Update

The black mondo is doing well, once I found it under the creeping crown vetch that had magically appeared, after I planted the mondo. I pulled back the crown vetch, and stuck a stick in the ground to hold it away from the mondo.
Meanwhile, the exterior of the house slated for stucco is getting its first treatment, which consists of the Tyvek paper being covered with a black membrane of some sort, which is then overlaid with a metal mesh.
As you see.

Next - which I have seen, but for which I [currently] have no pictures - is a coat of a concrete-like substance which goes on gunmetal gray, and dries back to a light gray.

Inside, a man on stilts applies the stucco directly to the wall surface. Luther was unaffected by the overly-tall man, but highly appreciative of stray stucco blobs on the floor, which he wanted - badly - to eat. I thought the guy on stilts was pretty amazing. I wondered whether there are break-away straps on the stilts, in case he loses his balance and starts to fall. You wouldn't want to have those things strapped to you if you were doing a timberrrrrr! now, would you?

The wood columns will be stained dark. Yesterday, we looked at three hundred thousand different shades of white and selected one. Ha! One. It was selected not only for how it harmonized with the other materials in the house, but also for its name: Moonrise. It narrowly beat out Writer's Parchment and Stucco White.

I know I made the right choice because the king - with no benefit of knowing which one went with which name - picked it from across the room when they were all held up together. (You are talking here with a woman who has also been known to select wines based on the label alone. . . . It's a failing.)

Anyway, there you have it!

For today, the hood vent fan - which Al-foreman needs in order to frame out the kitchen hood - is still missing in action. Our kitchen supply guy has come up with yet another excuse as to why it has not been delivered as solemnly promised - now for the third time - but he's UPGRADING me now, don'tcha know, to another fan, which costs more [but don't worry, he's not charging me - or so he says] but which can be here in THREE DAYS.

This fiasco has been going on for THREE WEEKS.

And I do believe the rest of the kitchen arrives today. Cabinets, I mean. I don't know where they're going to put them.

We meet with the moving man today; we gave notice on our rental house last week; I have a wooden floor to order, bathroom tiles to specify, bathroom lights to select & order, kitchen counter, backsplash and guesthouse sink to pick and purchase, and. . . . surely there's more? More details. Many more details. . . . but that's more than enough for me today.

POSTSCRIPT: There's apparently a 6 to 7 week lead-time required for the wooden floor. Which puts us right to the time we're hoping to be moving in - Oh my! We're MOVING in 7 to 8 weeks?! - so that the floor might be expected to arrive right around the same time we're hoping to arrive for move in. We might have to do something else here. . . .

This is so typical, by the way. The stuff I was ordered to procure right away has sat in our rental house - apparently unneeded - for months. The stuff I've been trying to get Tom-builder to focus on - and give me required information about - now needs to be here immediately. If not sooner. Hurry up and wait. Or wait - wait some more - and then scramble!