Doesn't seem like much for a whole month's worth of work, but the hallway proved to be more of a problem than you might think.

The floor has been down for some time; when we began the installation of the trim (baseboard and quarter-round "shoe rail") we realized that the chair rail probably needed to be removed and the wall space below it painted to match the upper half of the wall. (I'm not sure why a chair rail was put in the hallway in the first place, unless it was to hide drywall seams, as was done in the guest bedroom.)

So, we removed the chair rail. Then it was patch the holes in the wall left by the nails and smooth it all over with a couple of coats of drywall compound (a/k/a "mud")—I'm getting pretty good at doing this by now!

That done, it was time to paint.

Except that I realized that the new thermostat was placed in such a way that part of the hole for the old one was still visible. So it was back to the patching plaster and mud.

Then, of course, I realized that the wood trim was in pretty scruffy shape after 40+ years of getting banged, nicked and dinged as four or five families moved stuff in, out and around. More patching plaster, more mud, and lots of sanding!But the results are pretty neat!

I soon realized that I should have painted the whole wall at one time, and ended up pretty much doing that, repainting a lot of the top half along with the bottom half.

Then—finally—it was time to install the floor trim, a job that was a pushover by comparison.

We still have to choose and install new ceiling fixtures, reinstall the carbon monoxide detector and install the new smoke detector in the hallway, install a matching ceiling fixture in the small hallway between the two studies, and, of course, finish organizing the two studies and installing floor trim in Bob's.

There were a few other things that happened in February! We attended an organ recital by the organist I hired just before leaving Christ Church, Warren, a young man (Jim Clouser) who is probably the best young virtuoso I've ever heard (he was promptly fired by the new Rector!). And I had a couple of medical/fitness appointments; spent an evening with my "guys' book club" discussing David Gergen's Eyewitness to Power; entertained Time-Warner's cable-service repair folks a few times to troubleshoot erratic cable-modem service; and had my monthly lunch with Berea Power Squadron buddies. Seems like the month flew by!