Even though the sun was shining yesterday and we could have been painting outside, we had an itch to paint the living room. We chose a light yellow color, with a hint of tan/brown in it.

Here are a couple views:

Michael picked up a handy edging gadget at the paint store this weekend and, with the help of that, we were able to do an entire first coat of this room in one day. We’re not sure yet if it needs a second coat. It not, all that’s left to do in this room is the baseboards (white) and then we can finally start arranging the furniture.

Oh, and we did this while Hyla had two friends over so she was happy, too!

Thank you to everyone who sponsored us (or who sponsored anyone participating)! It was a beautiful day, the walk was easy (10k next year?!), and the event raised over $1,000,000!

Thank you……

without using a scaffold, anyway.

(And yes, it does look like the house is tipping over, and the old part is pretty crooked, but not quite as bad as it looks in this skewed photo.)

We thought it might rain yesterday, so we decided to do some interior painting. Of course, it didn’t rain, but it was still satisfying to get some actual color on the walls to cover the primer.

Yesterday, we attacked the entry way and stairway – two areas that we’d never painted since we bought the house — and it showed.

Here are some before and after pictures of the area:

From the top of the stairs, looking down:

From the mud room, looking at the stairs:

From the hallway, looking at the front door (stairway on the left):

Here are a couple more shots, to give a more complete picture:

From the front door, looking at the angled wall where the armoire is (the closet is to its left):

The view from the aforementioned closet to the doorway into the (old) living room:

And, finally, the long view, from the back door straight down the hallway to the front door:

It’s a dark, dramatic color, and a big change, especially in that stairway, which was always white (or, rather, dingy white), but it’s nice and soothing and looks great against the white trim (to be retouched).

Our excavator pal, Gary, stopped by on June 30 to say he expected he’d be able to get to us in about two weeks to build the retaining wall and the front steps to the house. With all this rain, he and everyone else working outside is behind schedule, so we won’t hold him to it exactly, but… I bet it happens by the end of July.

How often does that happen these days in New England? Oh, and how often does a weather report like that coincide with a day off for Michael and me and a day at camp for Hyla?

This could mean only one thing….

Exterior painting!

We did a first coat of the back of the house yesterday (the walls along the deck and porch):

Still to do:

We’ll probably hire a professional painter to do the very highest stuff (someone with a big ladder and a brave soul), but we’ll easily be able to do the majority of what you see in these pictures.

If only the weather would stay nice. The forecast for today, July 4, is scattered thunderstorms, “possibly severe this afternoon”. Probably not a day to be on a ladder.

This blog has been silent lately. We did a lot of painting and other small projects leading up to my parents’ visit on June 2. Since then, between their visit, the end of school, the depressing rain, and the need to just have some fun for a change, we haven’t done a single constructive thing.

And nothing will be done in the next week, either, as we prepare for various travels next weekend (Michigan and Boston). But we’ll be back at painting in another couple of weeks. Oh, and we have hired someone to do the front grade and steps, so, one of these days that’ll start happening and I’ll be able to post some pictures.

Meanwhile, it’s time to enjoy the house a bit, even though it’s far from what we’d call finished. We lost a summer last year, what with all the packing and organizing and details, and we want to be sure to enjoy this summer a lot more. So, more hiking and less painting!

Speaking of last summer – this blog is now officially a year old. When did that happen?

You might be asking yourself, “Are they still painting?”

You bet we are!

While Laurel was visiting two weekends ago, she helped us do much of the trim in the guest room. This past weekend, I put the second coat of paint on the floor.

There’s still some touchup to do, and we need to finish the closet door, but that room is otherwise finished as far as painting goes.

In the upstairs bathroom, most of the trim is done, the walls and ceiling are done, and we finally did the first coat of the floor paint last weekend:

The floor is a magical violet color (“Vesper Violet”, according to Sherwin Williams) that looks like a light violet in bright day light and turns into a battleship gray at dusk. It’s a strange, almost-not-there color that keeps shifting tone with the light all day. In any case, it looks nice with the other colors and looks a lot better than the beat up green/blue that used to be on the floor.

Today, I’ll finish the trim and put on the second coat and that room, too, will be done!

We’ve now received two estimates for the front retaining wall/steps. We’ll make a decision this week and get onto the schedule. The back door and access via the porch are fine, but it’ll be nice to bring groceries in through the front door for a change.

There’s still plenty of painting to do (inside and out), but aside from that — and actually unpacking and arranging furniture — we’re really getting to the end of the big project now and are slowly moving into day-to-day maintenance territory.

As of this weekend, the first burn pile was still smoldering away, though no flames were visible (it glowed at night, one night-owl family member reported):

On Saturday, Natty and friends came to burn the second (bigger) pile. They lit it

and it flamed for a bit, but then fizzled out. Too wet. Natty et al will return in a week or so to try again. We’ve had much drier weather since the weekend, so it’s possible they could burn it this coming weekend.

Also last week, because of the rain, we got a small leak in the new basement. It was in the one spot we could have predicted: through the window frame of the basement window over the laundry area. This window is an inch off the ground (outside) and in the corner where the ell and house meet, so all of the rain from both roofs pour directly down into this area.

Here’s our stop-gap solution, which worked:

(you can sort of make out the little basement window under/behind that sheet of plywood). The plywood carried the water out a little distance from the window, and then a slight ditch helped carry the water around the corner of the house.

On Monday, Steve (our current project manager at McKernon) came out for a final visit. He fixed the last few things on the list (including the basement window leak), took our final payment check, and said goodbye. We won’t see any McKernon folks at the house again unless we have a problem with something they built or installed.

On Tuesday, two guys from the oil company came and put the propane tank into its final position, under the deck:

I tell you! Where else on the Internet can you find such fascinating photos?!

So… what’s left? Well, there’s the front door situation:

We’ve had two companies out to look at it and give us an estimate to build a retaining wall on the left corner of the house, raise the grade, and put some stone steps in for the front door. We’re still waiting for the estimates, but it sounds like this is something that could be taken care of late in June.

At the same time, we need some other landscaping work to be done. The area we seeded is actually growing grass — you can see the green haze in this picture:

but there are just so many stones and uneven portions – mowing would be impossible. We’re looking into getting some topsoil put down and have things smoothed out more. This, of course, probably means reseeding, which means no lawn this summer probably, but a rocky, bumpy lawn we can’t mow isn’t much use anyway.