a minor update

So, I had my surgery last week. For those of you who follow me on Twitter, you know already that I was stuck at home up until yesterday, recovering and being very bored. I'm now back to driving, though still no heavy lifting and various other restrictions. It's all very annoying.

House-wise, we are (as usual) having communication issues. We found a nice new HVAC man - our old awful one has now disconnected all of his phones (!) - who agreed to come put in vents for our bathroom fans and install the last bit of sheet metal from the downstairs return out to the wall (it's set back from the wall, and needs to be connected to where the vent on the wall will be). He gave us a very good price, told us he could get it done this week, and promptly disappeared. We would be happy to give him his money if we could get HOLD of him.

Other things that need to happen: Don has to run to Home Depot and pick up some data rings and install them in all of the places where he and his sister's boyfriend ran speaker wire - it won't take long, it just needs to get done. Also, we need the electrician to come back yet again and fix a couple of things - a matter of ten minutes, really. Then the insulators can come - they've already called me once, wondering when we're going to schedule them.

The drywallers are scheduled for November 30th, and I REALLY don't want to change it. I have no idea how we're going to get this stuff done before then, particularly with the upcoming holiday, but I am determined.

the first insulation this house has ever had

Once Don had pulled the wire for the new front porch overhead lights and fans, he could start putting insulation between the new joists over the front porch, to keep us from freezing in our bed once we open the porch back up to the elements. It's practically the first insulation that's ever been put in this house (there were some random bits stuck inside an interior wall, doing nobody any good, at one point).

Don and his dad joked that it already felt warmer after the insulation was in, a joke that turned cruel at around midnight on Saturday night when our heat broke. The furnace upstairs just stopped working. Just in time for snow! On Sunday morning, we called BGE Home (we intend to get a service plan with them, as they're sort of the only game in town), who told us they'd get to us on Tuesday (today). They sent a very nice service man out early this morning to tell me that a) we needed to put some "flooring" up in the attic before he'd go further than the fourth step up the attic ladder (there's a piece of plywood up there that gets moved around as portable flooring -- not good enough!) and b) there was a gas leak somewhere so he couldn't look at the furnace without that getting fixed anyway and c) the service division no longer fixes gas leaks -- and, ironically, neither does the utility division. They just find it for you. The utility people, I mean. The service people don't have any equipment at all for dealing with gas. The service people of the gas company. Whatever. He was very nice about the whole thing, and didn't charge me for the visit since he couldn't do anything. He recommended that we call the utility people, have them pinpoint the leak, and then either fix it ourselves or call a plumber.

We elected to bypass the utility people entirely and just call Len the Plumber, who had a plumber out here by 9:30 AM (I called at about 8) -- no two-day wait here! He fixed the gas leak -- there was a defective part in the line, an angled piece of pipe that had apparently been deformed from the start with an almost miniscule hole -- and then, out of the kindness of his heart, fixed the damn furnace too. Two days of huddling under the blankets and being miserable, gone in the blink of an eye.

In any case, I have a lot of photos ready and waiting to be posted about Saturday's work day, but have been too cold and miserable to do anything about it until now. So stay tuned -- my typing fingers are toasty warm!

one giant step forward

Last week was pretty eventful. On Thursday, in particular, we had a veritable swarm of people running around the house: the window guys were working on the glorious dining room bay window you can see in the foreground of the picture below (and which I am sitting in front of right now, having moved my little work table over in front of it so I can watch the squirrels chase each other around the tree in the side yard); the lawn guy was mowing and also giving us an estimate for some yard cleanup; our new ADB representative was here getting some papers signed and getting the grand tour; and the HVAC guy was here (finally) fixing the upstairs air conditioning. Whew! Everybody said hi to each other -- the lawn guy took a card from the window guys -- and everything got done in good time.


And now, here we are. The huge hurdle we've been waiting to get over for months and months is rather anticlimactically past (okay, maybe it's only anticlimactic to me -- everyone who's come into the house so far and seen the new windows acts pretty darn climactic), and we're finally ready to move forward. We've been waiting and waiting for the windows and the HVAC for so long that it's hard to transition back into the mindset of DIY; it's been contractors this and financing that for most of the year, and now it's finally back to Don and his dad, working on the weekends and getting things done.

