After a day in the sun playing soccer, Sunday was time to get down to business on the second bedroom. It’s been in the works for some time – the cork flooring in the dressing room has been laid, I re-plastered a section that was damaged years ago when I was demo-ing the adjacent bathroom, and two thirds of the walls have been painted. By Sunday, it was time to cut and place the trim for both sections of the bedroom.

The amount of polish well cut trim adds to a room is extremely gratifying. And, thankfully, not that difficult. It was, in fact, for more taxing to clean the room and clear out all of the tools. And equally gratifying.

The one draw back to the work as it nears what I anticipated to be “complete”, is that there’s always a few new tasks that just beg to be done. I notice the sloppiness of some trim work by previous owners – I notice chips in the paint left by removing the old fittings. The floor, which I had decided not to refinish until I sell the house at a much later date, now bothers the hell out of me.

For the time being, I’ll have to live with these concessions. There are now two other areas that are in much more dire need of attention. Seeing how good the refinished trim looks in the second bedroom, I realize that taking the same approach in the foyer and landing will dramatically improve the feel of the house.

As the upstairs comes to a close, I have a strong desire to purge most of the shit I’ve accumulated over the last couple years. Hopefully I’ll find time this week to at least gather up the shit I don’t need or want anymore.

Mia Jones and my old friend Scott Hollingsworth invited Lauren and I over for the World Cup final today. Apparently, it was Mia’s ambition to fatten us all up for the kill. Tons of food, all quite good, follwoed by Lauren’s homemade Peach Pie. The game went as expected – and if a bit anticlimatic, it was a good afternoon spent eating, drinking beer and flapping our lips.

None of this particularly helped finish off the second bedroom, which is nearing it’s final stages. After a post-beer coffee shop run, it became clear that it was far too early for bed, and far too late to start anything major. Which of course led to me starting something major – like laying the cork flooring in the second bedroom’s sunroom. We managed to get all of the more complex cuts out of the way tonight, so that tomorrow it’s a straight march back into the main section of the bedroom.

Lauren thankfully took “before” photos of the sunroom, so we’ll have something to show for our work, mid to late week…. I hope.

A side note: 12 miles this AM keeps me on track for marathon training schedule.