Remodel Blogging Weeks 3 and 4

Life has been a spinny, windy type thingy for a bit, but tomorrow we quit pissing around and get thoroughly insane - after an abbreviated start, more on that later, tomorrow begins the Great Electrical Installation Massacre. Oooof, does I haz a lot of work for this week...

(cue whirling colors and such)


When last we left our heroes, teh Russians had landed, and the basement structure had been demo'ed  thoroughly, occasionally violently, and at least once with squat dancing, down to block and pad, and a small amount of framing had begun. It was at this point that we, meaning "Sweetie", realized that we had a small basement, and the Piper, a loan shark in my opinion, was gonna get paid with interest. I suggested donating the house to Habitat For Somewhat Smaller Humanity and moving to a cave in the mountains. However, when I realized I was not going to like the continued thrust of that conversation, I tabled the motion and decided to do exactly what I wanted to do, which was give Sweetie's suggestions all due consideration.

The framing picked up speed, and to be serious for a moment, (I know, what the I don't even), the General Contractor's carpentry/labor crew were bloody fantastic. The walls, well, if I could get my truck down there, and I suspect the workmen prolly could, they'd just pick it up and carry it, I could hit the frames full speed and a two-by would give before the wall moved. This basement? Only thing gonna survive Armageddon (Dec. 2012 - getcher popcorn ready, I'll have tunes!). The framing did have to slow down for two reasons - the laborer had been secured into place to serve as a support post but wanted to go home, and we were still settling on a furnace contractor.

The furnace contractor mess, ugh. The GC bid on moving the furnace, but we wanted a second bid, just because - my wife is AWESOME! The price difference was savage, and so we wondered if the GC's bid may have been made unaware of the facts of the job, not huge, but not simple, so we asked the GC to bring his furnace guy in to give us a real price. Two reasons, primarily, that we didn't want their furnace guy to get in there, realize he was about to take a bath, and do half-assed work, but also, we are not actually interested in ripping anyone off, we want best bids for good work and are capable, maybe not happy, of having it done. Sure enough, their furnace guy came in significantly higher than originally thought, but in a weird coincidence, (possibly because paleo is an idiot and let slip the neighborhood of the outside bid), about a rather specific round number short of our outside bid. We tried again, fresh, and by the way, Angie's List?-worth it, holy dammit I love Angie, got a respectable bid from a vetted contractor. Who, as it turned out, works for the fucking Piper, as they then informed us that some of the plans the GC's furnace guy had were dumb. Poop. We made some decisions that we can live with, but there is an annoying soffit influencing those decisions, and I ran out of the Arrakean Spice needed to fold space and time. Poop squared.

Master Bedroom

The furnace contractor (dammit, I cannot spell that word and I've been one, fourth time now I've written contracotr) ran into a minor issue - the main plumbing. The GC ran into a minor issue - he'd annoyed my wife, and although I may be a bit too forgiving sometimes, given the fact I've done this for a living, don't annoy my wife. I get cranky. We got the plumber in the next day, and frankly, that dude's a wizard too, another Belarus and his son, good guys, but were not scheduled for another week. He and the son put in a champion's day moving plumbing and temping in some other runs (incidentally leaving us hot water for a bit - Yay us!),

Bathroom, Furnace Trunks

and the furnace gentlemen were able to finish. Now, some dumb bastard has to get the furnace powered up tomorrow so that we can get gas put in so that we can have, ummm, heat. We've been waking up to a house at 50*, which makes paleo ridiculously just fine - Sweetie somewhat less so. Bro-in-law? Homicidal. They are southerners, Nebraska (south to me, don't judge) and can live in temperatures where normal people burst into flame. My suggestion? Sweaters. Sweetie's suggestion? Get to work, Sparky. Gotta check those vows, I know I put in something about indentured servitude under the sammich subclause...

Off topic for a second, having dinner, and a friend had recommended Miracle Noodles, as a pasta substitution (me being stinkabetic), and we are having 'sketti, shroomies sauce, beef and onion, and it's perfectly great. Too damned expensive to be a common thingy, but nice to know I have an option.

We finally got the tub we ordered last Wednesday, and Sweetie (MY WIFE IS AWESOME) insisted we check it for flaws as soon as reasonable. Wrong color! Dammitdammitdammit. And apparently, the damnable things are made to order, in Canada, and I have of course explored, in verse, teh evulz present at the Canadian border. This story may be continued - aarrgghhhh!

Finally...allow me to present A Short Story

On Thursday, I had a true go-ahead to start my work, and had great plans, put up all boxes and lighting, head full of plans, mouth full of obscenities (I can be a little weird... To work around. Ummm, also.) SO bright and early, I got up a switchbox. Yay me! And started getting peppered with pertinent queries, for 3 hours. About noonish as the crew retired to their lunches, borscht possibly, McDonald's likely, and I went back to work, putting up a fan box. Yaaaay, me, goddammit! And got drowned in a sea of Cyrillic commentary. Eventually, the crew went home, and I strapped on the ol' toolbag and grabbed a can light.

Four stitches later, my work got pushed off to tomorrow morning. Oh well!

One Last Thing!
I wrote a post earlier about the rotten so-and-so, probably holier than me, stealing my Vote No to the Minnesota-Holee-Shit-Those-People-Is-Different-Burn-Them amendment sign. Had intended to replace it immediately, but they are hard to get (AND THAT TOO IS AWESOME), but I finally got it!