Peace and Quiet

I'd almost forgotten what it is like to have a quiet, peaceful weekend.  No crazy running around, trying to get things organized; no packing of things into boxes for storage; no workmen around drilling, sawing or hammering ...

We are into the second week of 2010 and there is finally calm at the Walters household.  We are actually getting to relax and be lazy, which seems like a rare treat!

The house still gives me a bit of a (pleasant) shock when I see it as we're coming down the hill towards our cul-de-sac, because it looks so different from the outside.  The colour of the new siding goes very well with the roof and has brightened up the appearance of the whole house.  The new windows have new curtains to go with them (Bruce spent the last Tuesday in December putting up the rods and curtains, before Ranee and family got here) and the rooms actually have some empty space in them, instead of being covered by boxes and junk.  The only thing left to do now is put up Mummy's paintings and some other pictures/photos on the walls.

I think the best part of this whole experience has been discovering how much I enjoy decorating a house - choosing the colour/design of the tiles, carpet and curtains and seeing how well everything goes together now has been such fun.  Taste is such a personal thing, of course, but Bruce and those who have seen our "new" house seem to like what I've done and even our contractor approved of the colour choices!

I'll try to take some photos for a "before and after" post.  Don't know how many "before" photos we have, though - Bruce and I kept forgetting to take those before the replacement jobs were done.

It was fun have Ranee, Randy, Courtney and Roshan here after Christmas.  We got to see and do a lot, but there wasn't enough time to do everything we had planned.  Isn't that always the case?  Their puppies are so cute and seemed to have a lot of fun in our backyard.  It was a huge playground for them.  Beau played with them every once in a while, but both he and Belle weren't thrilled by little creatures jumping up on them all the time.  They did like racing around with the puppies, though.  That is what Beau needs - a dog that will race around with him in the backyard.

Speaking of the backyard, our birdfeeders have been getting lots of visitors in the last few days, because of the cold.  We've had below-freezing temperatures for most of the last week, which is rather unusual for this time of the year in this part of the country.  We even had a couple of bluebirds make a brief appearance on Friday, after we'd had a sprinkling of snow and rain that froze on the ground.  We're hoping they return - they are such beautiful birds, and it is a thrill to see a flash of blue every now and then.

The snow and rain we had on Thursday evening/night led to icy roads on Friday, but happily that is the day of the week that both Bruce and I get to work from  home, so we didn't have to deal with the craziness on the roads.  There were quite a few accidents in and around Atlanta, and it was a relief to not be a part of the mess.  The snow was pefectly timed for us!

New carpet!

Our new carpet is being installed as I write this.  It was supposed to be done tomorrow, when Bruce would be here working from home, but someone from the store called last week to ask if we could change it to Monday instead, as they had another job on Tuesday.  I had already asked my boss if I could work from home on Monday because the guys dealing with the closet doors needed to do some final touch-up work, so we just switched things around - carpet today, closets tomorrow.

Now, however, I suspect that Bruce called the owner of the flooring store and asked him if they could do it on Monday instead of Tuesday, just so that once again, I'd be the one stuck with all the chaos.  Moving his computer desk and the TV, along with his stereo system, was a pain because there was such a tangle of wires behind the cabinet.  The carpet guys asked me if I could disconnect things before they tried moving everything out of the living room - when I looked at the big mess, I understood why they didn't want to attempt the nightmare.  The speaker wires are the worst - they are ridiculously long because it's a surround-sound system, with two speakers at the back of the room.  Someone needs to create a high quality but affordable wireless sound system.

I finally got everything untangled and went back to work while the men moved out the furniture, but my work area was drastically reduced because now the TV and cabinet are in the dining room/kitchen, along with Bruce's very large subwoofer and a bunch of other stuff.  This is exactly what it was like when the tile was being laid and everything from the dining room was stuffed in the living room, with very little space for me to move around.  Somehow, Bruce managed once again to get out of being the one sitting amidst the chaos.

After I finished my news compilation, I went back to the TV and sound system to try and organize the wires a little better.  Everything is now neatly bundled up except for those darn stereo wires, which are one big mess.  I'd have to remove them from the speakers in order to properly untangle them and that's something I'm not going to mess with.  I'm too smart to get between a man and his sound system. (Two wires popped out of one speaker all by themselves when the men began moving the monolith.  If only the others had been that obliging ...)

The carpet (what I can see of it from my vantage point behind boxes and speakers) looks pretty - such an improvement over the old one!  And there is a chance we may get the new windows installed on Wednesday, followed by the siding on Thursday and next Monday.  Someone called me this morning to tell me that and then said he'd call me back to confirm - I haven't heard from him yet.  If they get the go-ahead, that would mean working from home again on Wednesday, as they'll need to be in the house for the window installation.  But when they're doing the siding on Thursday (if that's confirmed), we won't need to be here, which would be great as they've warned us the hammering will be noisy.  I'd be thrilled if it happens this week, because that means the house will be completely ready for visitors when Ranee and family are here next week.  The timing would be perfect!

