The Mop Up Phase

Here's the update:

Backyard: landscaping made progress over the weekend. The outdoor lighting situation, however is turning silly. The yard guy's in over his head; his electrician buddy hasn't come through in almost a month. We're caught in the middle and it's frustrating.

Otherwise, things are going well. C's got some sun shades up to protect her newly planted trees. We really should have waited until fall to plant them, but she wanted them in now...that means extra measures to protect their well being.

Basement: We'd been having an ongoing behavioral problem with one of the cats in the basement .. seems the elder cat had a habit of peeing on the laundry room floor (indoor/outdoor carpet) and a couple strategic places in remote corners. We finally figured out that the smell of paint thinner was triggering his behavior. Once we started managing the open fumes better, the peeing stopped. We just had to reverse the damage. So, C pulled up the carpeting and replaced it with linoleum flooring tiles. Much more forgiving on the laundry platform than the carpet was. She also hunted down the obscure corners and cleaned them up. The result? We don't worry ourselves so much about the laundry area floor, and the basement has NEVER smelled better.

Front porch is complete, pending delivery of the front door glass panes. We have all the pieces in place, and can have those panes installed within an hour...once they arrive.

Front Yard: My objective this week is to get the front yard juniper root balls completely extracted, and the ground graded out. C has already brought home the flagstones to make the front yard park bench platform; I can probably get that cut in by the weekend, too. Then? Grade the yard, spread the seed, and water like heck.

With that, the front yard is essentially done. Bark dust can go onto the flowerbeds by the first rains. No rush.

I think I'd like to get the front-side sill plate trim pieces installed this week, too. It's a relatively quick job once I have the 1x3 at the house. Cheap materials, only minutes of work... get'er done!

There's more, but we're starting to run out of stuff to do that isn't more accurately called 'puttering'. In fact, the messy state of my work bench is really starting to bug me. When I'm down to that, I'm in good shape.

A test of our house was last night. R, M and I came home with M's week-worth of stuff from Grandma' house; R with a week-worth of stuff from Boy Scout camp. The process of emptying the car, delivering bags and items to their proper storage area, and even starting to unpack clothes, etc. really only took about 10-15 minutes of effort. Interrupted, of course, by hugs for Mom and stories to share. It was pretty smooth, all told.