Plodding Along

The stair railings, ready for more stripping and refinishing

The last two weekends have been good, and we've gotten a lot of work done. There is also work happening on the outside of the Cheney Cottage.

We've been working on the wiring, and have completed two of the upstairs bedrooms, the hallway light (a 30way switch), and much of the kitchen and living room lighting. We still have to run romex for the bathrooms and the dining room.

The front door, with trim being stripped and a new electrical box

We've been adding more trim on the outside of the house. The east side is mostly done, as is the north side (the front). We also fixed the trim on the west window that had no trim, and added the window in the kitchen (where the door was).

The bathroom with the wainscot and window trim replaced

We've been replacing trim inside as well. Much of the trim in the upstairs bedrooms is now back in place, and if the trim hasn't been installed, we have at least figured out what goes where and put the pieces of trim in the correct rooms.

The front bedroom door, with trim replaced and a new electrical box for the light switch

Outside, the work continues. Dale and Miles of Walker Morris Painting are starting the prep work to paint the house, so the front of the house is covered by a screen to catch the lead paint as it is scraped. The University did a lot of the lead abatement when the house was still on campus, but Dale and Miles are working to get everything ready for paint. This week, they'll put up a gallon of each of the new colors, so we can really see what the house will look like. After all these years of being grey, it's going to be pretty vibrant with the new colors.

The window on the stairs, with the trim replaced

And Eric and his crew will be back at the end of the week to pour the foundations for the front and back porches. After that, we can start rebuilding the porches on the house.

We've even begun planning the landscaping. We have plans for a front retaining wall, with some good dirt brought in for plantings and a new walkway up to the front porch steps. Since we took one of the rose bushes from 62nd Street and put it on Parker Street (where it is flourishing), we want to repay the gift by taking one of the seedling Japanese Maple trees, from our 60 year old tree, and plant that in the front yard of the Cheney Cottage. Our neighbor Mark has several growing in pots in his yard, where the seeds floated down into pots he was using for orchids.

It's going to be a busy summer, but we're feeling like we're on track. Keep watching.