Some of you might be sitting around wondering, so how is the purple house these days?

We had set ourselves a deadline of moving in by November 1. That didn't work, but things are progressing. All downstairs walls that needed a new covering have been drywalled and the taping and mudding is almost finished.

The carpenters have been building the counters (we're going to have wooden ones -- maple, if you are wondering) and are working on getting all the remaining trim put on the cabinets. We've talked to a painter about getting them painted.

In the living room, a fireplace had been walled over and it not only looked funny, but left us without a place to burn things. We opened up the wall and are having the fireplace put back in. We'll be doing a Rumford fireplace which fits the small space best and also supposedly will lose less heat than a regular fireplace. They'll start work next week.

The upstairs, which we gutted, is reframed, rough plumbed and the electrification is almost completed. We need to have the plumbing and electrical systems inspected and then we'll be ready for insulation.

When I set the ridiculous goal of getting in there by Christmas, I thought it was ridiculous, because it couldn't possibly take that long. Ha! Maybe we'll be living there by then, at least in the downstairs.