Almost There…

We spent the day at my MIL’s. What remains on our lists is necessary, but also is what’s filtering up to the top now that the vast majority of the heavy lifting is complete. It’s the stuff we haven’t thought about for months (making the concrete around the drain by the washer look less like there are regular floods, which there aren’t). I steamed ‘washed’ the downstairs study floor, yet each time I swipe at it with a paper towel, it comes up filthy… I want to actually mop that sucker before it gets carpeted. The area behind the washer and drier is disgraceful… You get the idea. And yes, I‘m going to hire a housekeeper, but one doesn’t want to hand over abject filth to a professional. I don’t consider that a good use of money.

Today we:

• Replaced the track lighting in my DH’s dad’s study. What a huge improvement! This involved actually replacing the track.
• I cleaned the windows in this room and every horizontal surface. These surfaces are ‘finished’ wood. It took 4-5 passes with windex before the towels were merely somewhat discolored rather than dirty and dark. My in-laws didn’t smoke, and this is not the detritus that came down from the ceiling…
• My DH put up all the smoke/CO detectors. When you rent/lease out a house in our state there are legal requirements about where all the detectors have to go. One smoke detector in each bedroom, and a CO detector in each hallway. The alarm system has combo units in each hallway, my DH added a new combo to each bedroom and the study (as the possibility of that space being use for a bedroom is likely, and we placed one on top of a kitchen cabinet. If someone lights a match in that house, it’s going to be a beep fest 😂.
• We took the newly built garden shed door off the shed and into the workshop so I could prime its other side in relative comfort. We brought a little space heater for the workshop… Next up is adding a brace to the door, which has warped some. Next week I’ll put the grey house color on both sides of the door.
• I also cut about 3/4” off the garden shed siding to the left of the shed door. It’s buckled and rotted as whoever built it didn’t leave any room for drainage from the deck. Essentially the deck and siding butt into each other. Leaves and water accumulate, rot occurs.
• My DH used a batch of cinder block to fill in a void and topped it off with gravel. This is for safety at the back of the house. We need more gravel, which I’ll bring with me Thursday as the gardeners will happily unload it for additional compensation 😁.
• I pressure washed the incredible moss growth. Until I got going, I didn’t realize just how much there was. I also (speaking of things floating to the top of lists) used the pressure washer to push soil back into garden beds where it had creped onto the driveway. Yeah, so what, you’re thinking 😏. Having the left edge of the driveway looking trim and straight helps the overall aesthetic. I also pressure washed as much of the deck off the master bedroom as the hose could reach from the driveway. It’s way less slippery!
• I ‘dustbusted’ the upstairs, got going on the mid-level and then stopped when a cloud of dust descended from on top if a built in shelf in the living room. It was more than me or the Dustbuster could handle in that moment…
• My DH trimmed the bottom of the cabinet doors in the study in preparation for the carpet install. This room has always been lino. Now a very nice carpet that the floor level cabinet doors have to open over…

Yes, there are two dozen more things that were accomplished today. Small bits that all add up (wiping the tops of the washer and drier off now that the contractor’s tech is starting to pull out of the house, for example), but none deserve their own bullet point 😏. Suffice to say, we are very pleased with our progress.