Kitty!

It took a week, but we got to the point where I felt okay bringing Kira into the fray (and I don't think I could have asked Andrew to keep her any longer, even though I think he would have kept her if needed...and I really wanted her home). The house feels more like home with her in it. We kept her in the bedroom last night, so she's well familiar with the closet, the bedroom and the bathroom, but is insanely curious about what's behind the bedroom door.

This morning I let her explore a bit before I had to head out for work. The pile of boxes is like the most amazing cat maze ever. All of the things still kind of have her scent on them, so she likes them well enough, and it was fun watching her enter at the bottom and then disappear, only to reappear on the other side, about halfway up, disappear again and then show up on the top way at the back. She seemed quite pleased with herself when she managed to get on top of her cat condo, which Justin stacked way at the top (probably not the best idea, but oh well).

She also made it up the stairs, though all the doors are closed up there, so that didn't seem as interesting. She walked through the kitchen once, but hasn't gotten into the construction end of the house yet.

Speaking of construction, I made a wall this weekend! I knew I would be able to do it, but it's been so long since I've done major construction that I was worried I would mess it up. But I figured I couldn't make it any worse than the one we took down on day one, right? And since Gene had left his chop saw at our place, I figured now was the time to do it.

Justin and I headed to Home Depot, which while I love, I'm also really looking forward to the time when I'm not making two or three trips there every weekend. We rented the truck they have, bought our supplies, and headed home. I got to work while Justin returned the truck. I decided to make three pieces; the two side walls and a header piece to connect them. I had one of the walls almost complete by the time Justin returned. My head had doubts about my ability, but my hands just seemed to remember exactly what to do, which is awesome to discover.

The other wall went up, and Justin came in to look - we had to decide if we wanted to put the header in. I was worried that it would feel too cramped, but Justin was worried that it looked incomplete as it was. He was also starting to have doubts about having the arch in at all, which made me want to murder him a bit. He had to run out and get more screws (I swear there were more in that box the last time I looked in it) and I decided to go ahead and put the header up while he was gone. And I think it looks pretty spectacular, though I say so myself. He got back with the screws and I finished securing the whole thing in place (it's sturdy as hell, and all plumb and level and shit). I finished drywalling one side of it, and we stepped back to access.

I think the very back room feels much better now, and will be great for a tv room. The dining room...well, it loses a lot of natural light now (though this was also affected by the sun going down just as I was finishing putting the walls in place) so it feels dimmer, but I think if we get a new light fixture in asap, it'll feel a ton better. And I think once we have the walls done, and the floor in, it'll feel like a cozy dining room.

Other things we did this weekend (in list form)
- Closed Amazons and Their Men. It was a great little show and I'll miss it.
- Finished painting the green in the entry way, just to have most of the first coat of green done
- Painted the insides of the kitchen drawers, to make 'em not so gnarly, and installed them
- Put contact paper on the kitchen shelves and installed 'em
- Put the cupboard doors back up in the kitchen and cleaned them
- Lined the bottom of the cupboards with the special cushy contact paper type stuff
- Almost finished installing the kitchen floor - just a few more specialty cuts left (always rent a vinyl tile cutter when doing this type of project - it saved so much time and effort)
- Put a vent in the wood enclosing the fridge and got the fridge in place
- Finished sanding the glue off the addition walls
- Put carpet in the closet

We have the kitchen almost fully functional. Mom and Gene will be coming over sometime this week to finish installing the dishwasher and fixing the garage door. Justin has to focus on finishing the script for The Seagull, so we have a pretty low-key plan in place to get the addition walls primed, skimcoated and painted by the end of Friday night, so we can spend Saturday installing the floor and setting up furniture.

And I'm finally feeling like I can focus on other things, too. Like, the election is tomorrow! Exciting. And I'm totally going to girlie night on Wednesday so I can see Alisha's house and finally watch the finale of Project Runway.

Oh! And the last cool thing from this weekend? I bought an air compressor kit that came with three attachments - a brad nailer, a finishing nailer and a stapler. Rock! Once we're done with the kitchen floor I'm going to install quarter round - I can't wait to test my new toy out! Eeee!