Well, the guys are gone now. The drywall is sanded and almost completely primed (Randy did the priming) and ready for paint. I covered everything I could find on the main floor in sheets and Randy and I used a roll of plastic to cover the armoire and the south side of the family room. Despite all of this, there’s still a lot of cleaning work waiting for Christine. And, I’m going to have to take each palm leaf off of our huge fake palm trees and clean them individually. Yuck.

Randy and I went to Restoration Hardware on the weekend to pick cabinet hardware. The people at the cabinet manufacturer and our designer, Marie Ann, all said that, for what we picked, the color was right but the hardware was just “too dainty”. Randy wanted Craftsman hardware. Sorry, no. J So today Marie-Anne went to the same shop where I got the new front door hardware. She picked some really nice handles, including $220 pot drawer handles. Randy and I went by this evening. OK…so four drawers…$880. I didn’t like the pot drawer pulls that much. What I did see was the style that my amazingly beautiful door latch set emulates. And that’s what I think I want. www.classic-brass.com.