The Gathering

Tonight was all about the collecting and delivering of necessary stuff to the maison. First stop: Lowe's where the SunTouch radiant heat mats had arrived and were awaiting our pickup. Already in the back of the van from yesterday's delivery were the tin ceiling panels and cornice for the kitchen (which come in amazingly managable boxes (2) considering we ordered 56 panels + 1 long box of cornice). Then we headed over the the "Miller Tool Library" where friends Tina and Andy gave us loan of a wet tile saw, tile nips and tin snips (THANKS Millers!). We got inspiration from their tile work in the kitchen and their ongoing second floor remodel to create an office/studio space (good luck...we think you'll be done before us!) Next we stopped by our "warehouse" to pick up the various light fixtures we'd purchased for every room, closet and stairwell of the house. It was fairly amusing to root through the billions of boxes in an attempt to recall where we'd "conveniently" stashed them...I think we found all but 1! Last stop: the house. Everything came out of the car and was staged in its appropriate room. It was a wee bit of an obstacle course as Justen has not only completely removed the back porch in the last 2 days, but today he had footer holes dug (and vaguely covered). Justen knew we'd be coming so he set up a series of 12" wide planks through the backyard mud to the back steps...which I think used to be the steps on the second floor to the now-closet. At any rate it was a precarious trek from the car over the planks (two that were balanced over footer holes), one step up a mud hill to the sorta-secured wooden steps into the back of the house. Try that while balancing a heavy and unwieldy ceiling fan box! The delivery of all of the light fixtures TONIGHT was important because our electric crew (yeah Lumbee Electric!) is returning tomorrow to start the "finish" job of installing outlets, switches and fixtures. We CANNOT wait to see some results! Photos tomorrow if they get some good stuff done!