6 May 2016

Jason and Brett arrived somewhat before 6, per their usual routine.  By the end of their workday they had finished repainting the trim in the sun room, kitchen, living room, and half bath… all areas where the walls have not been color coated yet.  (Obviously it’s a lot easier to paint the trim if you don’t have to worry about getting a little paint on the walls.)  The Chantilly Lace is the perfect trim color.  Whew!!!!  Speaking of color: first thing this morning I opened the cans for the half bath and study walls and painted on a medium-sized square.  The half bath color (Nature’s Gift… and, honestly, who comes up with these paint names????) looks fine… and it’s a good thing we decided to go two shades lighter than the original selection.  The study color (called Stunning Gold, which looks to me more like Stunned-by-a-Pumpkin) Chree loves and I can’t live with, so there’s going to be some more inter-spousal discussion about that choice.  Sonny and Brandon spent the morning putting casing around the radiant heat manifold inset and baseboards in the storage room.  In the afternoon they started making closet shelves out of ¾″ 2-sided MDO which, because it is a plywood, has to be faced with ¾″ x ¾″ poplar on what will be the exposed front edge.  They also cut the 1¼″ diameter pine closet hanging rods to approximate lengths, then turned them over to me for sanding and varnishing.  After much feet-dragging, I finally agreed with Sonny that the sentimental from-our-property maple boards are just too twisty to be used for the interior door thresholds, with maybe one exception.  Sonny ordered fresh, kiln-dried maple stock from Goodro’s.  Steve did some more plumbing for the under-stairs hot water heater and then started on connecting the de-super heater tank in the mechanical room to the geothermal heat pump.  He also put in the valves so that there now is water down at the sauna through the PEX tubing we ran the other day.  Steve put in a purge valve (actually just a hose spigot) in the shop, so that in the winter I can drain the sauna water line and (fingers crossed) keep any more freeze-ups from happening.  Chree left late morning to spend Mother’s Day weekend with her parents in Connecticut.  I put up all but one of the rest of the shop lights… and discovered upon throwing the switch that the last light in the string is not working.  Checked all the connections in the surrounding lights and replaced the miscreant, all to no avail.  I’m sure Tom will want an electrical challenge when he returns to work on Monday.  In addition to varnishing hanging rods, in the afternoon I installed about half of the living / dining room lights, all of which worked just fine.