I haven't updated in awhile, because we have not been working much on the place. There are a couple pieces of news to report:

One, we jumped the gun putting our old disgusting carpets and padding into the dumpster. When my brother called for a pick-up and told them what was in it, they said, "Oh, you can't put old carpet in there."

Yikes. If you're ever confused about what type of construction materials can go in a dumpster, and this happens to you - the dumpster company has to pick the carpet and padding out (not by hand, they have equipment to do it), and it gets disposed of elsewhere. There was some added charge to do it. I think we had the dumpster an extra week too, so all told - from the original $275 quote, it cost us about $330. Glad to be rid of a lot of the mess and debris. Well worth it.

The other thing that happened was this - all of you fellow Minnesotans know that we've had some very cold weather already this October. So, at the beginning of the month, my brother called to tell me some of our pipes seemed to have frozen up. :(
It turned out not to be a big deal, they must have been just partially frozen or whatever, but when Paul turned on the furnace, they thawed. All are working fine with no problems. :) And did you notice what I wrote?? Our furnace works!!! YAY! I was planning to ask someone to have a look at it before we tried it out, but again, it looks like our luck is holding! Thrilled, as usual.

:))