Brandon's Update I

Ok, today we have a guest blogger (sort of), me, Brandon, Nolan's husband, who has done most of the work to the house (I expect to hear about THAT comment later). Nolan has not really felt up to doing much on the house for about the last 6-7 months. I however, have still accomplished a little, and have more planned. :)

Projects completed (or almost, at least):

-Hallway baseboards and shoe-mold installed (ok, the baseboards had been there for some time, but were just leaning against the wall. There was a gap of about 2 inches from the bottom of the sheetrock and the studs behind it, so it was kinda tricky to attach the boards on the bottom without them going in at a weird angle. Had to use a few wood screws to get it right. I actually got the shoe-mold cut, stained, and installed in just two days!)

-Nursery painted, shoe-mold stained and installed, closet shelving system installed (Nolan actually accomplished most of that. Yay! Pregnant women can do something!)

-Old wiring pulled out and replaced. Thanks goes out to my friend Paul for all his help. We pulled out all un-insulated cloth wiring in the basement, and replaced with Romex. We also installed a arc-fault breaker for the nursery, to add extra protection. The basement is still a wreck from the mess we made, but at least now we won't have an electrical fire. (Paul is a commercial electrician, but does resedential work on the side. If you live in the metro area, email us for his info. He does great work.)

-Landscaping - not much, but did plant a rose bush (with another languishing in a pail of water, waiting on us to decide where to put it), moved some old roses around, moved some daffodils that sprung up in the middle of the yard (Casey liked to plant stuff EVERYWHERE!), cleaned up the flower beds and put in new mulch, planted some hyacinths, put out centipede grass seed in the front yard, oh, and discovered a dead, half-eaten rat that my neighbor's cat left for us in one of those flower beds. Awesome!

-Craftsman front door - still not on the house, but I used a heat gun to get the paint off of one side of the third in our Craftsman front doors. It is heart pine, and I still need to scrape the other side, and use a paint stripper, then sand it. There is a little damage to the door that I also have to repair better than the previous owners did. Will post pictures of it soon.