Project updates

It’s been a few days since my in-laws returned to New Jersey. While they were here, they kick-started a ton of projects around the house, including replanting the beds in front of the house (formerly hidden by our trees), getting the junk out of the pathways around the garden beds, and the front porch repainting and baseboard preparation I mentioned on Sunday.

On Tuesday night I took the new nailgun and started installing the baseboards. The only problem I ran into was lack of accessible studs on some walls—meaning that two of the molding strips have one end that is attached to nothing, at least until I find a way to glue or otherwise affix them more permanently to the wall. I was also disappointed to note that the electric nailgun was not quite sturdy enough to drive a 1″ brad all the way into the stud; I ended up having to hammer every one down for the last quarter inch. But the work went much faster and was much more precise than if I had to drive the nails by hand. Next steps: fix those two loose ends, caulk the gaps between the boards and the walls where the walls aren’t quite square, and touch up the paint.

Incidentally, a long belated shoutout to the folks at HouseInProgress.net, who blogrolled the Houseblog department a while back and whose energy and dedication to their remodel has frequently shamed me into taking action on our projects, which are much less onerous than theirs.