Turning inward

With nearly all the exterior work completed, the work continues indoors.

Over the last two visits, I laid the living room flooring (laminate), and it really smooths out the rough construction site—very satisfying.

Measure twice, cut once. Words to live by.

Next steps: clean up and reinstall the living room baseboards, trim that high window, and keep installing the flooring around the corner to the kitchen.

Anyone have tips on how to remove cemented-down 1970s-era vinyl? I’ve been using a putty knife blade to pry up hand-size chunks. It’s very slow going, but I’m not sure I can just smooth the broken edges with leveling cement and lay the laminate over that — seems like a setup for trouble down the road.

Just prior to the floor-laying binge, my paleontologist niece Ingrid came up for a visit. She agreed to play carpenter’s assistant so I could get some critical measurements for the stair railing.

Of course we took a break to explore the riverbank (didn’t spot any fossils). Who put that white beanie on my head?

And where did all the green go? I can’t help feeling a bit melancholy in the fall, as trees flame-out and everything green withers to brown—except the buckthorn, of course. The sound of dry leaves always reminds me of lines from a song by the Replacements:

First the lights, then the collar goes up, and the wind begins to blow…

A timeless song, hard to believe that South Minneapolis music scene was forty years ago.

…First the glass, then the leaves that pass, then comes the snow

Ain't much to rake anyway in the fall