Labor Day Weekend: A Weekend of Labor

*sigh*

I feel like I've neglected my blog with fluff posts.  Well, here's a good update.

This weekend the hubster and I went down to a co-worker's farm for a hog roast.  We almost didn't make it because we spent so long getting out of the house.  Our departure time slipped like 2 hours.  We made it down to Canal Winchester and it started to rain.  We stopped in at the Kroger to pick up some ice in the cooler and some bug repellant.  By the time we got back outside, it was sprinkling a little bit and forecast said 40-50% chance of rain the entire afternoon.  I wanted to head back, but the hubster was insistent.  So we went and right after we got there, it started to rain and it didn't stop until it got dark.  Regardless, we had a good time with my co-workers and his family and friends.  The pig was pretty good as it usually is.  It was a pot luck and I brought Reese's peanut butter cookies and Snickerdoodles.  This was my first attempt at them and they turned out ok.  The consistency and texture were spot on, but there was a funny taste.  I'll have to do some trouble shooting the next time I make them.  We got home around midnight.  I stayed up for another 2 hours and finally fell asleep.

The next morning we slept in and headed over to Home Depot to buy some struts to fix our bowing garage door and buy the baseboard for the house...FINALLY.  Here's where the labor for Labor Day weekend comes in.  We picked up the materials and slowly made it back home.  12 foot piles of baseboard don't really fit well in a Tiburon.  We set about fixing the garage door right away since it has adde about an extra five minutes getting out of the house.  We installed the first strut and it didn't fix the problem.  We went back to Home Depot and got another strut.  We installed the second strut and it semi-worked.  The bowing isn't as bad, but the garage door malfunctions maybe every fifth time it comes down versus every time.  And when we try to lower it on a malfunction, it takes one try versus maybe four or five.

After the door was "fixed", we started on the baseboard.  We decided we'd do the bedroom first so that we could make mistakes in there and not out in the living room.  We moved all the furniture away from the walls and got to cutting.  We had kept the old baseboard and used those as templates for cuts.  Turned out to be a very smart idea.  We got the first one cut and tried to install it.  We ran into trouble with the nail set.  It kept slipping off the nail head and would then put a nice hole into the baseboard.  Not what we wanted!  The nail set eventually mushroomed and we decided to return the nails and nail set.  However, it did provide use the chance to see  if the wood filler I bought worked.  It did!  So back to Home Depot for our third trip of the day.

We got some new nails with dimpled nail heads and a new nail set.  Back home we go.  These nails worked out much better.  The hubster had to leave for his boy's night out while I toiled away at home.  I managed to finish the bedroom and hallway - boards, caulk, and filled.  Not bad for 6 hours of work.  I ended the night at 8 and watched TV for the rest of the night.  Once the hubster came home, we moved everything back in place.  It was a pain in the ass since our bed is huge and HEAVY.  To make matters worse, the rug underneath the bed was off kilter and had wrinkles in it.  *sigh*  We finally got everything into place and went to bed.

I was rudely woken up this morning with pleas to walk the dog.  The hubster had to work today =(  Since I was up, I figured I'd get a head start on the baseboard again while the hubster was at work.  I managed to finish the living room by 11 - furniture moved, baseboard installed, caulked, nail heads filled and furniture back in place - and decided to go shopping and meet the hubster at lunch.  I realized at this time that I was incredibly sore from all the work I had done the night before.  Who knew a byproduct of installing baseboard is an incredibly sore butt and legs.

I bought him a new pair of swim trunks from Nordstrom, a dress and shirt from Anthropologie (yay extra 25% off clearance), a shirt for me and tshirt for the hubster from Express.  We were supposed to go to Cosi for lunch, but it was packed.  Line was out of the door.  We ended up at Burger King instead.  After we departed after lunch, I cut all the remaining baseboard to size for the office, the pieces connecting to the stairs and the closets.

I then took a two hour nap waiting for the hubster to get off work.  Once he got home, we got to work. We moved the office furniture around, installed the baseboard, broke for dinner, and finished off the caulking and filling in the nail heads.  Since we were both working, I managed to finish the hall closet while he worked in the office.  The office closet was the last thing to tackle.

So 5 months after starting the flooring project, the baseboards are finally installed.  We're not done yet!  We are two thirds of the way done.  Next, I need to order the thresholds and install those.  Maybe that'll take another 5 months.  I dearly hope not.  I think I'll order them this week.  Compared to the first two steps of this process, installing those cannot be that hard.  There's only 20 linear feet compared to 201 linear feet of baseboard and 1400 square feet.