The thing about owning a house is that there is always a myriad of little things that need to be done to it. And when you own an older house, or a house that has a history, that list can grow even longer. I’ve been keeping somewhat of a list of things for our house, of all the things that we need to do, one of these days (and I should point out that this list is separate from the list of ‘must do at some point’ items, like replace the rotting back deck, and strip the crumbling carriage house down to studs and fix all the water damage, broken windows, and so on). So faced with the perfect combination of a three-day weekend, and predictions of gorgeous weather, we decided that this was the time to tackle just a few of those little things/

One of the big items on my agenda this weekend was to tackle the front steps. Since the house is a raised high-water bungalow, the front door is actually on the second story, which means that anyone coming in or out has to traverse a flight of steps. These steps are made of wood which has been painted, and in the winter, when the steps are wet, they get a bit slippery. We’d already improved the railings alongside the steps to add a raised hand-hold section, but I’ve spent the past two winters worrying about someone slipping down those steps during a heavy rain and breaking something (I should point out here that so far, the only person who has actually slipped has been me, but that only means that my worrying was *justified*). So we made a trip to the hardware store, and picked up a gallon of exterior porch paint and some powdered additive that you just stir into the paint (helpful hint – have them do it at the store for you – it was messy!), and Sunday afternoon I painted all the front steps. Of course, this meant that prior to painting, we had to clean the steps, which turned into a two-day process of first spraying it off on Friday, and then getting up Saturday morning and going out with a bucket of soapy water and some sponges, and scrubbing down every single step by hand.

But that particular task is now done, and happily, it appears to be successful. The steps are definitely not slippery anymore (although the true test won’t come until we get them wet first), plus repainting them has done wonders for the curb appeal of the house. White paint has such an annoying tendency to show EVERY SINGLE SPECK of dirt and dust.

And since I was on a painting roll, I also decided to finally finish up in the library. Shortly after we moved in, we pulled down all the ugly wallpaper in that funny little hexagon-shaped room off the master bedroom, and I managed to get the longest wall primed and painted, mainly so that we could then assemble the huge bookshelf and unpack a majority of the books. But it’s been sitting there, unfinished, ever since. So while Richard did another run to the hardware store to get the right color paint, and very helpfully taped all the baseboards and around the window and ceiling for me, I first primed the remaining walls, and then painted them. There’s still quite a bit of touch-up work to do, mainly around the baseboards, and a couple spots on the ceiling, but at least it’s finally (mostly) done!

We’ve done a bunch of smaller chores this weekend as well – cleaned off both front and back porches, cleared out the remaining assorted dead plants underneath the front porch, did another small round of clearing and sorting through stuff that’s been accumulating under the back porch, and so on. During one of our trips to the hardware store, we picked up two new ceiling fans, which were installed in the office and living room this morning (and what a lovely difference they make in both roooms). We hung the two remaining magnet boards in the kitchen, so now there is space for every single piece of our massive magnetic poetry collection (a combination of Shakespeare, cat, knitting, and regular poetry kits). And in the middle of all the cleaning and organizing and painting we also managed to sneak in dinner with my older sister and her family one night, and dinner with my parents the next.

There are still a whole lot of things left to do on that list of chores for the house, of course – I’m not sure it would even be possible to have a house with no To-Do list whatsoever. But at least, for now, I’m feeling a little less anxious about the length of it, and can instead feel pleased at what we’ve managed to accomplish already.