HFM

Mr. Bunkport did indeed come by last week, as planned! He put these copper downspouts up: They look great now, & they're going to look even better once they start to take on a reddish-greenish patina. He is working on the catchment system separately. We'll look at scheduling that installation with him in about a month, after my work calendar opens up. As for my to-do list, I finished touching up the walls and painting the trim in the new rooms. We are now ready to seal the concrete floor this week, just in time for another generous gift to come over from Jon: a couch! In the garden, sprouts are already up for most of what I planted last week. And the fava seeds arrived in the mail, so those all went in on Sunday. Next week: sealing the concrete floor, & possibly getting some mulch to cover the packed dirt & gravel & patchy grass that is our back yard. It would be nice to sit on the new couch on Sunday, & look out on a more beautiful garden space.

Made more good progress on my to-do list on the last two days of spring break. I stained the interior of the windows & doors downstairs the same honey color as the rest of the wood in the house. Turned out pretty well. I skipped photos because the difference is a little too subtle to see in a photo. I also made progress on touching up the paint in the downstairs rooms. Should be able to finish that next weekend. In other news, the vegetable garden has been planted & is ready to go: The total area is 19 square feet -- the long side is 7 feet long, and the little angle is 2 1/2 feet long. I trimmed that angle down by a couple feet this year to open up the area in front of the panda a little more. I decided against a garden border of broken terra cotta tiles because I realized that I don't know whether those tiles have lead in them. I am using these broken pieces of concrete instead and/or until I get around to testing the tiles for lead. The bed has been planted with beets, a...

I didn't get a chance to call Mr. Bunkport to schedule the final gutter and catchment system work this week, and he will be in New Orleans helping our friend Brian with his new house next week, so still in a holding pattern on the final work. Which is actually fine, since it's not raining and since we're waiting on interminable paperwork before we can really call this done anyway. What's the rush at this point, really? The important stuff -- the structural stuff -- is done and the house is safe, and their construction stuff is gone, so we have our house back again. All is well. Except for the washing machine. This weird yellow-orange goo has been dripping into the drum & getting on the clothes: I called a couple of repair places, and they both said that machines this old typically can't be repaired because the company doesn't manufacture the parts anymore. And even if you get lucky and find the parts, the machine usually won't hold the repair. So off we ...

Well, here it is. The final week of a full year of construction project (not including the various meetings we had with the engineer for four months before anyone even picked up a hammer). There is still one remaining item: gutters and catchment system. Mr. Bunkport couldn't come over this past week because I was out of town. I am hoping we will be able to connect next week. I'm in the final week of one of my classes, as well, so I had to prioritize a couple writing assignments over progressing on projects this week. I did take advantage of the beautiful low-70's weather on Sunday to move some piles of garden materials around in the yard to make way for the vegetable bed, and to scrub down the downstairs floor with an eco-friendly soap that penetrates the concrete. After my tiring afternoon of doing that, and after AJ's furious weekend of taiko drumming (including a 2-hour march in the Chinese New Year parade), we descended on Jon's house to do this: We also made a ...

No physical progress this week, but Mr. Bunkport is now just about ready to install the rain catchment system. We are looking at a time toward the end of next week for that. In the meantime, there's a rose bush in the yard that we didn't realize is a rose bush, because it hasn't bloomed in the three years we've lived here [update: Susie thinks it's a camellia]. Whatever the reason [and whatever it is], it seems awfully happy now & is blooming like crazy: (Sorry, New Englanders!)