The Walnut House and Covid 19

• Covid 19 is everywhere and it's what all the news is about. Masks are now used by most people, more to prevent transmitting the virus if you have it and are not yet symptomatic. Deaths in the US are at 42,000. I've been working from home for a month.

We finally closed on our house. We bought a beautiful historic home on a hillside in a small town. The house is darling and actually has 2000 square feet, even though it looks tiny. It has five bedrooms and two bathrooms, with marble granite countertops and new flooring and carpets. We bought a fridge and a washer and dryer. And a lawn mower. Its been 5 years since I've had to do yard work.

I'm on vacation this week, to try to get the Walnut house in order and to pack, so we can move in. We've been cleaning and painting and working on the sprinkler system by day, and packing up our apartment at night. I painted the connected closets under the stairs because I was not pleased with the original, 100 year old wood inside. It was creepy. So I used a sprayer and now I'm covered in paint. I had to wash my dining room floors several times because of the paint blowby, which was minor but annoying. My nose hairs are painted white.

I recaulked the tub in the big downstairs bathroom. I used the new shopvac to suck up all the gross stuff in the shed. That shed is solid as a rock but it's seriously country-fied inside. We laid Robert's Persian rug on the floor for some visual warmth to the shed. It's the rug he bought for Teepee Village, where he stayed for a while after he walked the PCT. Great use for an old rug.

We bought a 100' hose and I hooked it up to the sprinkler system. Turns out, the previous owners touted the underground sprinkler system but they neglected to explain it's  a manual system, pushed only by water pressure! It works though. I adjusted some of them.

We went to Klamath last weekend to get a dining set with 6 chairs.  It's an antique mahogany table with 3 leafs. The 6 chairs have a beautiful fleur-de-lis design on the backs. They're gorgeous. We borrowed a truck and trailer from Robert's coworker because my mother's truck died the day before we were supposed to use it. We also got stuck on the way home, in pouring rain. Thank goodness Robert thought to bring two big plastic wraps that looked like mattress wraps, and a large roll of plastic wrap for moving. We barely got the set home. But it's stunning in our dining room.

We've done a lot to the house to get it ready for us to move in. Tomorrow I finish painting the corner cabinet and both sides of the arch wall between the sitting room and dining room. I will put clear silicone around the sink, dig up the weeds in the front lawn (there's 3), and plant my roses Axel bought me.

Hopefully, we can get everything moved in by the first week of May. None too soon.