Thwarted

I don't know why I always think I can get a lot done over holiday weekends. With all the celebrating and festivities and what-not, you seem to have even less time than if you were working.

Anyway, we finally got the bed set up and the stove hooked up on Sunday. I also set up a bookcase and my dresser. A lot of the furniture seems to be at Tony's though: the coffee table, several book shelves, desk, dining room table and TV stand. We still don't have a couch :( Some of the furniture got mold on it from the leaking basement, but only a couple small things got ruined. Thankfully, the mold cleaned off easily.

Anyway, back to an earlier thought, the mattress for the bed had that basement mildew smell. Otherwise we may have stayed there last night. I have to find something that will get the smell out. We were looking at Febreeze in the grocery store and saw that it was mostly water and alcohol. So that's what we're trying first to get it out. The only other thing I know that will get the smell out is vinegar, and that would be yucky. I appreciate any suggestions on the matter.

Woot!

All the touch up painting is done. :D

Tony has a few minor things to do this week, like hook the stove back up and put in the other phone lines. We are going to use the holiday weekend to get everything unpacked.

We're moving in!

Pictures

Pictures of the living room floor!




I put a coat of touch up paint in the living room, but I'm going to have to do a second coat in some spots because the spots were dark and the paint is light. I'm exhausted, but I want to get everything done. I still have some of the green to touch up, plus doing a final clean on the floors and unpacking. So, I'm really going to push this weekend to get a lot done.

Floors are done. Pictures tomorrow, real ones too, not this 'cell phone picture' crap.

I have you now, floors!

I finally got to working on the floors. The first coat of polyurethane is done. One more coat to go. I have to get more polyurethane though. I doubt half a can is going be enough.

I didn't unpack any more stuff. The fumes were getting to me and I wasn't in a make-order-out-of-chaos mood. We did move the box spring upstairs, but were too lazy to get he mattress. Going the get the second coat done and more stuff moved in during the week. I'm very optimistic about actually being able to live there by next weekend.

Phone jack #1 is in!

Buried Treasure

I didn't write yesterday. We only got a little done. Tony evened up the intake hole-in-the-ground so the duct cleaners could come today and clean the ducts without cutting their hands off. I was going to polyurethane the floor, but (as I fear) the putty didn't stain well. I had to re-stain those spots and needed to give it time to dry.

Today we had to go about the whole messy business of getting the ducts cleaned.

First off, never, ever, ever use Home Best to get your ducts cleaned. they advertise in the Penny Saver a lot. The price on the ad is '$79.95 for unlimited ducts'. Somehow the price escalated to $600 when they got there. 'Oh, because that doesn't cover cleaning the furnace, or the intake or the main ducts, or sanitation.' The guy tried to use double-talk and high pressure sell to get me to pay an outrageous amount of money for a glorified vacuuming (I'll discuss the actual services in a moment). If we didn't need this done to move in I would have told him to 'get out'. They lower the price to a meager $430, an amount I would have still been unwilling to pay (Tony did).

What they actually did was run what looked like an industrial sized duster on the end of a power drill into the vents, spun it (on the drill) and kick up the dust in the vents everywhere. And when I say dust everywhere I mean dust everywhere. Then they vacuumed the ducts out with a regular old shop vac. And, even after we told them that we just did construction and to expect dry wall, they told us that the sheet rock was 'plaster' and it was 'meant to insulate the ducts'.

Look, I know we're stupid for paying you guys that much money to do this crap, but we're not idiots.

Anyway, they did their thing and left. There was dust still in the air so I thought it was a bad idea to put down polyurethane. Eluded me again, have you floors! I did all of the touch up painting for the hall and the bedroom and then had to blow 2 and a half hours waiting for a ride. So I decided to raid the basement.

All my dishes and pots! I haven't seen that shit in years... or months. It kind of feels like years with my living situation. They say that packing is a bitch. But unpacking is fun! I think I got about half of the kitchen unpacked.

Yeah, I haven't taken pictures of the floor yet, but I took pictures of my dishes. Everyone has their priorities, I guess.

Stained

I've been busy, so it's been a couple of weeks since I've had time to finish the work that needs to be done. The goal is to have it done by the end of next week. What's left to do it finish the touch up painting, finish the living room floors, get the ducts cleaned (scheduled for Tuesday) and install a phone line. Of course there will be more work after we move in, these things just being what is required to move in. The bathroom is the biggest mess.

Today I got the floors stained. It took a lot longer than the other wood I had to stain. This floor was more damaged and I had to fill several places with putty. Unfortunately the putty didn't stain so well and I'm going to have to go over it again with gel stain. I put another coat of the hall floor too, to try to hide the damage Sam did. It looks better. Lets hope it still looks better when its dry. The kitchen has been touch-up-painted. That leaves the hall, living room, bedroom and bathroom, all of which I hope to get done this weekend.