Arrived at noon with Hannah and the boys. Kind of a dreary day. Temps hovering around 50° and misty with intermittent sprinkles. Jake was ready to explore right away and Hannah hit the ground running, but Josh was fast asleep in the truck. I let him nap while I doused Jake with bug spray and started unloading. I also turned on the infrared heater in the keep so we’d have somewhere to warm up later.

Jake got out his Power Wheels ATV and black garden cart and started picking up branches for me. I set up a pair of sawhorses in the doorway of the pole barn and laid out the trim boards I brought up for finishing off the new shelves in the keep. I wanted to have them painted and ready at home, but the textured spray paint I bought turned out to be big on texture and not so big on even color coverage, so I had to finish spraying them up here. I took care of this right away to give them as much time to dry as possible.

While the boards dried, I went to check on Josh. He’d woken up and was ready to play, so he and Jake drove around the yard and played dinosaur hunters. I took some time to clean up and make room in the pole barn. I’ll be up again next weekend and plan on doing a lot of reorganizing in here. I put on some music and noticed that one of my indoor speakers wasn’t working. I pulled back the cover and found that the foam was rotting away. I could also see inside that mice had built a nest in here over the years. I bought these speakers back in 2002, so they’ve had a good run. I’ve still got the full set of Sony surround speakers from the keep when I replaced that setup with a soundbar, so I added “replace speakers” to my to-do list for next weekend.

Hand cannons.

I turned my attention to the faux-Pelican boxes I bought at Harbor Freight last week. I don’t have plans for the smaller one yet, but I wanted to use the larger one to store my revolvers as it’s much nicer than my current cases and can be locked. The boxes come with pre-scored foam that you can just tear out in neat cubes. It felt like Minecraft. I made room for both the .357 and the .22 along with some ammo for each. After lining it with desiccant bags, the Hand Cannon Briefcase was good to go.

Looks good to me.

By this time, the trim boards were as dry as they were going to get on this humid, cool day. I carefully carried them one at a time over to the keep and set them against the counter hoping to dry them out a little further in the warmer, drier indoor air. I brought over my Dremel roto-zip to cut them down to the right height and also to repurpose the trim that I removed when I took the furnace out. The corner between the closet and kitchen counter has been missing trim for a few years, and one of the edges of the island was, too. I used my air nailer to fix both of these problems and secured some loose trim in other areas. I nailed the new trim in place, wincing each time the nailer pulled up the fresh paint. Once all the boards were in, I grabbed my spray can, used some scrap cardboard as masking, and touched up those spots. Good as new.

As long as the roto-zip was out, I used it to shave down some of the kitchen and bathroom cabinet doors so they’d close better. I cleaned up my mess and put my tools away, and by this time the boys were ready to come in and eat something. Lyssa had packed us all some bag lunches/dinners, so we watched Mythbusters and ate our sandwiches in the living room.

The depth of the new shelves is welcome.

I took inventory of the fridge, freezer, pantry, and liquor shelves so I could start getting lists together for Puckaweekend. While I was going through the liquor, I moved it over to the new storage space. What used to take up two levels of plastic shelves under the kitchen counter now doesn’t even fill a single shelf. Perfect.

With everything cleaned up and put away, we headed back home around 5:30 just as it started to rain. The boys were kind of bummed we didn’t get to take a 4-wheeler ride together, but there’s always another trip right around the corner.