropped the girls at Brenda's house without warning and she was nice enough to let them stay for several hours while Bob and I worked. They painted fingernails and found morels in her yard.

We put the first coats of wall paint on the upstairs bathroom and our bedroom, so now everything upstairs has a completed ceiling (at least the ones that are white) and one coat of walls. While I went to order tile and scout out another carpet deal, Bob primed the kitchen. I joined in to help cut in the dining room and finish the breakfast nook. I also wore out my arms using Pat's wet/dry vac to suck the sanding dust off the drywall. I still have to do the office and mudroom/bathroom. This weekend we hope to get the downstairs all primed. I think we can get the ceilings all painted our Dover White, and I hope to get the kitchen walls covered with one coat so Pat can install the few new cabinets we're adding on a partial wall that have been in at the lumberyard for a few weeks now.

Yesterday it was fun (OK, tear-inducing) to see that Pat put up more of the old doors. He was able to adjust some of them to use for the pocket doors upstairs. The pocket doors are so much more space-saving than swinging doors would have been, but I wasn't eager to see plain, hollow-core doors hanging in them. Those are nice, but just don't fit the look of the farmhouse. That he made these work is so wonderful to me. He even used them for the girls' closet doors. He had to do some trimming on some, and adding on others. They all are in desperate need of new paint jobs anyway, so we'll paint over the changes. We have to decide whether to strip off some of the old paint for a smoother surface to fill in some dents and dings, or to just scrape off chips and paint over them. It's not my biggest priority right now. Because they're hanging, they're out of the way and we can always pull them down later to paint.

My only disappointment was to learn that Bob had burned the original front and back entry doors with the nine panes of glass. I thought he was kidding. I mentioned that seeing how Pat was able to use the interior doors for the upstairs pockets, maybe he could use two of those together for the wider kitchen pocket door. Bob said, "You don't mean the ones I burned, do you?" I couldn't believe he wasn't pulling my leg. He says I must have told him, and there had to have been some miscommunication because he wouldn't have done it without asking. I had planned to use one for a bench project I saw in a magazine, and even saved an old table for the legs. I wonder if I asked him to burn the junk on the front porch and he thought those were included. It's no use getting upset because he didn't realize I wanted them and they're gone now.

It's almost dawn now, and Addy has a soccer game scheduled. It's raining, so we'll see what happens to the game. Our plan was to take the girls to Brenda's after soccer so we could paint all day. If soccer is cancelled, maybe we'll just take them earlier.