The current bout of new hardwood flooring is going into the bedrooms, study, and upstairs hall. Replacing broadloom with hardwood on stairs is apparently a job for a specialist, in this case a guy named Tosh, so that must wait until the early winter — I hope no later. The flooring in the finished part of the basement and the basement stairs is some kind of laminate, maybe engineered hardwood. Marc (not Mike) the contractor told me that “everybody” has laminate or engineered hardwood floors these days, and my project is his first in about eight years with real wood.

As of lunchtime, the wood is down in the study and primary bedroom, and the carpenters were hard at it in the guest room. Eli the painter had the darker green parts of the sitting room and dining room finished and was starting on the rest of the ground floor. He can’t tackle the upstairs until the carpenters have finished on account of sawdust.

My end of Greenboro is not marshy or known for flooding, so I don’t have sump pumps to care for. Thank God for small mercies — but, after Stratford, I’m not ruling anything out. The unfinished parts of the basement show no signs of water damage, so my fingers are crossed.