The refrigerator moves back in

I hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving. Ross and Eric flew in from Colorado on Monday, and it was good to see them even though our time together was short.

While they were here, they helped John move the spare refrigerator from the garage back into the house.

The builder finished resizing the laundry room cabinets in October and we’ve been waiting for the boys to be here so they could help.

Ross suggested removing the doors so the fridge would clear the back door more easily. John wasn’t sure he would be able to get them off, but he did and it helped a lot.

It took most of the day to clean the interior, exterior, and all the shelves and bins, as well as the floor where all three appliances sit; glad that’s in the rear view mirror now.

It fits quite nicely in its new, larger space and the doors can be opened all the way now.

On to the next thing….

Draperies

We finally have window coverings! They arrived at the end of July

and took three days to install; they are beautiful. Here is the living room:

Dining room:

Kitchen:

It was cloudy today, which made it hard to get a decent picture with true colors. Here is the plaid and the accent color used for the kitchen valances:

Master bath:

Master bedroom:

The white smudge to the right of the middle at the top of the photo is not in the drapery panel. Something’s wrong with my camera….

Here is a close up of the master bedroom fabrics:

Floral: valances
Wavy stripe: panels
Leaves: throw pillows for bed

Have a good week and thanks for dropping by!

Mining for floors and counter tops

It’s been a while since my last post. We continue to plow through moving boxes and get our home life in order. More than two-thirds of our boxes have now been emptied, collapsed and donated to friends and neighbors. Most of our papers and documents have been attended to, with the result being more available floor space and empty counter tops—definitely a sight for sore eyes.

It’s taking a long time for several reasons:

• When you have a hobby, which we both do, you have a lot of stuff that is dedicated to it.
• When you’ve been married for 30-plus years with two kids, you have a lot of stuff.
• When you live in temporary housing for 19 months (with most of your stuff still packed in moving boxes) while you are building a house and working for a start-up, the organization of your personal affairs slides into a deep chaos, requiring archaeological skill to dig out.

We had been putting off the nagging task of that last item mentioned above, but we finally gritted our teeth and devoted the better part of two weekends to organizing, purging, filing, labeling and shredding. In the process, we found two portable file bins containing tax returns, check registers, pay stubs and bank statements dating back to 1984. Four bags of shredded paper later….

John came across my very first paycheck:

Check the $1.30 hourly rate and the whopping net pay of just over $20. Still, I felt rich because that was more than the 50¢ per hour I made babysitting back then.

So we finally emptied all the boxes with files, shoveled off John’s desk,

and filed every last sheet of paper worth filing, including all the booklets and documents that came with the building of the house.

I know, a photo of your personal files is quite boring, but that’s some serious work product there, baby!

Meanwhile, John has been emptying more boxes in the garage to make room for at least one car and he finally got there.

One down, one to go.

On the fun side, we are excited about the installation of all our window coverings next week. Here is a sneak peek at the fabrics we chose for the living room:

The large print with red background looks very bright, almost too bright, and you may be thinking, “What is she thinking?” But inside the living room, which has east facing windows and overlooks a covered patio, the colors deepen and the print looks rich and more subdued. We also appreciated the fact that the blue in the print doesn’t appear black in that room like so many of our other options did.

“It’s always somethin'”

Remember the original Saturday Night Live episodes where Gilda Radner played Roseanne Roseanna Danna whose signature quote was, “Well, Jane, it just goes to show you…it’s always somethin’. If it’s not one thing, it’s another.”

That’s where we are with our house this week. Since we moved in May, we’ve had two visits from window service techs and they’ll be out countless more times because the efficiency concept eludes them. Nor does anyone seem to comprehend the screen dimensions for a single bathroom window. We’re going to ask Santa to bring it.

In addition to still lacking a bathroom screen, three downstairs windows were replaced with tempered glass to bring them up to code. I remember confirming the required locations for tempered glass with the sales rep, and yet, none of our windows were manufactured with it, which goes down as another mystery of the building trade.

Tempered glass is much heavier than regular glass, and when I opened one of the windows with it, it slid almost shut. You would think they would know this and bring with them the balancing mechanism appropriate for the new window weight, but that is too logical, and besides, there is always time to make another trip because it’s what they do and we’re supposed to be grateful for it.

Now here’s where It’s always somethin’ crops up again: In the last two weeks, the latch in the kitchen patio door wouldn’t budge, which meant we couldn’t open the door. A service tech (who came out yesterday to replace the glass in one of the windows) found that when the low voltage crew wired the house, they drilled too far into the side of the door to install a motion sensor and damaged the lock mechanism.