The next big step -- and really, the last of the overwhelmingly huge projects -- is the upstairs floor. We're doing the same thing we did downstairs, if you can remember -- tearing up the original, sadly unsalvageable floors, sistering or installing new joists to create a level plane, and then installing a level plywood subfloor.

A new dumpster got delivered on Friday, ending my brief period of dumpster-free bliss (although, amusingly, the HVAC guy told us that he drove right past our house on Thursday, totally missing us because there wasn't a dumpster in the driveway). It's ready and waiting, and Don plans to start ripping up the floors upstairs while he's home this week. Other things that'll go into this hopefully last dumpster (sorry, Benjer): the drop ceiling in the front screen porch and the one in the kitchen; the mudroom, in its entirety; the old desk in the basement and the platform it's on; and the vast majority of the things Don's grandfather seems to have crammed under the basement stairs.

And that's it. From then on, it's all construction, all the time. Once the floors are done, the plumber will come and install the plumbing for the two upstairs bathrooms, while Don and his dad create a wiring diagram and pull wires and install outlets. Then, insulation and drywall and a practically finished house.

Please try not to place your bets too high on when it'll all get done.

like a whole new house

This weekend marked another major change in our progress: we moved! The goal was to leave the office where it is (currently in the dining room) and clear out the living room (which was serving as our bedroom) so that the window guys could start the downstairs installation there. While we did manage to accomplish the goal, there was (as usual) a fairly major hitch in our plan. Originally, we were going to move the bedroom back upstairs, into what will become the guest bedroom. We'd leave the office downstairs, and keep the upstairs mostly clear except that one bedroom so that Don and his dad could rip up the floors up there. Well, we got most of the way through moving our racks of clothes and a dresser upstairs on Saturday when we realized that even though we'd turned the new air conditioning on up there it wasn't getting any cooler. Quite the opposite, actually. And if any of you are local, you know just how hot it was this weekend. I promptly got heatsick, of course (I thought we were done with that for the summer!), and we stopped moving and tried everything we could think of to make the air conditioning work. No such luck.

So now the bedroom is in the family room/library downstairs -- where, thank heavens, we had the foresight to have the window guys finish up the installation of two double-hung windows last week. The living room is clear, and they're in there sawing and banging as I type. Don got hold of the HVAC guy on the first try this morning, miraculously enough, and he has promised to come out to take a look either tomorrow or Wednesday. If he fixes it, we may move upstairs this weekend, although I have to confess that I like being downstairs better -- proximity to the only bathroom in the house right now gives this setup a whole lot of bonus points in my book.

In the meantime, we're enjoying the novelty of having two separate rooms to live in (how luxurious!). Don is home for the next two weeks before he starts his new job, and I work from home full-time now, so with both of us here all the time it's awfully nice to be able to put a wall in between us if we want to, even if it's just made of black plastic. Right now I'm working on a table in the bedroom, and he's at his desk in the office. And, of course, the window guys are in the living room. Pleasant company all around.

ready for freon

Don and his dad were busy this weekend. They spent Saturday at Chez Brinkley, ten blocks over, working on installing a trailer hitch on one of the vehicles over there. Then Sunday it was our turn, and the dangerous duo were over here at our place to wire up the last piece of the HVAC system.


The HVAC guy says he'll be here tomorrow or Friday. I don't have high hopes.

the latest

What you see in the photo above is not, sadly, an old-school Dr. Who-style robot living in our attic. It's actually the tail end and some of the ductwork for the upstairs HVAC unit, which is almost all the way installed. We had our friendly neighborhood plumber come out and install a gas line to the attic, and then the HVAC guy got to work in a relatively timely fashion. This time around, the delays have been mostly our fault. There were delays in getting the attic ladder put in, delays in calling the plumber, and finally the most recent delay, which is actually not entirely our fault but still rests on our shoulders. After the unit itself was placed in the attic and the ductwork was run, Don and his dad had to install the electrical setup for the unit, running wire to it so that it would do important things like turn on. They eventually got together and did the work, but then they ran out of wire -- they were short by approximately seven feet of wire. So things got put on hold until Don could run out and buy some more wire. Well, it took us approximately three weeks and five stores to find the damn wire. NOBODY had it. Apparently everybody else is running wire, too, because the stores were all sold out. We finally found some a couple of weeks ago, and now it's on Don's shoulders again to get the wiring finished. Once that's done, the HVAC guy will come back out and put freon in the lines and fire the whole thing up and we'll be done, finally, with this ridiculous saga.

