Normandy Park Restoration

Finally finished the rock area in front of the house.  Shored it up with some large rocks, and filled the rest with river rock. You can also see the grey electrical box.  I routed all of the landscape lighting wiring through the house.  It terminates in 2 locations with weather-proof boxes like that one.  I'll paint it later.  This gives me much cleaner wiring for the landscape lights, and allows me to put the WeMo timer and power supply in the HVAC room in the basement.  In this picture I still have the wiring visible above the rocks, but I'll cover it later.  Been meaning fix the landscape wiring for a while.  While I was at it I added some more path lighting and some uplights.

Finished up the framing of the basement bathroom, including installing the sliding door and drywall.  I also finished the final landing platform. While I was at it I finished some framing and drywall on the stairway storage area. I threw on a little joint compound to fill the larger gaps.  Not intended to by any final float quality, just to fill the big gaps.

I had been considering doing some sort of built-in sectional in the sunken part of the living room.  I realized that with the ugly black sectional I now had as surplus, I could us that to experiment with the fit and livability of the idea. So, here is the sunken area before  Here I've removed the carpet, exposing the built out area.  There is a slight dip to it, so I knew I'd need to rebuild that section anyway before doing the hardwood floor, so there really wasn't anything to loose by doing this.  Now the steps are cut out.  You can also see the useless door to the back yard.  I've always planned to remove it and make it look like the remaining glass sections, so loosing that landing area and railing is no loss.  All done.  I like the look.  It does seem a little cluttered, but some furniture selection and removal might take care of that.  Long term, the plan is for the upper area to be hardwood flooring, while the sun...

Had that black freebie couch in the living room for a while.  It was free so I can't complain, but it was ugly and uncomfortable.  Found a great deal on a used couch in town.  It's actually a pretty nice couch, and very similar to what I otherwise would have bought. Worst case it will tide me over till I get the renovations done.  I kinda like it though, so we'll see.

Been a while since I've done and update.  Need to take pics of the changes.  Did get samples of the flooring.  It will be a while before I get to the point where I'm ready to install it, but needed to get a sample for depth.  Here is one box laid out on the floor for perspective. That will look much nicer than the ratty carpet.