Apr2025

April 20, 2025, Saturday

Hung wall art:

  • Kitchen - wreath above hutch
  • Taylor BR - Italian Seamstress, pair of Hummingbirds, large Flower Vase
  • Ashley BR - Triplet of Blue Bells above headboard, floral in bathroom
  • North stair landing - Young Water Bearer

Pool

  • cleaned surface of floating leaves
  • closed pool cover
  • lots of leaves still at bottom, water has turned green

April 14-16, 2025, Monday-Tuesday

Drive entrance "gateway" border

  • Removed the border of large rocks that Josh Newsome assembled when he refreshed the two beds on each side of the drive
  • Assembled two-layer brick border using rustic bricks (from Lowe's)
    • this is a dry assembly, no mortar
    • Placed the bricks just outside of the asphalt-earth border, so asphalt is full-width

Yard cleanup

  • Raked the parkland
  • Trimmed bushes
    • Westerly gateway bed
    • Living RM bed
    • Master bath bed

Entry gate cleanup

  • raked leaves

Removed snow stakes

April 9, 2025, Wednesday

Kitchen CAT5 wiring

  • Removed the original 3-place snap-in telephone wall-jack, and the glued-on external telephone jack; sadly removing the external jack removed paint and a portion of the wallboard paper behind the paint.
  • Spackled the damage and will (TODO) sand and paint when I find/acquire the appropriate paint
  • Wired in a RJ25 telephone jack module using Blue and Orange pairs
  • Wired in an RJ45 Ethernet jack module using Green and Brown pairs
  • Installed the modules into a 2-place wall plate and mounted the wall plate

April 8, 2025, Tuesday

Entry Hall fine-tuning

  • disassembled and re-erected the two-story scaffolding from the southern side to the northern side of the stairway
  • caulked the crown molding in the northern corner and northern wall
  • caulked the upper level of the entry hall: right and left niches shoe molding, the bottom molding under the window seat, the crown molding at the hallway's end above the living room and smaller gaps here and there in that general area
  • Re-routed the charging cable for the northern-most Levelor blind so that the dangling cable running to the solar panel is not so visible, rather it is now right up against the window molding
  • Vacuumed fuzzballs from the northern heat register

April 7, 2025, Monday

Entry Hall fine-tuning

  • erected the two-story scaffolding on the southern side of the stairway
  • caulked the crown molding in the southern corner and southern wall using "Antique White" from DAP
  • Re-routed the charging cable for the southern-most Levelor blind so that the dangling cable running to the solar panel is not so visible, rather it is right up against the window molding

April 4, 2025, Friday

Office CAT5 wiring

  • Changed the light-almond colored snap-in connectors that were originally used (to test the wiring) to brown colored snap-in connectors; used two 3-position single gang keystone modules to cover the 2-gang box, with a single 2-gang Decorator wall plate; added a snap-in F-connector module for the COAX connection. With six (6) positions available, they are arranged this way (L-R, T-B):
    • 4-wire phone (to Panasonic PBX), 4-wire RJ45 Ethernet #1
    • blank, 4-wire (pass-through to Master BR) RJ45 Ethernet #2
    • TV F-Connector, 4-wire (pass-through to Master BR) RJ45 Ethernet #3

Office AC in-cabinet socket installation

  • A white blank 1-gang plate revealed AC ROMEX wiring with an incoming and outgoing line simply connected together. This box is upstream from the desk-cubby sockets, feeding power to them.
  • I installed a brown dual socket module and brown wall plate. Works good!

April 1-2, 2025, Tuesday-Wednesday

Living Room track lighting

  • removed the spotlights
  • removed the track
  • spackled mounting holes and gaps around AC wiring junction box
  • Painted over the repairs using paint found in crawlspace marked "Front Room"
    • slightly lighter in color than the surrounding paint
    • can dated 2017
  • Painted a blank wall plate for the junction box
  • mounted the wall plate