still here

Oh my god, it's been a month. I'm sorry, you guys. I'm working on picking up the pieces of my utterly shattered life right now. My office moved, which bumped my commute up to over an hour each way, which really doesn't work in the deadline-driven proposal business. So after a few weeks of hell which included poor Don going hungry pretty much every night because I didn't have time to make any sort of food or even go shopping for groceries, I've officially become a sort-of telecommuter. I'm now working from home whenever possible, although I have to be in the office whenever we're printing and shipping a proposal. And speaking of proposals, turns out early spring is the busy season. Kind of like winter and fall were. Who knew?

But while I've been flailing around trying to reconcile fifty gazillion proposals and a new office and a total lack of things like pens (which all appear to have been lost in the move), plus normal things like keeping up with the sheer volume of dirty dishes two otherwise normal people produce and remembering that the little fuzzy creature who sleeps on our bed needs food, Don and his dad have been busy. Here's a preview:


The upstairs demolition is officially complete. Not only that, but we've had the HVAC guy over (!) and he's working on getting his materials ordered and ready to go, having taken all the necessary measurements. Don and his dad installed a new attic trapdoor this weekend (no picture yet, the one above is from before, with the old trapdoor ladder dangling precariously from the ceiling), so the new HVAC unit will be able to go up into the attic.

You'll also notice that the wall which ought to separate the landing from the middle bedroom is mysteriously absent; Don had a roaring good time tearing it down the other day so that it can be rebuilt about six inches back from where it was originally, all in the name of fitting a walk-in shower into the master bath. It's all very complicated, but we've officially decided on the floorplans for both upstairs bathrooms and are getting ready to get some quotes from plumbers to see if we can afford to have somebody do the necessary plumbing fairly quickly (my preference) or if Don and his dad will do it agonizingly slowly (guess who wants this option). More on bathroom stuff later; right now I have yet another proposal deadline to meet. But I'm going to keep up here, I swear!

fingers crossed

While I was off making lots of money this weekend, Don and his dad took the opportunity to do some more demolition. They worked all day Saturday, and now everything upstairs except for the bathroom is done. Impressive! So Don called HVAC guy yesterday and left a message saying that we were ready for him to come and measure for the upstairs HVAC and schedule us for installation. We'll see how this goes.

done moving

I actually forgot to post earlier this week about the fact that we've officially completed the move downstairs. Don wired in another of the ceiling fan lights from upstairs to light the new temporary bedroom:


Then he put up some 2x4s to re-create the old front hallway between the stairs and the living room and stapled tarp to them to make the last wall, fully enclosing the living room. All of the tools that were in the family room got moved up stairs so that we can use it as a guest room -- Lindley's already used it, over the weekend while we were selling at the convention. My sister will be using it next week.

As soon as Don gets back from his latest business trip, he's going to start organizing the upstairs demolition. The window company called us and said they were looking for work in the next few months, and would we be interested in a couple of incentives? Why certainly! So as soon as the demo gets done upstairs they'll come in and do the windows finally. And sometime around there the upstairs HVAC will get done, too. It seems that scheduling things in the off season is really the way to get fast service in the contracting world.

make it hot, hot, hot

The heat is fixed -- HVAC guy did in fact show up, although not as promptly as we might have hoped. He installed some pipes and voila! Leak-free heat. So that's good.

As for the progress that's been made downstairs, I haven't got any pictures, as my camera battery is dead and I haven't decided what to unplug to plug the charger in. Life will be so much easier when our whole house has functioning electricity and fully-installed outlets. Anyway, what's happened is that Don has actually managed to completely line the downstairs walls with tarp. This is going to serve as makeshift insulation, creating an air barrier between us and the outside. It's not much, but it's better than nothing. He's also lined the ceilings, both to prevent hot air from rising to the soon-to-be-unused second story and to prevent plaster dust and construction debris from falling through the floor and severely damaging something, like the cat. It's all about the preparation (he was an Eagle Scout! Did you know? As far as I can tell the only thing he gained from it was a lot of experience playing Magic: The Gathering and the ability to tie seemingly complicated knots that don't actually hold things together [I'm pretty sure bungee cords were invented to save us from Eagle Scouts]).

