Our home project continues. As I mentioned in the last post, there is a lot to do. We continue to de-clutter the house. Sometimes I wonder if we are making any progress at all, but I do see that we are regularly hauling things off. I have actually almost finished undoing the stuff in my project room. We have to have that one done when we do the first phase of the project which is correcting the sag in some joists over the garage. Once that structural work is done, we can start with the rest of it.We are completely rennovating the kitchen, all bathrooms, the living room and the whole second floor. That is going to be a massive project.

We have interviewed six general contractors and several decorators. We have a short list, mainly selected by the "bedside manner." With someting that is going to take months, you certainly don't want to have an adversarial relation with the general contractor. I am hoping that we see some estimates in the near future. I know that it is going to be expensive. We will end up with almost a completely new house. The structural issues will get resolved and then we will have a nice sound structure. The hardest part is going to be selecting all the stuff that is going into the project. All the kitchen appliances, the cabinets everywhere, cabinet tops, carpeting, flooring, yada yada yada. Ginny is working that stuff with my advice (HAHAHA). It is the usual "Which one do you like?" "I like the one on the left." "Don't you like the one on the right better?" "Oh Yes, I guess you are right." Now I have learned that when asked which one I like, I reply with, "Which one DO I like, dear?" Shortens the conversation significantly.

So about today's photo. We went to mass for All Saints Day this morning. Ginny figured that since we were presentably dressed, we should have a picture. This might be destined for our annual Christmas letter. She wanted a photo in the gutted out kitchen. I guess we are toasting the start of the project. We opened one bottle of wine only to find the cork had failed and it was vinegar. The second bottle was satisfactory. We probably have nearly 100 bottles of wine stashed around the place. All of them are stored vertically, hence the problem with failed corks. I hope a decent wine rack is in the remodeling plans.