Flibitydjibbits

Paint. Paint the white paint whiter. Remove the old paint just to paint. I find paint under my nails, on my elbow, in my hair, on my lips. It's everywhere - insidious. Just when I think I'm done, there's more; a spot here, a drop there, a newly drilled hole waiting to be filled and painted over. MORE, MORE, MORE.

The paint. It'll be my end.

Yet, the end is in sight for the back portion of the house. I can see it. I can smell it. I can taste it - thanks to the paint previously found on my lip.

Preparations have begun on the outside of the house for my grandma's visit. Ah, you say, "How fun, your grandmother is coming into town for a visit. You'll take a break from the house, show her the town and eat some lovely meals." Ah-ha friend, this is where you're wrong. She, like all the others before her, comes to WORK! No one leaves unscathed. Actually, I think she's rather excited to help. I'm sure glad to have her on her way. We're planning to paint as much of the exterior as is possible for the two of us in a week's time.

Thus, E and I have been prepping the exterior so that when Grandma arrives, painting can commence. This means stripping the trim, digging out any dry-rot, filling the holes, sanding and priming.

These are my three new best friends:

The first window E went at with a blowtorch and scraper. We received a handy tip from my brother in-law to about a fancy window stripping tool.

I, a bit nervous about burning the house down, used the traditional scrapper and the new age scraper and think it turned out quite nicely.

I've rounded the corner on the house and while E is in San Diego working his tail off, I'll be trying to finish scraping the window trim. As I said before, pain, paint, removing paint, paint.

On a prettier note - the closet is done in the master bedroom. Door handles cleaned and re-installed with an added washer so they don't dangle lifelessly from the doors like in the former days. If you look really, really, really, really closely you can see the new washer in the photo below. Don't see it? Good. See it? Don't tell me.

Here's an action shot of the closet installation. Some left over trim boards were put to work for the top shelf and as added support strips for both the upper and lower clothes rods.

With the completion of the closet, the master bedroom is officially done! We're nearing completion of the master bath as well. We tried to pick up the vanity top from the stone cutters but the owner tried to haggle us up on the price over the phone as we were trying to pay for it. E had a plane to catch but managed to stay calm as he dealt with the matter. It probably didn't help that I was screeching in the background, "HE TOLD ME $700, HOW DARE HE! DOESN'T HE REALIZE HE'S TRYING TO GOUGE US FOR $100 WHEN HE HAS ANOTHER POTENTIAL JOB FROM US WITH THE KITCHEN!"

That being said, we're picking up the bathroom counter in several days, for the initially agreed upon price and I'll still get a bid from this guy plus from several others for the kitchen. Here's the stone I'm eyeing at the moment.

There are more pronounced flecks of white in it that I can't seem to capture with my camera. All we have to do is install the cabinets and they can come measure for the counter.

I'm waiting patiently for our contractor to get back to us with a date to come help with the install. He's generously donating his time to us. I think I'll write him an e-mail right now...