Dining Room/Library Complete; Finally

If you can believe it (because we hardly can), last NOVEMBER we installed a door into the south wall of our dining room/library and just this winter returned to the project. What happened? We certainly don't know, in fact we aren't sure what we did last winter?! We do know once spring rolled around we busted our bums with gardening and that's that. So here we are, over a year later and we are finally, finally finished! WOO HOO!

Plaster wall waiting for trim to cover up the ugly:

Steve using his favorite oscillating multi-tool for the trim work:

2x4 spacers installed for something to attach the trim to:

Steve cutting used barn wood we salvaged for the trim:

Boards stained and drying. Note the board on the far left. This is a Steve original: the most perfect threshold EVER made with another 2x4. I can't even begin to say how impressed I am with this board!

Plaster patching, attaching trim, tool fun...can life get any better?

Well, of course! Nothing can hold a candle to wiring. (This is where I want to say SIKE if it was still cool and grammatically correct to do so.) Steve is working like a mad-dog to finish the rewiring of our old house. He's been able to replace almost all of the old non-grounded wire even with some tricky areas and some disappointments: junk fish tape breaking in the wall making us lose hold of the wire, UGH.

Here's the room with the new wiring, trim and all that brilliant light we so adore.

Happy, happy!

The kitties love the sun as much as we do. Here's Minnie Pearl as cute as ever...

and Flora with her catnip banana...

...Bounder taking a break from her upstairs apartment and socializing with the rest of the family...

...and Alvin, showing off his baby blue eyes!:

And just because it's winter and we all need a reminder of summer, here's a view from the roof of our house of the butterfly garden we look out our dining room/library doors at everyday. Right now, the seed heads are feeding many white-throated sparrows, dark-eyed juncos, Northern cardinals and tree sparrows. A Carolina wren usually searches the stalks for various spiders and what not and a red-squirrel hopped onto the deck the other day, surveyed the land and enjoyed the black walnuts still littering the ground. We never pick up the walnuts, unless we want to eat some. Yes, we have to be careful where we step for a while, but the wildlife does an incredible job cleaning up the area by eating, storing and planting those nutritious nuts that if allowed, grow into fantastic trees. Thank goodness for a big door in a finished dining room/library to enable our wildlife viewing!