Al Capone's other secret vault.

So the past 3 days have been mostly painting.

Saturday:  Second coat in small 3rd floor BR, First coat in large 3rd floor BR.
Sunday:  Second coat in large BR and lots of trim.
Monday:  Lots more trim, plus 2 hallways and a stairway.

Effie has been doing most of the painting while I fix things and stare blankly at walls for hours on end.  She's much more methodical than I am, whereas I can get distracted pretty easily.

However, thats all about to change.  We just bought a Wagner Turbo Rolller.  This thing is awesome!!  It's a roller where you fill it up with paint.  It makes the rolling part go so much faster.  But as Effie pointed out, the trim still takes the longest.

We also started fixing up some of the brick that was looking a bit old.  And we 'fixed' 2 missing spindles in the bannister by removing 5 good ones and spacing them out where 7 used to be.  We looked at a couple of salvage places and didn't find any spindles even close to what we had.   I found one guy whose willing to make new ones for $25 a piece - which we'll do for the nice wooden ones on the stairway.   But for the painted ones upstairs, this re-spacing fix looks just fine.

We bought some varnish for the floors, which we're going to re-do.  We're not going to sand the whole thing down to bare wood - just take out the imperfections, seal the gaps, and then varnish.   While prepping the floor, I noticed two boards cut in such a way that it would conceal a little hidden area beneath the floor.  I was excited!!!  I pried them up with a screwdriver, took my flashlight in the hole and.... nothing.  Empty.  So much for the stacks of gold bars hidden in the floorboards.  

Ryan has been plugging away at the kitchen drywall (almost done) and some other patches in the living room.   It looks awesome.  He pretty much came over every day of his holiday week off.   Thanks buddy!!

And can you believe this????....