Prime Time

The living room, under wraps for priming

Friday was thankfully a glorious, sunny and warm winter's day, so while James and the rest of the crew from Pugliese Painting primed the main floor of the house, Kenny the Excavator raced around in his Bobcat all day long, moving massive mounds of dirt hither and thither and reshaping the landscape like a cigar-chewing demon of the sod.

The living room is prepped for priming

James is clearly a craftsman, and he inspected every inch of drywall for spots to smooth out in his quest for a perfect finish. Since the primer is close to the final color (Moonlight White from Benjamin Moore), we now have a good idea what the house will look like when the fat lady has finished singing and my feet are resting on the vintage Eames ottoman.

James the Painter and his crew seek perfection...

By the end of the day the rough grading was done and the patio pad was flattened and the huge dissipation pit was dug, and I was eagerly anticipating the digging of multiple trenches next week.

Kenny the Excavator makes a maxi mess with his mini bobcat

I was lucky enough to have several volunteer helpers this weekend (thanks, guys!) and together we undertook a massive cleaning initiative, attempting to remove multiple layers of plaster dust, mud and paint from every surface of the house, with reasonable success.

Now we need to plant something...

Since many hands make light work (especially when two of them are the massive mitts of Viktor the Supersized Siberian) the weekend's work was completed by moving all of the heavy goods from the big basement of my San Francisco apartment to the new house, a daunting project made less so by the gracious assistance of my fabulous friends. Now the cabinets are all assembled and staged and ready for the installers to start hanging on the kitchen wall first thing tomorrow morning.

Your truly doing his best impersonation of a handyman