So Busy

Last I left you all, the mold guys were done doing their thing. I had tried to do some yardwork and was defeated by surprise flowers.
Well. I made up for some lost time this past weekend.

Before.
Note the rust at the bottom of the door and sidelights.

During - There's no pictures of the sanding step, but it was in there.
Here I've cleaned the door, masked off a bunch and hit the problem areas with a rust retarder.
Also, filled the pinholes at the bottom with a filler.

During - Sanded down the filler, and hit the door with the first coat of oil based primer,
which promptly gave me a headache.
Subsequent coats were done using my respirator.

The weather stripping around the inside of the door was all shot at the bottoms, so I ripped it out and replaced all of it.

Second coat of primer?

And done! All in, there are 3 coats of the Ben Moore DTM white paint on the sidelights
(left over from the bulkhead) and 2 (3?) coats for Kilz Oil based primer on the door
(which was terrible to work with) and 2 coats of Ben Moore's Exterior grade
in "Prussian Blue" left over from the shed door.

In between coats on the door, which spanned two days, I decided to replace the exterior light. It was an adventure (I still don't know what breaker it's on, but it's on the left side of the box somewhere) and in the end, it was replaced and looks nice.

Pretty! I've since replaced the bulb with one of the fancy looking Edison LED bulbs.
Details, you know?

TaDa!

Now to work on getting a step there to bring that door up to code. There's a place up in the Fitchburg are that has reclaimed slabs of limestone that might look nice for short money. Now that the water isn't pounding on that area (yay gutters!) it's an option. The front of the house just looks so much more handsome now. I'm quite pleased with the way it turned out. I hope it holds up.

Other things that happened -

Found behind the outside light in the wall. It was loooong ago dead.
But it led to Operation Winter Prep, since the nights are getting colder.

Step one: Operation Winter Prep.
There are seven deployed in the basement, baited with dried cranberries and peanut butter.
I tour them every day or two.

Winter Prep step two: Fill in the hole in the foundation.
Here the frame was still sort of in place. A claw hammer and crowbar later it was gone.

Here I've started to dry fit the rock my coworker friend Erika gave me out of her yard.
They are mostly perfectly sized, I just need to go back for a few more.
I'm also going to get a length of PVC to put through the wall here
so I can still run the dehumidifer out of the house after I mortar it shut.

One of my "mammoth" sunflowers that I planted late, and in a bad location.
The biggest one is about 8", petal to petal, but so perky.

Last night after work I started whacking away at the front yard over grown mess. There are no pictures. It's a disaster of piles of debris. I'm about 1/5 done and that was 2 hours. Maybe I'll take pictures and share that process later.
So far I've uncovered Hosta, Tall Phlox, Rose (Intentional? Not sure?) Iris, ferns (Sensitive and something tall and plumey) - Also Blackberry, Goldenrod, Bittersweet, Grape, and Poison Ivy. I'm trying to leave some of the goldenrod and still-blooming phlox for the bees, but everything else is getting cut back. Just short of scortched-earth is the only way to reclaim this and keep my sanity.