So, there is in fact a possibility that by the time he flies out for his business trip on Sunday (still no idea how I'm going to entertain myself for a WHOLE WEEK without somebody to bicker with), we could in fact have at least the bed downstairs. And maybe the desks. This is complicated by the fact that I'm going to the Bead Society of Greater Washington's Bead Bazaar with Lindley tomorrow, and we still have to do a lot of laundry, but still! Heat! Not having to huddle in bed under the down blanket at 7 PM because it's the only place to be moderately warm! Very exciting.

soooo coooold

I'm waiting for the HVAC guy. It's like some horrible version of deja vu, except with added coldness.

Our new heating thingie (I never know the difference between a furnace and a heat pump so I have no idea which one we have -- therefore you get the technical term 'thingie') is leaking water all over the basement. Don called the HVAC guy yesterday and he said not to panic, it's actually a fairly common problem with new installations. Apparently the manufacturer often ships a faulty water line with these units, so it has to be replaced. HVAC guy is supposed to be here sometime around 11 today to fix it, very prompt service on his part if it actually happens.

In the meantime, Don has turned off the heat so that the basement won't be full of water -- probably a sensible thing to do, really. But I'm the one who's stuck at home waiting with no heat. He has a super-important briefing at work today, so he had to go in. I have a lot of super-important things to do, too -- we have a proposal due in about a week -- but I agreed to stay home for the morning. I'll go into the office after HVAC guy gets here. In the meantime, I freeze.

Seriously, I'm SO COLD. My hands are so cold I could hardly type this stupid post. Ugh, winter sucks!

Further progress has been made downstairs but I'm too cold to write about it, you'll just have to wait.

productivity: pending

Can I tell you, I cannot WAIT until this weekend. I mean, aside from the fact that it's a weekend and I get to sleep more than usual, we're going to do something totally different from the norm: we're going to WORK ON THE HOUSE!

I KNOW! I can't believe it either. Don has been plotting and planning, so I'm assuming he's got a list of things to work on. I only care about one of them: the kitchen. We had to take the countertop that he built down for the HVAC guy, because one of the vents goes right under it and there was a radiator there, so HVAC guy needed easy access to the radiator to move it out of the way and install the vent. So we took down our countertop, but as we all know it took QUITE A WHILE for the HVAC guy to finish. Our microwave has been on the floor for WEEKS. The door-opening button is probably half-dead because I took to kicking it open instead of bending down to push it. Yes, I'm lazy.

Anyway. We finally get to re-install our countertop, which means the microwave will be in its place and various other things can be moved off of the main countertop, which gives me chopping space again. And let me tell you, I made a variation on this recipe last night and there was a lot of chopping involved. It wasn't fun with no counter space.

So I'm excited, because we're going to put the countertop back this weekend. We're also going down to Alexandria to help paint Lindley and Raymond's study and test out a mystery painting tool for houseblogger reviews -- stay tuned for that post.

Our next step is to put in some temporary electrical on the first floor. I don't know how much of that we'll get done this weekend, if any, but it's awfully nice to have it on our shoulders instead of somebody else's. Now, if stuff doesn't get done, it's our problem and not anybody else's. And we're in a lot more control of when things DO get done. I think Don's waiting to see what the weather's like this weekend before he decides whether we'll work on the electrical or get a few winterizing things done outside while we still can. But the kitchen is SO happening.


