Adventures at The Bunny Manse

 Pocket door removed so that Matt can repair the termite damage at the bottom. When I saw it on the porch at lunch, I immediately started caressing it saying, wow, that's a beautiful door. Forgot for a moment that it will soon effortlessly slide between my living and dining room.   New oak flooring laid in living room, getting all accustomed to the humidity in the house and expanding before it's sanded and polyed.   Upstairs...we continue to pull nails. The hallway remains, then we pull up the downstairs hallway floor and see what lies beneath the linoleum.   HVAC install is Monday.

Harris finished screwing in the subfloor last night around 3am. This morning at 8am the crew from Accent arrived to lay the new oak floor for the living room. There is a slight change in elevation over the room and in total is off square by 1/4 of an inch. (163 inches vs 163.25 inches) so they are sanding and building up the transition somehow. I kind of like having professionals who know what they are doing working on the house. You can present a slight problem and not only have they seen it before, they have ways to fix it and make it beautiful. Also, Genia cracks me up in the best ways. saying of someone else "Only one I know who can do $4k worth of damage to something worth $3k" Harris slept from 7pm to midnight last night, woke up, ordered a pizza, then started working on the floor. I woke up around 1:30 and got back to sleep around 5. I'm reading myths of the ancients on project gutenberg which helps. I thought it was my inability to care as a high schooler th

I've been approved to start a Girl Scout troop. This makes me uncommonly happy today.  I was a girl scout for 10+ years, so know the full range of wonderful things that scouting teaches girls, but I'm giddy with the thought of Madeline in a blue tunic.

This will be the girls room. Here you see how the cracks have been opened and the plaster secured to the studs and then the same wall thathas then had the base coat applied. The opposite wall picture is a few hours after the top coat has been applied. It will continue to lighten over the coming days to a violet color.    These are the suite bedroom across from the girls room.     . Some shots of the third bedroom being prepped and Harris working on the living room floor.  

Windows downstairs - Ben finished his, Harris finished another I started last fall, David to return two oval windows sometime in August. Leaves one downstairs and five upstairs to complete. Electrical - finishing details and arranging payment Plaster - two more weeks with Ed, four days left with Brad.  Brad is prepping the final bedroom this week, Ed is finishing second coat on girls room today and will start top coat today or tomorrow. Next week is top coat on final room and any remaining details. HVAC - to schedule layout next week, install to start August 4th be completed by  August 7th when we will have AIR CONDITIONING! Floors - Harris to have subfloor in living room laid by Monday so Genia can install new oak. Sand, patch, trowel, seal of all remaining floors to begin Wednesday, August 13th Then, we arrange to get all of our stuff from TROSA storage, move into our house, and await our daughter's arrival

Electricians are there migrating power from the 100 amp boxes to the 200 amp boxes and upgrading the line power. This should be complete today.  Fingers Crossed. ** Mid morning update** Electrical will not be complete until Thursday as Duke Power didn't show up for the switch over. Windows... I think Ben is waiting for a sash? We have three windows that are partially finished and three that are fully finished. He's been incredible dealing with the unexpected. Zinc windows  - David took those last week. They should be repaired and rehung in the next month sometime. Plaster - today since there is a lack of consistent power they will be scraping and preparing the girls room. girlS room, how friggin cool is that.  Bill and Harris cleaned out the last bedroom upstairs, so all three can be done if there is time. Finish coat plaster will start tomorrow in the suite upstairs, then they will do the girls room next week, then the final bedroom the following. sub floor for livi

Sometimes there are delays... The wire the electricians need will not arrive until later today (at the earliest) pushing the switch over from 2 100 amp boxes to 1 400 amp box until Monday Brad, Ed's apprentice in the plaster trade, hurt himself over the weekend, so wasn't able to work Monday or Tuesday. Luckily he was able to rejoin Ed today and they continue to prep walls upstairs.  We may get three bedrooms finished - we may get two bedrooms finished. Here's hoping for three. The tile for downstairs arrived and...it's going to be much more complicated to lay than we thought. Have two people giving estimates this week (hopefully) to do the work.  Still waiting to hear from the plumber if for some stupid reason them replacing the toilet (not changing anything other than the damn fixture) needs a building permit (it doesn't plumber. Get your head on right).  But I would like that bathroom finished ASAP thank you very much. We have many things that are at 50%

Daughter born or finished* house? Place your bets here.... Daughter is due first week in September. This leaves about 8.5 weeks remaining to incubate and work. *by finished we mean the upstairs plaster in three bedrooms, the hardwood floors upstairs and down, all electrical upgrades and fixes, HVAC installed and working, two bathrooms utterly gorgeous, two additional bathrooms functional. Wild cards at this point include: 5 additional windows upstairs, three zinc glass panels repaired and reinstalled, one massive window downstairs repaired and rehung.

 What a busy weekend! Someone lost a second tooth Sunday morning!         we heavily encouraged the pulling of said tooth as it was rotating all around and just hanging out in the spot. After about half an hour, Harris handed her a tissue and we got her to pull it out on her own. Afterwards we talked about whether it was scarier or actually as painful as she was making it out to be. She agreed that it was fear more than pain and that now it was out, she was proud of herself.   Not as proud as Mommy and Daddy sweetheart.   Our annual selfie watching fireworks outside of the Durham Bulls stadium. This time we perched at Dillard and Pettigrew to try a new view.         We also went blueberry picking on Saturday. We managed to weigh 8 lbs of sweet organic rabbit eye blueberries at the end. Pretty sure the blond ate a pound while we were picking.  This should be enough to get us through summer and fall (frozen) after we gorge ourselves on blueberries for

  Hey look, there's Harris pulling up the living room floor!      We decided to admit that we need a new floor in the living room. We didn't have enough to salvage and patch in the oak from the dining room and make it not look stupid. As Harris pulled it out, it became clear this is a good decision. The space behind him and to the left it totally rotten - oak, pine, and subfloor. Had we patched in, we would have had a horribly unstable floor.        We are trying to re-home the pine and oak to neighbors who need wood for patch work. Harris then has to lay plywood for the subfloor before Genia at Accent can come back and lay a new oak floor that will match the dining room and transition nicely to the entry/hallway.