It's time to order our baby chicks, but their new home isn't quite ready yet. We've torn off the old, rotting particleboard and removed the old, rotting hay insulation, and taken out the old, rotting trash piles, but it still needs walls and a good power-washing.

We're getting six dominiques for eggs, which are a hardy New England breed that apparently don't wander very far on the open range. Our hope is to let them roam the field instead of fencing in a run, but I have a chicken run spot in mind in case we need to pen them.

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Gone is the stained wallpaper, the sagging ceiling, the dust-clogged cast iron heaters along every wall. The left-side door (where Dad is standing) has been widened and the right-side door (through which you can see one of the many stoves in residence when we bought the house) has been sealed up to create an L-shaped kitchen, instead of a work area that's broken up by a six-foot opening.

Where there was once presumably a large hanging picture, there is a pass-through to make the living room and kitchen feel more connected. We replaced the warped floor and ratty blue carpeting with new hardwood that continues into the kitchen. You can just make out the refinished white staircase on the left.

Living in apartments and condos, we have small, portable paintings and wall-hangings. Time for a few larger pieces that fill the space better.

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We took off that sticky runner on the stairs, refinished the wood and put down a carpeted runner. The handrail and posts are the refinished originals (a couple awaiting their coat of white paint), but the balusters are new since so many of the old ones were mysteriously missing.

The heater traversing the wall has been rerouted and there's a helpful light fixture instead of a burned-in image of a cross. The original window still needs refinishing, but it cleverly hidden by the new curtains. Now I need some good ideas for a large piece of art for the huge expanse of the two-story stairwell, which looks a little bare without the heater, wallpaper and wood paneling.

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The floor is level and carpeted, the walls and ceiling are insulated and there's lots and lots of stuff out there now.

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