They kept at it!

"They" referring to both our hardwood floor refinishers AND our porch contractor. It was a lovely sunny, if a bit chilly, day today and plenty got done (that we didn't have to do). The floor guys were already at the house and calling me at work to answer questions about 8AM. I went over at 9:30 and they had completed the sanding (to the edges) in the living room and guest bedroom. I answered questions about what to patch and then got the fun of seeing what the floors look like with polyurethane in little patches where they sampled it for me. I really like the natural pine with the poly in the guest bedroom and hallway. It gets a rich warm color with the polyurethane and likely won't need stain. The oak floors in the front room would probably benefit from an application of walnut stain as it evens them out and will go better with our eventual trim. When I left them they were getting set to remove and patch some of the rotted thin strips in the dining room. When we got back this evening they'd patched the whole dining room (it looks great) and around the arches where there are several extra inches of open space on the floor where that pesky brick wall used to be...it's too far to easily cover with trim, so they are filling in as they can. There are still plenty of holes, gaps and irregularities throughout that are disturbing the floor guys, but Eric and I consider them the "character marks" that come with a 104 year old house!
Justen got the porch footers set up and the base of the porch framed today. The braces are installed too, so it looks like we have the promise of decking shortly! Eric's trial continues on through tomorrow so maybe I'll have my husband back for the weekend....when I have to work on our Open House & Craft Extravaganza at the Market....come over for great indie holiday shopping!