Is there such a thing as a caulk fetish?

I think that everyone I know that reads this blog has asked me, "how is the bedroom going". 'Slowly", is my only response. I turned a corner, so to speak, this weekend and I now have a majority of the baseboard stripped. I have also been hunting around stores for some window stops so that I can begin stripping the window casing.

I need these because (hard core restoration folks, avert your eyes) I am seriously thinking of throwing away the ones currently on the windows. They are painted and would need stripping but worse, they are cracked and chipped all to hell. I intend on restoring the old windows but stripping all of these stops is just a bit much. I may not have a choice though - I have yet to find anything the right size - gotta love old homes.

This morning I pealed one stop off, to take with me to the hardware store. I made what is becoming my typical discovery in this house when I remove something - caulk. The previous owners must have had a caulk fetish - it is everywhere. When I took down the molding/rail at the ceiling, it was there, they had it at the toe molding too, I can't believe I didn't find it holding down the wall to wall carpeting I tore up last year. It is everywhere!!! Were they afraid of something getting in - were they getting infested, was there a draft??? I can't believe this stuff really helped. I have convinced myself that this was the only thing that the PO could do well so they did it a lot! I have images of this couple, their array of caulking guns, spending the weekends filling every crevice of this home with that wonderful white goo.

Enough with the caulk rant. I have finished the first three coats of plaster on the south wall of the bedroom and will begin working around the remaining walls. It will kill my mother in law, who is visiting in a couple weeks (and who reads this blog) to know that she will not be sleeping in a finished bedroom. Mom, you can now go scream.

It has been beautiful here the last couple of days so we decided to take advantage of it and "HGTV" (verb) our backyard. I gave myself a strict budget and a time limit and came up with something to dress up our garage. I believe we have the ugliest garage in the OP. It seems like almost everyone's garage looks like a cute garden cottage - even the small homes in my neighborhood have them. Unfortunately, ours is a mess. As part of our dress up, we spray painted our trellises and put them up against the garage wall. We planted clematis beneath them and put hanging baskets on the walls above them. If everything starts to grow it might look nice - for now, I am just glad it looks better than it did.

Everything is primed for my mother in law's visit. We have tons of empty containers, planting bed space, and a huge sink in the backyard waiting for plants. This will be nice - we didn't start planting flowers until July last year - maybe we will actually have things looking nice before the summer is over this year.