From the time we bought this house that represents our second home while living in Ottawa, it has been a work in progress. And that work remains ongoing. If it had been any other person who has delayed painting that area of the kitchen other than my husband, the year's lapse between when he completed installing the millwork he had designed and put in place could be called, at best procrastination.

But he's forever busy, on one project after another. And if it's not a project, it's attending to the many tasks involved in maintaining a home in the manner to which he commits himself. It's the rare time when he finds himself without a task requiring his attention, from the mundane to the complex. He's equal to them all.

Yesterday he decided he would finally put on the base coat of the woodwork he'd installed between the kitchen and the breakfast room. To begin with, a year ago he had decided he would build a framework in the space between the two to house a series of stained glass renditions of birds common to this part of the world. They would, more or less, complement an earlier series he had produced in a framework over the glass doors he had installed decades earlier, separating the breakfast room from the family room. He prefers the physical separation of rooms rather than the more popular open spaces, fluidly running one room into another; open-concept is not for us.

That meant, a year ago, that he had set about designing a series of windows, each depicting the birds common to our geography. So the latest set simply continued the theme, in keeping with my husband's interest in birds, in stained glass, in design, in producing a synthesis of all of that. It took time, and then the spaces were filled. And my husband decided to install some millwork around the infrastructure.

One thing after another intervened; other concerns, multiple tasks reflective of the passing seasons, and finally it was time to look again at that painting job. Not that I didn't appreciate seeing the plain pine, in itself ornamental, but he was determined it required to be painted, and so he set about doing just that.