Orzo with Roasted Vegetables
(adapted from Ina Garten's recipe of the same name)

1 yellow bell pepper
1 green bell pepper
1 red onion (mine was fairly large)
4 small portobella mushrooms (Safeway is only carrying dwarf ones these days for some reason)
3 tablespoons olive oil (-ish -- it's not a precise measurement)
2-3 garlic cloves (I cheat and use the pre-minced stuff in a jar; one teaspoon is about one clove)
1 teaspoon salt (a good sprinkling -- you don't really need to measure)
1/2 teaspoon pepper (same)
1/2 pound orzo (orzo is a rice-shaped pasta; you could probably use something else if you wanted but try to use something small so the pasta doesn't overwhelm the vegetables)
4 scallions, minced
1/2 cup fresh basil leaves, chopped or julienned
8 ounces of feta cheese

Dressing:
1/3 cup olive oil
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Chop peppers, red onion, and mushroom into approximately 1-inch pieces. Think "rustic". Put chopped vegetables onto a baking sheet, and toss with oil, garlic, salt, and pepper.

Roast vegetables for 40 minutes, until browned. Turn once with a spatula.

Meanwhile, make the orzo as directed on the box (it's generally 'boil for 7-9 minutes'). Drain.

Combine the olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and pepper in a bowl and whisk to create the dressing. In a large mixing bowl, pour dressing over pasta while it is still warm and mix.

Add the roasted vegetables to the pasta and mix, then add the minced scallions and chopped basil. Mix.

Dice the feta into approximately 1/2 inch cubes and add to the bowl. Mix carefully so as to crumble the feta as little as possible.

Serve at room temperature or chilled.

Notes: This salad is seriously excellent as leftovers -- it chills very well. It might be good with parsley or lemon zest added for a little additional zing, but I made it as written and it's awesome.

um, wow

So, that was anticlimactic. HVAC guy's done! He just yelled up the stairs, so I went down and he showed me how he'd done a couple of things, and said that when we get the drywall done in the corner where the return is he'll come out and make a metal sleeve so it reaches to wherever the drywall winds up being, and I told him we'll work out when we're going to get the upstairs demolition done and give him a call for that part.

We have heat! And air conditioning! And it works! OMG!

anticip-p-p-p-p-ation

Since Don's officially a working man now, I get to be the one who stays home for contractors these days. My job is pretty friendly towards working from home, since we've got a good VPN system and our work doesn't require top-secret secured facilities like Don's usually does. So I'm here, working on two different proposals at my very messy and non-productivity-conducing desk (I should probably fix that part). And guess who else is here?

HVAC guy! No, really! He's here! He's doing things! It's very exciting. He was scheduled to get here at 7 this morning, so Don had to roust me out of bed far earlier than I'm used to (I told him not to leave the house unless I was actively upright). He didn't show up until 7:30, after I'd sent a few increasingly snarky messages to my boss indicating that I might be in to the office after all, blah blah blah. But he showed up. I let him in and told him to yell upstairs if he needed anything and try not to let the cat out because she's not very brave, and he got to work. So far I've heard banging, thumping, drilling, and a couple of thuds and clangs, all of which I take to be a good sign.

Cross your fingers people, we might actually have heat by the end of the day. Just in time for temperatures to go back up to the 80s this weekend! Thanks, Baltimore weather!

(PS - If you get the title of this post, you're a dork. Good job. ;) )

so close

The HVAC guy did show up yesterday after all. And he made a point of talking to Don before he left for the day to let him know where he was at and what still needs to be done. It's like a magical transformation! At this point, all of the vents and ducts are officially in and hooked up, including the ones in the kitchen addition. The return -- that bit that sticks out of the side of the house -- has been installed. There's one piece of ductwork missing -- the piece that connects the return to the rest of the system. It needs to be specially fabricated at the shop. After that, he needs to connect the gas line to the furnace and make a couple of other connections and the first floor will finally be done, done, done!

You would think he would just schedule himself to come out to our job and finish it all in one fell swoop -- he had two days left of work to do for us, shouldn't he be at our house two days in a row? No. Apparently we're not important enough to just finish all at once or something -- his modus operandi seems to be to skip from job to job to job, doing a bit on each one. Which, let's be honest, is probably why he seems to have so many scheduling problems. Whatever. He told Don that he'll "check his calendar" -- which for some godforsaken reason he is incapable of carrying with him, the reason we've had so many "I'll call you back!" conversations -- and let us know when he can come out to finish. He predicted that it would Tuesday or Wednesday. Feel free to place bets.

the curse strikes again

HVAC guy was supposed to be at our house at 7 AM this morning. He called at 7:20 from his basement. His water heater's broken.

