Playing catch-up

Been busy and distracted lately and haven't had much time to post on house progress. Much has been accomplished, and there is finally a light at the end of the tunnel we're in right now.

• On the 61^st day of home ownership (March 11^th), my brother in law delivered unto us a fine, fine floor. It's all reclaimed/recycled White Pine from an old Eastman Kodak building that was torn down in downtown Rochester about 2 years ago. It took less than 4 hours of working time to actually install the floor and it looks amazing. We've sanded three times, and put two coats of polyurethane down, with one more to go. The wood is darkening up already, as expected, due to UV exposure and the texture and character of the wood is really coming out. It's wonderful.
• Trim has been painted in the family room and baseboards installed. We ended up using some wainscotting turned on its side. This is thin, but gives the height we need. The hole in the brick wall is now sealed and concealed. I ran the TV cable behind the baseboard and installed an outlet in the baseboard right at the hole in the wall to conceal everything and give a nice, clean installation.
• We had a friend of my wife's family, an electrician, out on March 21^st to give me some ideas on what to do about the problematic wiring for the ceiling fan in the family room. His verdict: there's no telling what's inside the walls. Recommendation: cut a swath out of the wall over the switch that's already in the room and run wire up that. Then run wire inside conduit inside the crown moulding we're going to install anyway, around the room, then across the ceiling to the fan box. This also gives me a spot to run speaker wire for the rear surround speakers.
• The previous owner's son came over on Friday to pick up the last of ehr stuff and finish patching the hole in the roof.
• We've decided that we need concrete backer board for the tile going over the stove. And learned the hard way that the sheets don't fit in the backseat of a Hyundai Elantra without being cut down some. Oops.
• My wife started clearing out some of the leaves and other debris in the backyard while her brother and I were working on the floor. She pulled up a lot of stones and plenty of leaves. Found lots of flowers starting to pop already. And yet it snowed this weekend.
• I've got to find a resource on local laws & codes. We've had dogs running free in our backyard, leaving "presents", on several occasions lately. Their owner has been nearby, but they've been unleashed. Also had lots of people parking in front of our house on the street. That's just a minor bother, really.
• We went down to the old apartment Saturday to clean up and bring more stuff back up to the house. It was surreal being there after such a long absence. Got most stuff out, but we'll have to make at least one more trip, likely two. Our goal is April 1 to be finished there.