It’s been 3 weeks and we’re still painting. The entire 4th of July weekend we painted. And every waking moment outside of work since then, we’ve been at the house. I think all of the nail holes are filled and sanded. Most of the trim has 2 coats except a few windows and doors. We’ve begun staining and have the first coat on the stairs. Hopefully we’ll get the second on tonight - now that we’ve found a color we like (after 3 tries). Jason worked on staining the front doors last weekend and ran out of stain with the edge of the door unfinished. It’s a special order from the door company, so we’re waiting. It’s a fiberglass door and it takes the stain at least 48 hours to dry because it will wipe right off. Of course, we had a thunderstorm on Sunday, so we created a plastic barrier on the front porch to protect it - a little sunroom of sorts. We did get a sidewalk, another heat pump installed and a pipe to collect water from the heat pump - so we don’t have to empty a bucket everyday! Many thanks to our families for helping us paint. Jay’s dad spent an entire Sunday with us and Joe and Carrie were with us last Saturday along with Mark and Luke. And Mom and Dad are over there all the time working on ducts and painting. We really appreciate it. At least we’ve had AC - except when Jay stains the doors and lets all of the humidity back in!

Last night we moved trees all around the yard with a wheelbarrel or rolled them if they were too big. I think they’re finally where we want them, so now we just have to plant them before they die.

They’re installing the vinyl and hardwood floors this week. And we saw pieces of our coatrack in the house last night, so that should be in soon also. Check out the new pics.