When I last wrote, we (mostly Juli, Don, and Rose) were painting. Since then there was still more painting and touch up along the ceiling where the paint bled through the tape or didn’t cover enough. The touch up was left for me, and it meant a lot of up and down the ladders. The ceilings are higher than the normal eight feet, which is nice, but not when having to paint near the ceiling.
While finishing the painting we also did some work in the yard, mostly clearing the over-growth that was present. Rose has also planted some trees and shrubs during this time period. We also put weed and feed on the front yard since it was filled with dandelions. It took about two weeks to take effect, but the weeds are on their way out finally. We had some rain last week finally, and the yard is beginning to green up some.
Last weekend I removed a number of stumps that we created by removing shrubbery that was too close to the house. Most of them came out with little effort. It sure was nice to use the tractor for this instead of a shovel! I dug a couple holes for Rose to plant trees and to continue on a wall in the front of the house. The tree planting has yet to take place, because Rose has been treating the hole with liquid gypsum to combat the clay in the soil.
We were supposed to have our cable tv, Internet, security system installed by XFINITY (Comcast) on August 31st originally. As we got within two days of that date I got an email stating that the installation was moved to September 14th. I couldn’t believe it, so I called and mayhem ensued. I got nowhere with them unfortunately, so the appointment was for the 14th. I had tried to get them to turn on the Wi-Fi at least as we (I) were dying here without Internet. They said they couldn’t do it, but I knew they could. Being a monopoly, like most cable companies there wasn’t anything I could do but wait. Their Internet speed was going to be 150 Mbps (really fast) and the only other choice had a speed of 10 Mbps. That was going to be too slow. The next day Rose gave them a call and got to a higher level rep on the east coast who could see all of these calls and delays on our account, and felt our pain. She turned on Internet and cable for Rose and moved the appointment for the rest of the services to September 10th. The installer did come here yesterday, the 10th, and finished the installation, placing the cable where we wanted/needed it for TV and Internet. We have been watching the TV some in the house since getting cable, mostly college and pro football.
We have had the laminate flooring for a couple of weeks, after picking it up near Tacoma. The reason we didn’t start before today, was that the existing coax cable that was feeding the Internet was not where we wanted it and wasn’t in a corner. We needed the installer to get the cabling in the right locations so we could remove the old one that was in our way. So since this was done yesterday, we were able to start today. But before we could start the flooring, we had to remove the carpet, padding, and tack strips and all of the staples used to adhere the padding. This is a lot of work. We also had to remove some linoleum from the entry way and closet. This linoleum was even harder to remove due to the glue, but we got it done.
Today, we worked for about 5-6 hours and finished about half of the living room. The living room is 25′ x 19′, so it’s very big. In addition to the living room, we will be doing the entry way, the dining room, the kitchen and the laundry/entry area. Our goal is to get the living and dining rooms done and then we can get our furniture. We can finish the kitchen later as nothing we bring will be in our way like in the other rooms. See below for some pictures of the flooring and a time lapse of the install today.
We are having new carpeting installed this Friday by Home Depot in the two bedrooms and the computer room. Those installers will remove the existing and place the new, and then those rooms will be done except for the new baseboard we are going to install throughout the house. I measured the baseboard the other day and there is over 340 feet of baseboard, so more to do! Below are some other pictures we took around and outside the house since the last posting.