It's cold again today, but we surprisingly have sunshine (which has been quite a stranger in recent days).  I'm so glad it isn't raining, because our living room furniture is outside in the front yard right now, as are Bruce's desk and computer.  But rain is expected again on Christmas Eve (which, come to think of it, may delay the siding being installed, unless the rain begins later in the evening).  So we may end up having a cold, rainy Christmas, which is so wrong - Christmas is supposed to equal blue skies and sunshine!

We had dinner at Bruce's sister Judy's house yesterday - an early birthday celebration for their mother and a Christmas get-together for the family, as well, since they'll be away on a cruise on Christmas day.  It was a fun evening.  We got to meet Jonathan's girlfriend, Claire, whom we all like.  Judy's husband, Louis, just bought a Harley Davidson, so Bruce got to ride it and he was thrilled.  He's been wanting to get a motorcycle for several years now (used to have one but gave it up when his kids were little), and I suspect I'm going to be hearing a lot more often now that he needs a bike.

I hope everyone has a blessed, very merry Christmas, surrounded by family, friends and love.  We (including Jason, Caroline and Jonathan) are going to have dinner on Christmas evening with the Jacksons, so we'll definitely be having fun.  Perhaps we'll be able to play Cranium again, with more people this time.  Such an entertaining game.

When it rains, it pours ...

... literally and figuratively.  It's been raining all day.  We've probably had four to five centimetres of rain.  There have been floods in Florida and over a foot of snow in D.C.  Our backyard is a mud pit and the dogs have been happy to stay in today.  Usually when we're at home and it's a sunny day, they enjoy being outside sniffing the air, chasing squirrels and sunning themselves every once in a while.

And now to the figurative part of that expression (I much prefer Shakespeare's "When troubles come, they come not single spies but in battalions."  However, the rain quote is more fitting today and for this blog): Did we really dare think that we had identified all problems with the house and were getting everything fixed?  That was, of course, tempting fate.

The result?  We found out on Tuesday that we have termites.  The rotting wood in the wall with the leak was apparently nirvana for them.  We have a pest control guy coming out on Tuesday to begin the termite treatment.  (He was supposed to come today but postponed the appointment because of the rain.)  We were planning on getting a termite contract anyway, because it's one of the many things that will make it easier to sell this house, so that's one more thing off the to-do list.

On the plus side, the mould room is no more!  The wall has been fixed and painted, the termites will soon be dead and the new carpet will be laid on Monday.  At some point, I'd like to get a futon for that room, so that it can be turned into a bed if we have guests.  (Futons are apparently more comfortable than sofa beds - I like the fact that it would take up less room than an acutal bed and can also be used for seating during the day.)  For now, we're going to put the single chair from our living room set and a reading lamp in that room, once the carpet is down.  That will create a little more space in our living room and also give us a nice reading room.

Just four more days of work next week and then I'm on vacation for the rest of the year.  I'm looking forward to the break and to doing a little Christmas baking - some cookies, perhaps.  I like trying new recipes and keep coming across yummy-sounding ones in the newspapers and online.

Mountains and curves

Bruce loves mountains.  I think we'd be up north in the Georgia mountains every weekend, if he had his way.  I like mountains, especially the view from the top of one, but getting to (and leaving) a mountain has never been my favourite thing because of the curvy roads (especially those hairpin curves).  I don't feel quite so seasick if I'm the one driving, or if I sit perfectly still, but I'd still prefer not to be on a mountain road if possible.  Now, however, we appear to be metaphorically stuck on one.

I have come to the conclusion that home renovations are the equivalent of a ride to the top of a tall, tall mountain.  The promise of a great view is beckoning from the distance, and I know this house is going to look wonderful when all the work is finally done, but the road is long and winding a great deal.  So much so that I'm beginning to treasure every lull (i.e. break from a hairpin curve) we have.

One such lull - our kitchen/dining room floor looks wonderful!  The tile is gorgeous and goes very well with the kitchen cabinets (I forgot to take the "before" photos, so unless you've seen the floor at its worst you may not understand why I'm so giddy about the tiles).  Bruce and I both love, love, love our newly tiled floor, and I think that's what is keeping us going amidst this chaos.

Our contractor came by on Tuesday with one of his guys to look at the wall in our mould room in order to try and figure out where the leak was situated (only the insane insurance guy thought it came in at ground level).  So the contractor, George, and his colleague, Frank, started removing some of the drywall around the window (which is where we normal folk thought the leak was, which is why we ordered new windows in the first place).

It's not always pretty to be right.  (I'll put in photos when I get them from Bruce, so you'll be able to see what I mean.)

The wood around the window in the mould room is almost completely rotted through.  And, according to George, it looks like there's been a leak there before that someone tried to fix (but not very well).  I don't know how long this leak has been there, but judging from the condition of the wood, it's been quite a while.

