Category Archives: reno hell

cross-posted w plus

Because I’m feeling extra cross today :D

I think there should be a limit to the types of “geekery” one can claim for oneself. I know people who describe themselves as A-through-Z geeks. For the word to have any actual meaning, though, to mean something like “having a deep and abiding interest in and an arcane and unusual level of knowledge about X,” which is how I understand it (and which, by the way, is not equal to “I read the wikipedia entry about it last week!”), it’s kind of unreasonable to say OH I’M A THIS-GEEK!! every time a topic comes up. Unless, of course, one is Leonardo.

There’s no shame in just being interested in and enjoying something, without being a geek. Or is otaku the new geek?

***

In other non-news, the renos are still not complete, after week 8 of 5. Woo-hoo! however, we have graduated to having a toilet and sink on the lower level, so I guess we beggars should be glad for what we can get. Oh, wait, we’re not beggars, we’re paying customers.

Le sigh.

So–so–so–

It’s not sabotage, but we’ve lost some time due to the inspector’s requirements. We will no longer be full speed at June 30. However:

We have our new front door! It’s very nice. There’s a fancy glass sidelight. My MD has pics up on his flickr. The windows have been framed on the outside, and the house is starting to look much less ghetto than before :D

Our deck has been replaced and covered and has a nice lip to shunt rain water away from the supports! it only needs a bit more of its railing to be replaced. Also, the stairs have been re-strung, and it’s become a much more secure place to be. Yay!

We went to get some new deck furniture (my old set was from the Condo in the Sky and it hadn’t aged well (well, it’s been nearly ten years, so I suppose it doesn’t owe me anything). That will be delivered tomorrow afternoon (not a hope of fitting in the Wee RAV) so we’ll have it for the weekend! which is going to be not sunny, but hey. It was on sale, 20% off, so that was nice.

The drywall was delivered at 0700 but one or two of the drywall crew didn’t get the memo and will come tomorrow, something like that…but I think that goes pretty fast once it starts. I do believe that the flooring will start next week once the drywall’s done, first they put a membrane and subfloor, then the heated floor stuff, then the new! tile! I guess that takes a couple days.

There is a mystery door with glazing in the downstairs bedroom with all the other doors, and I’m not sure what it’s for. Perhaps someone else’s job, even? unless it’s for the entry closet? I can’t tell. One hopes it’s not a bedroom door. And there won’t be room for a cat door if it was for the utility room. And even opaque glass on a bathroom door doesn’t seem prudent. It’s a nice door, though.

Anyway, progress!

Scheduling: Week 3

I’m so excited: we got provisional scheduling for the remainder of the work today.

It looks like the windows will happen next week, for sure, and they’ll pour the concrete in the bathroom floor. There may have to be some serious Cat Management for that! they’ll also insulate the walls and smooth the floors to get them ready for sealing and tiling.

Concrete grinding means we will also have to institute some dust protection for upstairs. Heating vents have already been closed, but a barrier needs to go in or I’ll be wheezing like a tubercular for the next month.

The week after, they should get to the back deck. Yay to have our deck back again! Cocktails in the evening sun! party overflow space! they’ll also be doing flooring and walls and such. but what’s that next to a usable back deck, I ask? Oh, well, yeah, a proper floor is a good thing. I’ve been walking on concrete and IKEA rugs for so long now, it will feel like a brand new house.

The week after that, that is, the last week of June and our D-Day week (we have house guests for approximately the month of July), the pretty bits will happen–front door, new lighting, bathroom finishing…

Is it July yet?

And Now: Renovation Hell

It really isn’t that hellish. Well, it’s had hellish moments though. The weekend after our return from London we had to empty out a whole storey of our (admittedly tiny) house so that it could be renovated.

Don’t get me wrong: we wanted the renovations to happen; we even wanted them to happen just at about that time; however, we had hardly any warning of their imminent commencement, and that made for a kind of crazy weekend, packing, boxing, shifting, sorting…you know the drill. Quite a lot of stuff, I had accumulated in the past 5 years. It was made even more fun and interesting due to the fact that both of us still had lingering symptoms of the London Cold. So disrupting masses of dust was a uniquely enjoyable experience, this time.

In any case. The lower floor has been duly emptied, and gutted, and re-framed.  New windows (for downstairs and the windows upstairs that were not replaced during the first reno, when I moved in) have been delivered, and may have started to be installed this very day. Or may not. The concrete floor of the bathroom has been jackhammered out, the plumbing has been repositioned to suit the new locations for everything, the dirt and sand there that has not yet been recovered in concrete has been peed in by the small dogs, and we can see where our New Slightly Fancy Shower! will be installed. (Yay!)

The tile we liked the best was impossibly expensive, but the one we liked second-best was the cheapest; the floors will be heated; we got a new furnace; our wiring will be all up to date and yes! we will have more than one outlet per room! imagine that. We’ll have hardwood in the master because that’s the way I like it. There will be new carpet in the guest room, and no it won’t be fancy, but hey it beats what’s in there now! The guest room will, however, be provided with–wait for it–an actual closet. The kind with a clothes rail! and the plan is to put a smallish chest of drawers in there as well, for guests’ delight.  Given what our guests have had to put up with, they most likely will be delighted, don’t scoff.

