Adventures In Remodeling: "Miss" Meadowlawn Dr.: This and That

Plotting against the squirrel.

We have officially lost all semblance of a "weekend". In fact I think we put in longer hours on Saturday and Sunday than we do the rest of the week! There has been a lot going on at the house the last few days. We still have the squirrel in the attic despite my ingenious attempt to coax it down using peanut butter and sunflower seeds, some boards and a ladder. Apparently it's not as smart as I am. It's either that or he doesn't want to leave. I hope there are no additional squirrels and no hanky-panky going on up there because I don't want any baby squirrels calling it home. We have spent pretty much most of our lunch breaks trying to figure out how to get it out of there.

The squirrel plotting against us.

In addition, Dad has put up most of the trim and base. And it has taken days to do. The new windows fit in the slots from the old ones, but they are a different thickness, so extra pieces of wood were needed to finish out the inside of the windows before the trim could be put on. Dad figured it all out, and then proceeded to cut them all and piece them together. I probably would have gone through half a forest of boards before I figured out how to get everything together so perfectly. It's a lot of measuring and cutting corners (I mean actually cutting corner pieces, not taking shortcuts;) It's amazing how much it changes the look of things. It looks finished with all the doors and windows trimmed out.

My job (since painting is mostly done except for a few odds and ends) is to follow behind and fill with spackling all the nail holes used to hang the trim, and then caulk all the seams between the trim/base and whatever it touches (like the wall, or window frame). Then when that is all done I have to paint over it again! It's not hard work, but it is pretty tedious at times. And there are so many doors and windows etc, that I can (and have already) spend days doing nothing but that. But it looks great when it's all done.

We also tackled the furnace room. It was the last place that was untouched from the original house. So Saturday the guys pulled out the water heater and Eduardo pulled out the vinyl floor, and put down the tile. And yesterday I went in and washed all the disgusting dirty pipes and walls and painted everything. It looks a lot better now.

Yesterday I also painted the new front door red, and did a makeover on the "new" garage door, which is the old front door. I think the latter looks pretty nice, and by using it instead of getting a new one we saved about $100.