On the 1st we bought the laminate flooring for the kitchen and upstairs bath. It is a stone look-alike with texture and a variety of sizes.

The following week I began rearranging and upgrading the electrical outlets and light switches in and around the kitchen.

On the 14th a crew came and trimmed a few of the larger trees. They also removed everything from the front bed and mulched it heavily. This we will leave in place for a couple of years in an attempt to smother the poison ivy completely.

Toward the end of the month we pulled up the water damaged particle board sub-floor. It fought back and was like wrestling with a 100 sq. ft. granola bar. Beneath that we removed several sheets of plywood to facilitate the relocation of electrical wiring, the installation of the gas line for the range and future furnace, and the installation of a water line for an ice maker connection.

Instead of a flexible plastic tube running through the back of the cabinets, halfway around the kitchen, I installed a copper pipe from the sink water supply, through the joists, and up the wall to a connection box behind the refrigerator.

For the gas supply line to the range and future furnace I used a product called Gastite—a flexible stainless steel tube with a plastic coating. This was new to me. I’m old school and as far as I know all gas should be run in threaded steel pipe. I chose this product, though, because it allowed a system with no connections inside the walls or floor space, and it offered ease of installation. After a hard 14 hour day, the jury’s still out on the latter.