A piece of the lock mechanism had become lodged inside, causing the latch to stick.

The tech pulled the piece out and got the latch working again, but now I’m worried:

Me: Isn’t the lock mechanism compromised?

Tech: Yeah, and while it may be working now, if you have trouble in a couple years—because it’s been damaged, it’s no longer under warranty. I can get you a quote for a new one.

Me: No thanks. This is going back to the builder.

Not said: Now where in the *bleep* are my new balancing mechanisms?????

And if it’s not one thing, it’s another: While the tech was checking the latch, he noticed that a whole lot of hardware was missing from the hinges. There are four hinges supporting the door, with each hinge containing four screw holes. Two screws were missing from every hinge.

Also not said: Uh, didn’t your company install the door?????

Just shoot me now.

We’re about to wrap up our post move-in punch list. I’d better brace myself for another large dose of It’s always somethin’.

Unboxing a life

We are slowly getting unpacked. It’s been slow for two reasons:

1) John is back to working long hours during the week and has also worked every weekend since we moved (sometimes both Saturday and Sunday) and

2) locating parts and pieces essential to progress has been like searching for a needle in a haystack.

John putting the legs onto the worktable for my office.

You can’t keep unpacking your books or tools if the shelves for them aren’t put together. We finally found the brackets to the shelves for the sewing room, all the components for the kitchen light fixture

and the stereo cables, but are still hunting for the shelf brackets for John’s workshop and the rest of the ceiling fan parts.

In the meantime, I did what I could while John was working overtime and finished the kitchen, butler’s pantry, master bedroom, bathroom and closet, but there is still a lot to tackle.

Rhonda was over this Memorial weekend to crack the whip help figure out where, exactly to place the tables and shelves in the sewing room. I’m really glad she was insistent that this get done as I’ve been feeling pretty overwhelmed and in need of advice.

She also started loading up my pegboard, which was something I was not looking forward to doing. She wasn’t able to finish because we didn’t find all the cutting mats until it was getting late and I didn’t find all the rulers until after she had gone home, but it’s closer to done than I would have gotten it.

While we were working in the sewing room, John installed the TV in it.

I am confiscating the TV we had in our living room in Colorado, and we will get another one sometime in the future for our living room here. For now, he is pretty happy finally having his stereo system up, adjusted and running. We have missed music that doesn’t come out of headphones or earbuds.

I don’t have many pictures because things are still very much in chaos, but I wanted to show you the depression pink glass knobs John installed for me on the closet doors in the sewing room.

I think they will look great with this fabric I found for window coverings:

It’s a woven fabric that looks embroidered, which I thought was perfect for a sewing room, plus I loved all the colors and funky flowers.

Change of address

The big moving day was last Monday, May 9, which spilled into Tuesday morning. We moved one year plus one day after the foundation was poured for our house and it’s been quite a journey: one we’re more than glad to be ending.

Things went well; the movers were very friendly and very careful. They pad wrapped all the furniture and shrink wrapped on top of it, so I was happy—until they wrestled the refrigerator into the laundry room where the space for it was so tight, the doors barely opened. The movers jockeyed it back out the door and into the garage where it now sits.

The builder got an email about it the next day, but all we got in return was silence. On Friday evening while picking up Chinese food, John ran into the builder who said he had told his project manager to fix the laundry room cabinets. We were pleased to hear the news, but remain utterly dumbfounded over the lack of communication we’ve dealt with over the last 18 months and are relieved it’s mostly come to an end.

John assembling the work table in his office.

Tomorrow, I return to work for a much needed vacation from moving. I have been the Energizer Bunny (with the bruises to prove it) since the latter part of April, up at 6:30 or 7:00, falling into bed 17 to 18 hours later. Sleep, rise, repeat. My big goal for last week was to get the kitchen cleaned and organized, and by Friday, I had emptied all the kitchen boxes, washed everything and figured out where to put it all.

In the meantime, here is the sewing room:

 

I moved stuff

I’ve been absent from here for a couple of weeks because we finally closed on our house and are getting ready to move. I was surprised at how much time and effort it took to get the details and terms of our homeowners’ insurance policy figured out. After that, it was time to get bids from movers, mowers and pest control, and keep an eye on punch list progress.

It’s been quiet at work these days, so I took two and a half days off Wednesday, Thursday and Friday to move some things down the street to the new house.

Most of it was in plastic storage bins, which in our experience, don’t fare well in a big moving truck, so I wrestled around stacks of boxes (some three and four high) in the bedrooms upstairs to fish as many bins out as possible.

