2004-08-10 - 1:08 a.m.
A Slight Change of Plan
August 9/Monday
We haven't left yet. We thought we were leaving Friday or Saturday but due to a misunderstanding we aren't leaving until Tuesday. This is fine with me because I wanted to be here when the door was put in and the backfilling was done and the framing started. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! HA! Who am I kidding? (other than myself, that is) The framing that was supposed to be started LAST MONDAY has yet to even be thought of since there is no lumber here. This is not my fault. I gave the nice man from LaValley Lumber a check for over $12G - my biggest check to date. That was a tough one but I made it out before I could think about it and I handed it over to the salesman while he and JD had me busy thinking about windows. Nearly painless until I had to balance the checkbook and by then it was too late.
So, what has been happening here? A whole friggin' lot o' nothin'! We saw some guys last MONDAY for 1/2 a day to strip and waterproof the foundation. Then, new to you, we saw JV & Rick, aka: the dudes, last FRIDAY around 3:00 to backfill and jackhammer the slab a bit more.
Are you as sick of looking at this as I am?
"Sometime after lunch" on Friday Matt and Paul came by to put in the door. Apparently "sometime after lunch" is 4:30ish. I wasn't aware of this fact. I thought it was more like 1 to 2ish, 3:00 on the outside. To me 4:30 is "sometime before dinner" but who am I to squabble about what meal it's closer to when they were supposed to have been here last THURSDAY. No big deal, I just think it's mean to tell someone that they won't ever have to climb through the window to get to the deck (to cook on the grill, for instance, or water the plants) and then make them keep doing it for an indefinite amount of time (for us, being 30ish hours - I guess there are worse tragedies in the world).
I think Tikki has a crush on Paul. Or the door. She probably can't tell the difference.
The boys and I went out around 6:00 and left all the guys here working. The guys were gone when we got back at 6:45 (no handle on the door and you can pass a thin book or thick magazine through the gap between the door and the wall on all 3 sides - and remember this is a Friday night, so no one is finishing it until Monday . . . ish) and the dudes were about ready to go, having snapped a chain and some metal "part" to something in an attempt to drag the slab out from under the kitchen.
The infamous door. You can see light coming through above it. The gaps are at least that big on the sides. Just ask our friend Jumbo who came in through the gap this evening.
"It's all true."
The weekend: I spent the whole weekend (except for 2 hours when I DRAGGED the kids to the beach. I know it was 2 hours because I paid $25 for a parking permit so that Massholes could park illegally in the permit parking zones and I could park in 2 hour parking and get a ticket if I don't leave in 2 hours. It has happened. I was able to get the ticket voided but that hasn't gotten those idiots from out of town to park elsewhere. The ones with NO permit, parked in a NO PARKING zone ALL DAY, and who don't get ticketed REALLY sling my hash. But I'm off on a tangent, arent I?) . . . as I was saying, I spent the whole weekend playing Chinese fire drill with the rooms of my house. The dining room is now an eat-in-kitchen, but you know that. The den is now a totally different den that doubles as the boys' room. The living room is now a totally different living room (with couches galore) that doubles as our room. Seriously, this isn't a hotel lobby but we have as much seating as the Ritz - a full couch, two love seats, and two chairs. (OK, my mother's living room actually has all that and two MORE chairs, but it's twice the size of mine. Hers is nice, mine just looks ridiculous.)
Here they are. The living room is going through a bit of a retro/d�j� vu phase. Sorry, you can't see the love seats in this picture.
The boys' room is so packed with all the stuff from the other rooms that light particles can barely squeeze through, never mind humans.
Good thing the boys are tiny!
Anyway, Phil spent the weekend jackhammering, then occasionally sawing thru concrete, then jackhammering some more.
This is after he's been at it for awhile. He's not so fond of this new skill he's picked up.
So, Monday rolls around and, yup, there it went. A 5 minute visit from JD to say that the lumber is coming TOMORROW and TOMORROW he'll send one of his guys over to trim up the door (Phil put a handle on it already) and finish the jackhammering with the RENTED jackhammer. The wha? We're paying to rent this thing? I had no idea! Phil could have finished it weeks ago if we had known that. So we "paid" for it to lay on the slab for a day and a half (the neighbors had a party Sunday afternoon so Phil stopped for their benefit. No, we didn't go to the party!) . . . or longer. Great.
This is how far he got - use the board on the wall as a gauge.
I can't wait to come back from a week or so away, but at the same time I'm scared that it will look the same when I get back. The kitchen had better be gone by then, although that's the part I most want to see.
PS . . .
Snow Miser and Heat Miser say, "Where's our new playroom?"
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