Sunday Update....

Swung by the house today on the way home to Boston from NY. The painters have made some good progress, but have a lot of work ahead of them. I had them take down some cheap 1/4" fake wood paneling only to find there was nothing but studs behind it. Now, I've seemed to have opened pandora's box. Do I hang sheetrock? Do I hang beadboard and get a carpenter in there? Do I update the knob&tube electrical since the walls are open now? It's causing me to go slightly mental. I told my Father tonight on the phone that if I were to work full time on this, and do a full renovation, then it would take me 4 to 5 months. And we're expecting to be in there in 2 more weeks? I guess my idea of simply stripping the wallpaper, scraping the lead paint, and re-painting everything was not so simple. It's impossible to do JUST that. So when you do wind up doing more, where do you stop? Do you not put smoke and carbon monoxide detectors in for the safety of the fam-fam? Of course; and then do you......well you get the idea.

It was a beautiful afternoon today. I only wish we could have spent the whole weekend there. There is a massive rubbish pile on the back patio, that I'm sure the neighbors are looking forward to seeing it go away (especially before the Garden Tour next weekend).

Now that we pulled up some old linoleum, we need to re-sand. Since we're re-sanding, do we replace a broken old pine board....etc., etc.

The garden looked beautiful! I'm having my old friend Dann, remove the rubbish and cut the lawn this week.

We picked paint colors. The painter mistakenly removed the wallpaper in the front hallway on both the first and second floors (that's the price I pay for not being there to manage them). Now that all the wallpaper is down, the house is really starting to lighten up, and it's true character come out through multiple coats of white primer. We need to order blinds soon, decide which floors will be sanded, and get ready for living there. I wish to god I could send one of my Irish carpenters down there to whip the place into shape. It pains me to be away from my pet project.

Enough for now. I want to dream of a white slip-covered couch that is somehow dog & kid proof.