My Main Distractor has been photographically documenting the work on his flickr page. You can check progress there, if it pleases you.

I can has blog post?

OH HAI.

I’ve been kinda absent of late. It’s allll gooooood.

So the fence got powerwashed and the gutters cleaned and new spouts put on. And then it rained. And I noticed rain splashing against the sill and window in the dining room but didn’t make the mental connection I should have. And then two days later (this morning) I noticed a great bloody blister in the paint in the dining room and cracks and… a great deal of my wall is saturated.

AWESOME! so I mailed the guy and said HALP ME PLZ and he came over and spent quite a bit of time saying that it couldn’t possibly be the fault of the spouts, it’s the window really. And while I dispute this as the splashing against the pane is something I remember from the last time the spout wasn’t connected and it leaked into the frame and wall, I don’t really give a shit what you think, I’d like you to replace the S-bend bit of pipe that’s apparently been there for the past 30 years and may have a leak, and tape the joins that may not be tight enough to contain the water when it’s coming down. Just get it done.
With luck he’ll get to it tomorrow, before it rains much more.

So much for my dining room being finished <_<

Aside from that, I succeeded in not spending any money this weekend, woo! oh except for a t-shirt.

Two and a half weeks till I’m invaded by hungry internet friends in search of chocolate cake. I think I’m up for the challenge. Really looking forward to meeting peeps.

And a Ministry show, which is always fun. The tickets should be arriving soon, I hope. And I guess I’ll have one extra to flog on craigslist or at the door. Oh and also seeing Bob Mould of Hüsker Du fame that weekend. Busy weekend!

Work is busy and with one of my admin staff headed off on maternity leave in a couple of months, I have my work cut out for me trying to find a one-year mat leave replacement. Who will be holding the fort during my two-week vacation (first two-week vacation in more than ten years…one of the reasons I felt comfortable booking such a long break is confidence in this staff who’s having a baby. Irony much?)

Lottery gods, you may smile upon me at any time! although I suppose I will feel some great sense of accomplishment in a year and a half when this has all been well-managed by me.

Telecommunication

is blowing for me right now.

(As Shanny would say, you’re a big girl now: suck, don’t blow. But that’s beside the point.)

I’m hearing from people I don’t care to hear from (well, not so much), and then the few people I really am interested in hearing from at this moment in time are not stepping up. Case in point: got my phone bill yesterday (at least it was a small one), but crickets from the guy who undertook more than a month ago to clean my gutters and replace some errant downspouts and powerwash my fence, which is looking like crap. I had emailed him to ask if he’d forgotten about me, and haven’t heard back. This is the guy who did a good job on the dining room, so I’m not that eager to hunt down some other guy. On the other hand if he doesn’t get back to me soon, I will have to, the green stuff growing on my fence is particularly alarming.

At work last Tuesday, asked for a quote for an item to be delivered by this Wednesday. I am not confident of quick turnover, but I had no quote by 6:00 pm Friday. HI WE’RE TRYING TO HIRE YOU TO DO SOMETHING, WOULD YOU KINDLY DO IT? WE’LL PAY YOU FOR IT.

With tradespeople, I really don’t understand this attitude that they’re doing you a favour by agreeing to let you hire them. That’s why we call it a service industry, chaps.

Speaking of service industry, I had a dream last night that I was assistant floor manager of an appallingly overstaffed coffeeshop. like 20 tables and two servers, and a manager and me. No idea where that came from! The place was empty in any case. Then the damn dog woke me up so I don’t know where the dream was leading. :p

Have a great weekend :) I have some cleaning to do, a little grocery shopping, and some editing. Oh, and the Oscars to watch :D

Saturday night.

I just spent another Saturday night with Ralph Fiennes and Africa. Sometimes it’s The English Patient, and sometimes it’s The Constant Gardener, but it seems to fit, often enough.

It was an OK day! I woke up early (for a Saturday), around 7. Coffee, dog-walking, cleaned up a bit here and there. The Wallpaper Man came and hung my wallpaper in the dining room (only 18 months since the room has been done) and completed the finishing work on the replacement back door (only…14 months lag on that). My dining room is ready for guests!

dining room

Little things make me happy :) sometimes!

What else, this week…the Punk Rock Boy™ came over for a rather good beef stew the other day. We had a nice evening.

I got square with the Tax Man over a few anomalies. That’s a relief. Not that I was feeling like Al Capone or anything.

My little wee iBook has periodic convulsions that do not make me happy, and I’m trying hard not to spend vacation money on a new MacBook (no, not the Air, it’s not really a useful second machine for me. I’m looking at a small MacBook that I can easily travel with and watch movies on and such.). You know, someone wins the lottery basically once each week, I don’t know why I can’t be numbered among those chosen! it’s not like I’m not buying the tickets…

Enzo needs service, and I need to remember this at a time when I can call the Vespa people, since my other option seems to be an option no longer. (OH THE DRAMA. NEVER MIND.)

Not much else springs to mind, other than the fact that I’ve eaten breakfast for dinner (no, not toothpaste) twice in a row, and I like that. Also, at this very moment, Choobie is having some very exciting dream, and squealing in his sleep, bless his little heart. He makes much more noise asleep than awake, Mysterious Dog that he is.

Enjoy your weekend!