Happy "the first time the heat gets turned on for real this season" day. It's only going to be 49F (9C) today, and rainy, and the husband will be at work, so I turned the heat on this morning before he left (and he complained that it was 'too hot' as the temperature slowly rose to 67F (19C) inside). Northerners. But anyway, off to the home office for me now.

Had a 3M window film covering installer in this afternoon to measure the bedroom windows and show us samples. Just raising the shades in there heated the room by several degrees while we chatted (and even after we close them we can still feel heat coming off the windows). So sometime next week they'll make the appointment and we'll hopefully greatly reduce the solar heat coming into the bedroom during the day. We picked the Prestige 60 to keep more of the visible light, so there won't be too much of a difference between there and the living room, where we're not going to put in any film (it's plenty shaded by the balcony roof, the trees outside, and the aluminum decorative elements; plus the blinds there are translucent, not black-out). Should help.

A general contractor we're looking at is coming by tomorrow morning to look over the carnage, I mean, the stuff we need done. New kitchen faucet, new disposer, probably a new sink (depending on the amount of rust underneath). Caulking the countertop edges, rebuilding the insides of the under the sink cabinet (which was missing when I moved in), fixing two cabinet doors, and repairing a bit of front cover that simply hides the small empty space between the stove and the dishwasher (that never seems to stay in place). A new shower curtain rod. Stripping and repainting the balcony. I think that's it for now. The building does a pre-sale inspection close to the actual sale, but I'll see if I can get one done earlier to make sure we have everything taken care of well ahead of time. No last minute surprises, please?