Labor!

Yes yes yes. I know Labor Day is supposed to be about relaxing, spending time with friends and family, and all that yadda yadda. But - if you're a psychotic home improvement junkie like me, you really get your kicks by completing weekend projects!

Let me tell you about my Labor Day. First off, I woke up a little angry because I slept through Discovery Channel's "Collassal Squid" show. Second off, I woke up super early. Like 6:30am kinda early. Not the normal start to a normal relaxing day off - again, I'm not that normal.

So I got up, went for a walk, came back, showered, and got to work. Mike was still asleep of course. It was still only 7:30. But by the time he got up at 9:30, I had already second coated the exterior window trim on the porch side, second coated the french doors, and painted half of the garage top - as far as I could reach from where the scaffolding was placed. Three coats!

Mike was nice enough to help me move the scaffolding right out of bed. And then we both got to painting the other half. He got all the high parts, of course. Before noon, the garage was done!

Before

After

Then we moved on to attaching those upstairs railing balusters that we had left unattached for so long. That was a little tedious and took us right up until lunch time. We took a short lunch break and then moved on to the basement!

If you remember our "Lean Mean Cleaning Machine" post - back on 4th of July weekend when the summer started (OMG has it been an entire summer?!) we cleaned out the garage and put all the home improvement related tools in the basement - creating a huge mess down there.

But it was an organized mess, with piles for plumbing, carpentry, electric, etc. All we had to do was build some additional shelves and put everything away neatly. So, we used a bunch of scrap wood and made the most makeshift shelves you've ever seen. I told Mike they looked like sketchy bunk beds. But they were pretty sturdy. And here's how everything looked when we put it back:


See, previously we had only had that smaller shelf on the left and we added the long part on the right. And all the stuff fits beautifully! I couldn't have asked for more... except perhaps a couple more storage boxes. All in good time.

After that was done, we were able to vacuum and clean up everything else down there, making room for all the extra porch lumber, which had been sitting outside for over a month.

Ah, the lumber section.

And Mike brought up an interesting point. We probably have enough extra wood to frame out a basement bathroom. "We should make a bathroom down here before we even think about doing the upstairs bathroom," he pointed out. A valid point. With only one bathroom - tearing down your bathroom leaves you toilet and showerless. I had half a mind to start him building on it right away...

But there's a roof and siding to consider. So this one may just be as well off left to the list of winter projects. Fall's agenda is just too long to list!

Lastly, as night fell on Labor Day, we installed the railing to the basement stairs... or at least half of it. (It's a split railing, and we don't have the bottom newel yet to attach the bottom part to.)

All in all - a very productive, non-relaxing labor day. And I wouldn't have wanted it any other way.