Having passed our final inspections the previous week, things really slowed down in week 41, as there was little left to do other than taking care of some finishing touches.

For example, there were still a few areas where the paint needed attention. The water closet in our master bathroom had a few easily repair glitches, and if you look very closely at the front view of the house, you can see that the trim between the siding and the shingles is yellow, matching the siding, rather than white, matching the shingles. These would all be cleaned up in the days leading up to our move.

We also used this week (and the fact that we finally had Julie’s car back) to take care of some projects we wanted to get out of the way before we moved in. We assembled William’s bed and topped it with a new mattress; and Joe and I re-painted the mirror that had hung over the laundry tub in our old garage for use in our new laundry room. Julie picked out the color, which we also plan to use on the backing board for coat hooks by the door.

Despite my marginal success hanging the living room mirror the week before, there were a some projects we weren’t completely comfortable taking on ourselves in the limited time we had before the move. With that in mind, we paid Enzo a little bit extra to have one of the guys from his crew take care of them. The crew member, Fernando, hung the wall-mounted bookshelf that we had saved from Joe’s old bedroom in his new bedroom—the hardest part there was making sure there would be enough room for his bed—as well as the small bookshelf that used to sit over our microwave cart in the kitchen; it fulfills the same role in the new setup.

We also asked him to put up the overhead shelves we’d salvaged from our old garage. These were custom-built to match the old garage’s dimensions, so they’re not an perfect fit, but we found a configuration that works pretty well. I was happy that they were still intact, seing as they sat outside in the back yard for the last few months of the project. Since we lost the built-in storage for large items we used to have over the workbench, we bought some additional overhead storage and asked him to install it, as well.

To commemorate the completion of the remodel, Julia graciously agreed to record a brief walking tour of the house; the gallery also contains a considerably less interesting video clip of our garage door going up.

With work wrapping up and our move-in date fast approaching, the coming week presented us with one of the most arduous tasks of all: packing up for the move.

Gallery: Week 41: Projects