A Little Bit of This and A Little Bit of That

Another busy weekend under our belt. The weather was wonderful again (at least on Saturday) and we had a variety of visitors as we worked on a variety of jobs.

-We started the weekend off with a visit from the "honey wagon". The septic tank is now empty and cleaned out.

-Charles spent much of the weekend along the creek bed pulling out junk. The creek was used as a dumping ground for years and it will take us years to get it completely clean again (when Charles reads this he's going to laugh and say, "Well there's an understatement!"), but he got a good start this weekend. My Aunt B joined us at the house a couple days and she and Charles worked together in the creek on Saturday.

-Charles also spent part of Saturday gutting the south wall in what will be our daughter's bedroom. No pictures of this, I'll just say that with the hole on the front of the house filled back in, Celia's room is what makes me feel faint.

-Charles' mom was also at the house on Saturday. She was a huge help by watching the kids.

-I spent much of the weekend working on the front entrance and the two front windows on the house. The picture below is not a perfect before and after, but it will at least show some progress. The transom and sidelights are currently removed to reglaze and to replace some broken glass. (And try to look at the woodwork and not that door. Leaded glass looks great on some houses, but definately not the Einsel House. A solid paneled door painted deep red is in the plans for next spring.)

-My dad came over when he was off work to repair a flat tire on the loader tractor.

-My mom spent the weekend working on the back of the addition. She built some temporary stairs for the back door, and on Sunday she removed some extremely weathered plywood that had been put up over an old doorway. The blown-in insulation underneath had several open pockets, so (with help from Uncle J & Aunt L) she filled in the holes with new insulation and replaced the plywood with boards to match the rest of the board and batten siding. This job continued well past sundown on Sunday.

-My Uncle J also spent some more time in the basement, replacing several very corroded and nasty pieces from our well pump. And speaking of Uncle J, below is a picture of him taken last weekend pulling the chopper. (The tractor originally belonged to my great grandpa. We've been a Deere family for a few generations it seems.)

Next week should be interesting as we change gears a bit. On Tuesday our HVAC contractor returns for a final walk-through before they begin replacing the ductwork in preparation for installing the permanent furnace. We should also have a new contractor start work on the house next week. He will be addressing some structural concerns (just typing that makes me nervous) as well as replacing a few windows and doing some drywall repair. And after five weeks of exterior work I'm getting anxious to head inside the house. On my list for tomorrow is picking up some paint samples for the kitchen walls. Fun, fun!!!