Finishing touches started!

Well it’s the downhill side of the project now! We managed to put up all but one piece of crown molding today. I had to cut all of the angles after paying for angle cutting, the cuts went the wrong direction. We have enough left over to put crown molding inside the closet also! Mr. Professional helped me get it installed. It just takes time, all of these finishing steps just take time, the last 15% of every project takes almost as much time as the first 85%.

The closet door is glued together and just needs to dry overnight. I will glue the shelves together every couple of nights this week so we can get those installed. I ordered metal shelf brackets today but I am not sure if they are going to be here on time to get the shelves in next weekend. Nope, I just looked the shelve brackets do not arrive until Tuesday, nine days from now. They are only one inch wide so we may just be able to leave room to install them when they arrive and still hang the shelves as long as we don’t put any weight on the shelves. The paint stripper is coming by Friday so we can get the grey paint off of the one side of the bathroom door. Annmarie tells me I am not allowed to use the bathroom until the door works! Currently that is not an issue as the plumber has not been here yet. I am hopeful the plumber will come in the next two weeks.

I am loving the new clean breeze porch. I was able to transplant 10 jade plant starts today from their watery containers into actual soil pots. I only started one more jade cutting today, I am trying to shape my big plant and it keeps wanting to send off random shoots. I keep cutting them back and it is finally starting to fill in.

Annmarie just informed me that I am not allowed to build any new fence this year! I had two new sections of fence planned for this summer. I have to complete the culvert in the barn lot that got torn out last year due to flooding and then I need to put a new front porch deck on. I know that the front decking job will be a nightmare because as soon as I tear off the decking I will see the support framework and it will probably need a lot of help. The front deck job has been on the calendar for the last three years. My new fencing project has been on the calendar for six months. I love new projects!!

I am also going to start looking into plans for a craft building. I have found a location am just trying to finalize the shape. I won’t start on that for a couple of years. I really like the idea and think if I do the floor in tongue and groove wood, and the outside in rough lumber I can do the inside in plywood. This would let us build custom shelves and long work benches that are counter height, maybe even an island in the middle of the room to just use as a flat space for assembly and whatever. New projects are the bomb! They let my brain spin, plan, assemble, tear apart and redo without ever lifting any tools.

I have one chicken that cannot figure out it needs to lay eggs in the chicken coop, not the barn! I found a green egg in the barn straw this morning when I went out and let the sheep outside. When Annmarie went out to feed the sheep this evening she found the culprit in the middle of a feeder hunkered down but she did not have any eggs. The chickens are not very smart but boy the home grown free range eggs are amazing and now we have one chicken that is laying double yolk eggs consistently.

Must finish bathroom

Now that I am on a path to fitness and drinking more than brown life giving and sustaining water (coffee) all day I need that upstairs bathroom. Who thinks that drinking a gallon of water on top of a gallon of coffee is good for your bladder? I will admit that I tend not to twitch or flop around as much at night when I drink lots of water but its a hard habit to get into after living on coffee for 30 years. I need the bathroom to be a short walk from the bedroom to maximize my sleep time.

I was able to rub on the wall finish Friday but ran out. I need to do the lower section on one wall. The crown molding needs to go up but I needed to rub the finish onto the wall first. So I started working at the top of the wall and working down so we could install the molding, knowing I was going to run out. I used an old cotton T-shirt and it worked great, no little cloth pills left on the wall.

One of the complications of doing the bathroom in the winter is that I need a place to glue my shelves together. Obviously with the cold it cannot be done outside, unfortunately over the last couple of years the breeze porch has become a catch all location for everything. I do mean everything! So it has taken almost three full days to just remove all of the stuff that was out there, clean up and throw away a ton of stuff. We even got some new plastic bins so we could move all of the reloading supplies into the attic. Next winter I am shooting for building a custom reloading bench on the breeze porch. The bathroom has to come first so I can head outside in the spring.

Yesterday we concentrated on the breeze porch trying to get it cleared so we could use the space to glue shelves together. Once we have those parts glued together we can start installing the shelves. We need to construct the barn door to cover the closet opening also. I even managed to transplant three different plants that were horribly root bound and had not been touched for several years. I expect those plants to take off and be happy. I have about eight more plants that need some more attention. I may even have to start giving away some jade plants as I started about six plants from cuttings and they are taking off. I do toss cuttings in the trash as I cannot start every small piece that comes off a plant! I let my African Violets take a beating and have managed to start two new plants. I need to do cuttings and start 4-8 more plants. I had let them fend for themselves and ended up killing off three. The rest are so healthy they need to be trimmed back as they are starting to try and tip my planters over. The African Violets are from Annmarie’s grandmother so I keep them going. I have three cactus that have fallen over and need to be replanted. I always hate dealing with them once they get a certain size! I do use folded newspaper to wrap them up as I replant them but I always manage to get poked regardless. There is now a nice wide open spot to work and once we get some more tools put away there will be plenty of space to glue boards together.

The Covid symptoms persist, I have learned to just keep pushing. I hate that I cannot do what I used to before catching it. I want to be the person pushing the grocery cart so I can lean on the cart as I walk through the grocery store. I can now get across the hospital at work three times in a single day. I used to walk constantly for hours in a day and now I do it about 15 minutes a day. I still get very short of breath with exertion and if the shortness of breath persists then I start getting chest pain. I have things I want to do this spring. I am unsure of how much I will be able to physically do when the weather improves. It is very frustrating.