Well, at least we seem to be winning the war! (Knock on wood, which is plenty given all the hammering).
Carpenter extraordinaire, Nick, spent another weekend working on the house. It is really shaping up and the light at the end of the tunnel is widening from a pinhole to a small beam. Nick primed, sanded and painted all of the trim work for the baseboards upstairs, including using some great transition moulding pieces. He is using a mitre saw to cut it and has been using his handy nail gun to install. He has a good portion of it done, but it is more painstaking than one might think! Nevertheless, it looks terrific. It really frames out the room and makes such a difference in giving it a fresh and finished look. Nick also painted, cut and installed brand new trim "picture frame" moulding around one of the bedroom doors and hung the newly painted door with satin nickel hardware. It looks great and I cannot wait for all the other doors to be white to match. It looks perfect. Nick insisted on new trim around the doors - he thought the old stuff that was there looked dated. And it did. It was not original to the house, but instead was really cheap, grooved wood that did look pretty junky. He was right - it makes a world of difference with the new trim.
Nick also gave more examples of one of his traits that I envy most - his patience. This is shown exponentially through "The French Door Project". Kate has a set of French doors into her room off of the room that Nick is remodeling. We love the idea and look of french doors. The problem is, these were in miserable shape. The poor sap who installed them before we bought the house really did an awful job. They never took all the plastic off of the panes and there are hundreds of tiny pieces of plastic stuck to the framing and panes. The doorknob hardware was installed incorrectly, making it crooked, and all of it is unpainted wood. Nick used his time while trim was drying to meticulously cut all of the little teeny tiny plastic pieces off of the doors. We are talking something like 30+ panes of glass on EACH door. Then he individually taped off each pane of glass on each side to prep for painting so he would not paint on the glass....one of the doors is under way for painting, but it will take a bit more time to get that tough job done. But what a difference already!!!!!
I could never thank Nick enough for how hard he working on this house. My main concern is that he is doing it because he enjoys it - and he assures me he does. With my RA, I cannot be as much help as we thought I would be when we bought the place. To be honest, had we known then what we know now about my physical limitations, we probably would not have bought a "fixer upper".....we would instead be living in a perfectly nice split level in the burbs in our price range instead of in a house in need of TLC (which is how it fell to our price range) in this neighborhood.....But Nick is making it all happen and I would love for anyone reading this to take a minute to tell him how terrific he is! :)
Anyway....that was the weekend as far as the house goes! Kate did not have a chance to venture into the terrifying and torturous land of swimming lessons this weekend. Her dreams came true and the pool broke, so classes were cancelled for this past weekend! :) We had a great time all the same. My Mom is in town at her condo and we had a great time with "nana", or as Kate calls her "Nia". We spent a good part of the weekend getting Nana's condo more put together (which, for those of you who know my mother, seems like an impossible task since her home is notoriously about as put together as they come). :) tee hee :) Also, Erin, Nick and Jack are visiting and we went to the Mall of America yesterday to their AMAZING aquarium (I was skeptical about it, but if you are ever here, you should go! It is beautiful! I know the words "mall" and "beautiful" do not generally go together, but trust me. And let me clarify - the aqauraium experience is beautiful. The Mall, while great, is not so beautiful). Kate loved the "Wish" as she calls Fish.
Well, it is late and I should be going. Looking forward to a week with my Mom, Dad, sister and brother et al (Dad arrives tomorrow). My main challenge this week is to get Nick to take a break and enjoy some free time that he so richly deserves! The paint and wood and nails will wait....he deserves a cold one and some golf, I think! I know those are his Saturday plans! Yaaaaay for him!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
PS - I have some terrific pics to post soon....Hint: Kate in a TuTu! It is so darn cute!
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