So Bruce took photos, George took photos, and then Bruce called our insurance company.  They said they needed a letter from George stating what was found (since apparently a contractor is more believable than a mere homeowner).  George faxed them a description of what he found as well as his estimate of what it will cost to repair the damage.  Then we had to call the insurance company yesterday to follow up, i.e. make sure they received the fax.  They had, but naturally they weren't going to do anything with the fax until they heard from us.  Now that Bruce has followed up the fax with a phone call, they can officially move to the next stage of the process, which is to get the inspector to call Bruce to set up an appointment to come to our house and look at the damage for himself.  We have no idea when that phone call will take place, but at least we've got the ball rolling (uphill, of course, since this is a journey to the top of a mountain).

This means we can't do a thing with that room until the inspector gets here - we can't get the wall fixed and we can't put in the new carpet.

But the rest of the house needs attention, too, so we'll just close the door to that mould room and focus on everything else.

We're getting new closet doors installed.  That sound simple enough, right?  Take off the old ones, put on the new.  Except this is a nausea-inducing journey, remember?  The closet doors we had were from the '80s.  They were heavy, made of metal (heavy metal being a very '80s thing!) and were continually coming out of their tracks.  They were a pain to open and close.  These days, closet doors are made from wood and are much lighter.  So that's what we've opted to have instead of our iron monsters.  Except that closet doors are now about 80 inches tall (a little over 2 metres), and the metal ones were taller (perhaps another 20 cm or so).  That means they have to put in a bit of a filler between the ceiling and the new closet doors.

That in itself has turned out to be a complicated process, because it's not just a matter of putting in the fillers.  No ...  First, all our closets have to be emptied.  Otherwise, the plaster that covers the wood used to fill in the space will get all over our things when it is sanded down.  So, we have a FUN weekend ahead of us.  We have to empty out every single closet and pack stuff into boxes.  We can use one closet for work clothes that we'll need in the coming week, but everything else needs to be put away.  In a small house with very little empty space.  FUN!!!  And then after all this is done, we'll have more chaos when the new carpet is put in, as I don't know how the men will be moving around furniture.  All the dining room furniture had to go into the living room when the tile was being laid, which meant we could barely move around in the living room.  Goodness knows where the living room furniture is going to go when they have to put down the carpet.  But hopefully I'll be in the office that day and Bruce can enjoy that madness all by himself!  (I had to endure the tile turbulence by myself, so it's only fair that he has a turn.)

The men will probably be working on the closet doors most of the coming week.  I'm working from home on Monday and Thursday (my wonderful boss agreed to my request without hesitation) and Bruce will be here on Tuesday and Friday, his usual work-from-home days.  We both have meetings on Wednesday that we have to be in the office for, but the rest of the week will be filled with hammering and loud air guns that scare Belle and unnerve Beau.  (Have you ever heard an air gun drive a nail into wood?  It is jarring and almost deafening.)

The guys doing the work - Frank and Mike - are nice guys and are doing a great job so far.  My only concern is the amount of dirt and dust that all this work is kicking up.  My lungs are not happy.

As our muscles and backs begin to ache from all the moving and packing we'll be doing this weekend, I'll just have to keep reminding myself about the lovely house we'll have in January when we finally get to the top of this mountain ...

Chaos diluted

We're not adopting Blondie, after all.  On Thursday morning (we were supposed to pick her up from Lisa's house that evening), Lisa called Bruce to tell him that Blondie had attacked Lisa's dog, Oliver.  One of Oliver's ears was damaged badly enough to require surgery.  Both Lisa and her mother didn't think we should take in Blondie, in case she attacked our dogs, as well, and Bruce and I agreed.

It's difficult to understand why the attack happened, since Blondie seemed so sweet when we met her on Monday, and she had been living with another dog so it's not like she wasn't used to that.  Bruce and I think perhaps it's because she was in heat when Lisa's mother brought her over to Lisa's house on Monday, and after a couple of days she might have begun feeling threatened by Oliver.  Whatever the reason, we didn't want to risk having her attack Belle or Beau.  She may be better off in a home with no other dogs.  She was taken to an animal shelter, and I hope someone sees and adopts her.

Our dining room and kitchen floor will be installed on Wednesday.  I'm SO excited about that (because the current linoleum is torn up in many places, thanks to Beau's puppyhood, and looks awful, and the tile will look so pretty), but it's going to be a challenge. The dogs will have to be kept out of that area all day Wednesday and perhaps even Thursday and Friday, while the grout dries (otherwise we'd have dog hair stuck in the drying grout).  The door to the backyard is in the dining room, so that means I'll have to take the dogs out the front door and around the house to the side fence to get to the backyard at night and early in the morning when they need to go out/run around.  And we'll have to put up one of our doggie fences to block off the kitchen and dining room.  However, that's a temporary inconvenience and the end result will definitely be worth it.  I'll ask Bruce to take before and after photos.  (We should have done that before we had the new kitchen cabinets put in a couple of years ago, but didn't think of it at the time.)

The mould room, as I call it, is very bad for my lungs, so I'm glad we are getting closer to having that redone.  Someone will come here next week to pull out the carpet in that room and take away some of the old furniture that has water damage, so that the room can dry out some more before the new carpet is put in.  Also, we had a contractor come over yesterday to take measurements - he's going to replace the damaged wall once the room is dry enough.  Then all the icky mould will be gone for good.  My lungs can't wait!