Woooo Hoooo!!!

With a post title like that, you know it can only mean one thing.

Yup, Charlie started on the front parlor floor today.

The historic first pass of the sander

My mother called me this afternoon to ask how things were going.  "I don't think he has any idea how long he's been workin," I told her.  A few minutes later Charlie walked into the kitchen.  "That clock on the stove's not right, is it?"  I assured him it was.  Four-thirty.  He'd put in three solid hours of work.  My mother and I laughed.  Charlie looked grim.  He may even have uttered a bad swear at that point. 

But the floor looked like this:

You can barely see the floor through all the dust....

Note that in the first photo, the curtains are up; in the second they're not.  Yeah, probably should've taken those down before he started sanding....

When I saw the floor without that damnable black glue on it for the first time ever, I jumped up and down and clapped my hands.  This time Charlie laughed.  "I take it you like the way they look so far," he said.  I answered a resounding, "YES!!" 

He still has a long way to go.  It's taking much longer to sand that black junk off than he thought it would.  (His original plan for today was to sand the front parlor, the dining room, and the foyer.)  As I write this, it's nearly 6 pm and he's still working.  I've been trying off and on for the past half hour to get him to quit so I can buy him a nice steak dinner at the pub.  He is most definitely not a grasshopper...