I managed to snag most of the Christmas tree and lights

a bunch of sewing room items

more Christmas stuff, craft items, most of the kids’ toys

and a lot of Tupperware and everything in the pantry.

After three days of jockeying around boxes, loading and unloading the car, and countless trips up and down two sets of stairs, I feel like I’ve spent a week at a cross fit gym—you know, the kind where you don’t do 10 pushups, you do 100.

It might be time for some cross stitching.

Work, play, and a sewing room preview

A week after he was discharged from the hospital, John and I went to the house where he talked me through the installation of the shelves for the pantry and sewing room.

I did one closet in the sewing room and got two rows up in the pantry and then finished the rest by myself the next weekend.

The shelves in the sewing room are for fabric and batting. They are only 8 inches deep, perfect for holding fabric wrapped on a bolt, which is how I store cuts equal to or greater than 2 yards. Most quilt shops are happy to give away empty bolts; all you need to do is ask.

In the meantime, the mantel for the outdoor fireplace was installed

and over the weekend I made time for some serious cross stitching. I stuffed my beanbag chair, cross stitch project and iPod into the car and unloaded them at the house. Upstairs in the front bedroom, the light is exceptional and I was amazed at how much progress I made.

 

Tim-ber!

Today we had some serious tree trimming done, going from this:

to this:

Gone are two dead limbs and, at least for a while, the endless attention to falling pine needles, pine cones, sticks, leaves and tree pollen which is thick here in the spring—not to mention the potential effects of hurricane force winds.

On to the next thing. More later.

A week lost, a life saved

So much has happened the past two weeks, I could almost write a book. On the 5^th and 6^th, John and I walked the house to start our punch list.

Oops! The bench seat in an upstairs bathroom was cracked when the shower door was installed. There was no material left, and there is a search to see if another fabricator has like material. Otherwise, the guilty party will have to cough up for an entire slab. It’s not looking good for them.

I took pictures of everything needing attention and the end result was a 120-slide PowerPoint, which grew to 135 slides after our four-hour walk through with the project manager on the 8^th.

Mystery unsolved: At one time, there were shelves for this cabinet. Then there weren’t.

You get this when an inspector says to move the electrical meter from the side of the garage to the back. There are now four or five spots all along the side of the garage that need bricks replaced.

Later that day, we met with a bank representative to sign some documents related to our construction loan.

The real fun started on the 9^th when John went into the hospital for a cardiac catheterization, after which the doctor said it was time for a bypass. The night of the 10^th, we were in the ER until 1:00 a.m., on the 11^th, Eric flew home for spring break and a week ago today John had surgery.

This is a therapeutic pillow given to all surgical patients. You hold it against the incision area and it serves as effective counter pressure when you cough or sneeze.

He did well: the surgery did not take as long as anticipated (apparently, he followed my orders to behave himself while in there); he got his breathing tube out in record time; and he was out of bed sitting in a chair the next morning and walked two circuits with the nurse around the ICU. He made good, steady progress, and by Thursday he was lobbying hard to get out, but wasn’t discharged until Friday.

The last time we were this exhausted was when we had an infant and a toddler in the house. Part of the blame goes to scheduling the surgery around the change to daylight savings time. His 5:15 a.m. appointment felt like 4:15. Add to that a stressful week prior and the stress and preparation of what was coming, and you have one bone-weary couple. The night of the surgery, I crashed into bed around 8:30 p.m. and woke up the next day around 8:15 a.m., still fuzzy-eyed and brain dead. It was hard to resist the temptation to stay there all day.

The support and encouragement from our work family has been overwhelming. Several even brought meals to tide us over after John got home. On top of that, our builder and his wife (future neighbors, too) brought us a delicious feast yesterday of grilled salmon, fresh asparagus and two more sides. We were blown away by their kindness.

The weekend before the surgery, we picked up the pantry and sewing room closet shelves from the Container Store. With John directing, Eric installed the top rail in all three closets. With the hard part out of the way, it will be easy for me to assemble the rest of the components once we move in, so thank you, Eric!

The master closet was outfitted last week

and an appraisal was done on the house in preparation for closing. Meanwhile, the subcontractors continue to trickle in and out to address all the bullet points on the punch list. Here’s an example of something they fixed:

Sigh.

In light of some of the larger issues needing correction, we’re rather grateful for the closing being moved out, although we don’t yet know exactly when that will be and really don’t care at this point because we are focused on John.

We are so ready for everyone to GET OUT. Still, there’s nothing like a crisis to jolt you back to the big picture. Our house frustrations pale in comparison to what could’ve been without medical intervention for John. We are hugely thankful that he is on the road to recovery and that all indications point to him returning to a normal life filled with regular activity.