We're rescheduled for Wednesday at 7 AM. Cross your fingers.

is there something smaller than baby steps?

The HVAC guy is scheduled to come out next week to finish up, after much stalling and failing to call back and various other delaying tactics. We'll see if he shows up. I have a strong suspicion that our curse has struck again -- our last phone call appeared to catch him in a hospital. But it's not ALL the curse.

Don is trying to convince his dad to come over this weekend to get fill dirt and fill in the giant hole in our backyard where the pool was. I don't know if it'll happen or not; I think his dad wants to get a bed liner for his truck before he starts hauling any dirt around. And I KNOW he'd rather have Don get some burly youths over to help with the shoveling (like that'll happen). So we'll see.

Not a great deal going on otherwise; the depressing trend of mouthing platitudes to each other and others about how the house'll be awesome when it's done, and how we'll be living in luxury "soon" continues. There is no definition of "soon" that actually matches when this disaster will be over with, of course.

Oh, and the cat caught a gigantic bug in one of the upstairs bedrooms last night. And meowed pathetically until I came and inspected it before she killed it. That was fun.

news of note

Don got a job; he starts work on October 15th in a development position with one of the Big Two -- a major defense contractor. It's full time, so it puts our original plan into total disarray. But we're used to that sort of thing by now. So the money situation will be mostly resolved in about a month, when he starts getting his paychecks.

The Anapurna Girls will be at the Darkover convention over Thanksgiving weekend; if you haven't made plans and are interested in fantasy and science fiction, consider going. And, you know, buying stuff from us.

The HVAC is still not done. The guy came on Friday and spent some time downstairs doing SOMETHING, although I'm not sure what, since nothing appears to have changed. We thought he was supposed to come back Monday; needless to say, he didn't. We finally got hold of him yesterday and he said he'd call us back today. Sure thing. [For those counting, we started this whole nonsense on JULY NINTH. This has been THREE WHOLE MONTHS of nonsense for a job that should have taken a week.]

The holidays are coming up, and with them a slew of family visits. Don's whole family lives relatively nearby -- the furthest away is his brother in Norfolk -- but mine is strewn about all over the country. So getting to see them is often a treat. My father and grandparents will be coming down from New Jersey the weekend before Thanksgiving; my mother will be flying out from Washington for Thanksgiving proper; and my sister is coming to visit for a whole week in December. Very exciting!

false hope

I say this every single year. Autumn in Baltimore almost makes up for summer, winter, and spring in Baltimore. Normally I say it a lot later, though. We've been having a bout of unseasonably awesome weather lately; crisp air, perfect breezes, blue skies. It's all excessively autumnal and wonderful, but it's NOT REAL. Autumn here doesn't really start until like mid-October. The trees are all still vibrantly green, which is a little jarring when you feel like you ought to break out your (very stylish and sexy) autumn jacket and the close-toed shoes. This particular wave of weather is expected to end next week, and we'll go back to unpleasant warmth again, which is why we haven't yet taken the window air conditioners out and flung open the windows so that the cat can enjoy her autumn tradition of staring menacingly out at The Outside World, how dare it exist without her.

The HVAC guy is officially scheduled to come out and finish the first floor on Friday. Let's hope this doesn't prove to be as fleeting as the weather.

Also providing a measure of false hope: Don has a job interview on Thursday. But it's for a job which is a) full-time, not what we were expecting and b) kind of far away, practically on the south side of DC, which is a commute we were hoping to avoid. He'll find out at the interview whether the pros really outweigh the cons well enough for him to take the job.

we still love you, window people

Our window order is officially on hold. Because the window guys will be doing a bunch of framing when they put in the windows (both because some are bay windows and because several windows are getting moved around), they need us to have all of the appropriate walls laid bare. Unfortunately, this STILL can't happen without the HVAC being finished so we can move downstairs and gut the upstairs. So Don told the window people to go ahead and put the whole thing on hold until we get the stupid HVAC finished, whenever that is. I think HVAC guy is supposed to call today or tomorrow to let us know when he can come out and finish.

On the plus side, that's one bill we won't have to start paying for a while, which is a good thing since Don is still unemployed. Anyone have any jobs?