My temps here in Erie, PA have been 75 to low 80's. One day hit 90 but it rained. I had rain each of the first 6 days or so. I have not been able to water as much as I would have liked though. It gets 8 min per zone at 5 AM and I do my best to hit it in the afternoon by hand or with an oscilating sprinkler. A water restriction makes me use my homemade inground Hunter PGP sprinkler system under the mask of darkness. I am really happy I chose to use a leaf compost from my township as a topdressing (after core areation and seeding). In the few spots where I missed with it the are fewer seedlings. I think that it is really helping to keep the moisture in the soil. With this being my first summer of educated lawncare, I am happy to be making progress. Thanks again to all of you out there.

Hi Rhoda - thanks for coming by to take a look. I referred to your blog as I did this project and it was incredibly helpful. Keep up the good work! Hockeymom I'll take a picture of the edges and post it. You can kind of get an idea by looking at the picture above with the clamps. I glued the moulding on flush with the edge of the door. On one of the doors I think the moulding went a little over the edge because it rubbed a little against the door next to it when we rehung them. So my son sanded both edges a bit and I had to repaint, but it was fine. I did fill in the seam between the moulding and the original door. I used spackle pretty liberally, let it dry overnight, then sanded the next morning with an electric sander to get it smooth. I think Rhoda used caulk. Any place I missed got filled in pretty well with paint. It was a little easier to have the wallpaper go almost all the way to the edge of the door (that happened on the hall cabinet doors, but the laundry room doors were too wide for a single sheet to go entirely edge to edge). valinsv - I was a little nervous about using the mitre saw, but my son (he's 19) stepped right up and started cutting angles with no problem. I had him do a couple of trial cuts first just to be sure that the 45 degrees was exact (it was). The guy we bought the saw from showed me how to use it. Next project for my son's summer break from college: baseboards! Lynn I might have to go to Albuquerque in the next couple of weeks. I've seen the pictures you've posted of your beautiful house - I'd love to help, but you're so talented I'm sure you'll have no problem with this kind of project.

Mari - I'm surprised lumberyard doesn't have exterior beadboard - thought a lot of people would use it for porch ceilings? Where do you live? I could come help stain if your DH would help me with my projects later LOL! Would predrilling be easier than setting nails? Or you'd have to set anyway? marybeth and remodelfla - nice mosaics! danielle - your DH is SuperDaddy! I can't let me kids see pics or they'll want one (and I'd have to build it since my DH is a software guy, I'm the hardware person!). Happy Birthday to the boys! Well, doesn't count since it's the end of the week, but it was raining today so carpenter cousin got off early from landscaping job (he's looking for different part-time job so he can do more carpentry, or a FT carpentry job again since he got laid off in Jan). I had taped off the counters to caulk, started marking studs to get shoe mold up when he called so I finished marking studs, taped off the lower island countertop edges too, then had to pick up our kids at school. He came over and was caulking and putting up shoe when we got home, then put up trim on sides of island (even though I wasn't happy with my finish job and would have liked to have done a final sanding)while the kids played, and cut the 12ft length of crown sitting in my DR to length. Brought me the mitred returns for cabinets on each side of corner and the center bay stool(sill) cut to proper depth but not notched. I've got lots of sanding and staining to do! Actually, putting crown on the kitchen cabinets was a winter make-work job for him that he didn't get to in March, so I told him my next priority is finishing that bay window stool and all the FR/kitchen door and window casings, and getting the baseboard (finished) nailed up. Hopefully I'll get the fiberglas pulled out from around the windows and slider, and low-expanding foam put in, then the next rainy day (or next w/e?) he'll come over and join up some casings with biscuit joiner, and maybe fit the new stool (3 pieces) so I can stain and finish that. I'd love to get the FR windows and slider trim finished and up by 4th of July, and if I can get tile issues resolved I can get kitchen door casings and then the last bit of baseboard in FR (runs into kitchen) and the small pieces of kitchen baseboard in (they're all finished) by Labor Day. It would be nice to have all the trim in the house finished 2 years after moving in, but I don't know if we can do the foyer, LR, half bath, and mudroom by then as well, since I haven't stained any of it yet and I have to do doors and window sashes this summer while I can set up sawhorses in the garage - short pieces of baseboard can wait til fall/winter, I finish them in the Master Bath (which will be finished in oh, 5 years). But maybe I can stain/finish and he can put up the crown by Thanksgiving so I can get it off my DR floor?

No, I haven't received it yet. I should in the next few days, though. I can't wait. I dread winter and I'm so ready for spring, so to pass the time I like to browse through books like that and do some T2T around here. Now that I know it's your favorite, I'm really excited to get it! I have an idea that I'm going to put into play with some spindles I've had for years in a box. I got them at a garage sale a few years back for $5 and left them sit because I wasn't sure what to do with them. I got some great ideas off of here, but I'm in need of some more trellises for all of the seeds I got from The Seed Exchange. So I'm going to take some scrap cedar wood we have and make ladders using the cedar as the sides and use the spindles as my rungs! I can't wait until they're done. The cedar is in my shed and there's so much snow in front of it, so I'm hoping it warms up here (PA) to melt the snow to get the wood out so I can cut it and get going! I think I might leave the table as is for now. You're right. It doesn't look bad. But painting WOULD be a whole lot easier! I've stripped many of things in my time. Even an old trunk that had glue all over it, not to mention all the canvas off of it. So how did you make that page of yours? I would love to have a "my stuff" page to post everything I've done. Now that my kids are getting older, I can now post pics of everything I've done over the last 15 years. :)) Nice talking to you! Alicia