welcome home indeed

I went out to Washington for a week, to help my mom out while she had eye surgery. I thought that while I was gone, Don would eat fast food, go to baseball games, and play Starcraft 2 (PS: Starcraft LAN party, our house, later this year. It's happening!).

Instead, I came home to a total surprise: he had spent the entire week working on window trim, even going so far as to get his dad to come over on the weekend and help him. The result: every single downstairs window has trim!


As it turns out, it's really hard to get pictures of window trim in daylight. At some point I'll remember to get out the camera at night and take some pictures.

As of this writing, the two windows in the living room are completely finished except for a second coat of paint. The dining room bay window needs a final sanding and its two coats of paint, and the window in the office is missing one piece of trim, then needs to be puttied, sanded, and painted.

We are well on our way to the next step, which is getting blinds - something anybody who has sat at our dining room table at four in the afternoon will deeply, deeply appreciate.

window trim

Only one window has trim. But it's pretty! And I have high hopes that the rest of the windows might get trim, like, by the end of the summer maybe! Cross your fingers.

why they make warranties

The window in our master bedroom is cracked. It appears to be some kind of stress fracture, probably from the house settling.


It's being replaced next week, no issues, no charges. A man from the window manufacturing company came out to measure the opening, and a new piece of glass was ordered and is ready to be installed. Always, always get a warranty.

dining room

The plan for this summer is to try to finish off the house one room at a time, one weekend at a time. We'll start our downstairs projects in the dining room: it needs crown molding, window trim, and the pocket doors into the office to be installed (this involves stripping and refinishing the cool old doors we found in the attic, which are what will be hung as pocket doors).


We also really need a new dining room table and chairs. Right now we've got our old table from our first house, which was a tiny townhouse. We've got both of its extender leaves in it and it's still dwarfed by the size of the room. The folding chairs don't help, either.



But at least it's a table - shown here with the pink and white Mother's Day flowers from brunch on it. The huge bay window, even without trim and finishing, is just as nice as I imagined it would be when they were installing it. We've had several family events as well as our gaming group in the new dining room, and it's great. Dinner parties to come! (Also, curtains.)

nothing to report

Family emergencies (on his side), work overload (on my side) and a bad cold (both of us) prevented anything getting done on the house this weekend. Figures. Scheduling is once again up in the air; we know what we'll be doing next but we just need to find the time to do it.

In the meantime, I'll be lying here in bed with a box of tissues and a vat of cough syrup, watching the cat ignore me because the new bay windows? With squirrels outside? SO much more fun than being petted or snuggled. Or so I've heard.

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.

please buy some windows

I can't say enough about how fantastic our window people are. They're friendly, interested in our project, and most of all, they are both really good at what they do and totally communicative. Our windows are beautiful, well-built, and perfectly installed, and we've known exactly what was going on every step of the way. The installers have been able to rearrange their planned installation schedule according to some special requests from us, and have made sure that we know and are comfortable with every part of the process. They even let the cat sit in their tool bag. And here's the thing -- they're getting laid off tomorrow. The company doesn't have enough work to keep them on, because the current economic mess means nobody is buying windows these days. It really, really sucks.

So if you're local -- anywhere in the greater Baltimore area -- and you've been thinking about buying some windows, now would be a really great time to get it done. Call American Design and Build, tell them we sent you. They really, really want to keep their crews employed, and they'll do everything they can do get you a great price so that you can get your project done and they can keep their crews. (And yes, they do stuff besides windows -- they did our roof, too, and they also do siding, doors, and lots more.)

before and after

So yesterday, the front wall of the living room went from this:


To this:


It's all very exciting.

and then this happened

Every contractor should have one of these in his tool bag.

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.

speaks for itself

But I'll talk about it anyway. This is the new bay window in the guest room -- if you come stay with us, you'll get to check out the great view it provides of the yard. It's still missing its little hip roof -- the wee roof that attaches to the main roof and eliminates that weird gap at the top. The framework for the roofs for both bay windows -- the front one is in, too (check out this view of the front one from inside the room) -- is sitting upstairs in the middle bedroom. I'm assured it will go in today.

I had to go in to the office yesterday, so Don got to stay home and take pictures for once. He called me with hilarious updates throughout the day, like when the army of window guys were all standing around cussing while they tried to figure out how to get the bay windows upstairs. Later, they told him that this was literally the first time they had ever been unable to get a window up by means of the regular stairwell -- ours has a lot of narrow turns. Eventually the windows went up by means of ladders to the kitchen roof and a lot of sweating.

The upstairs windows plus two in the downstairs family room are all supposed to get done this week; over the weekend we'll move our bedroom back upstairs and the office into the family room so that next week, the remainder of the downstairs windows can be installed (including the dining room bay, which may be the biggest one they've ever installed). Talk about progress!

the curse strikes again

The window guy called this morning -- he had some sort of unspecified emergency and won't be able to make it out today. But he promises that the windows in the family room AND both bay windows upstairs will be done tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

bombshell

Window guys are here. Right now. Installing windows!!

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.

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?

operation big house

Don has come up with a schedule for the rest of the summer. In theory, this schedule will make it so that the upstairs subfloors are done by the beginning of September, although I believe some of that depends on how much Don and his dad are willing to work during the week in August. So here's "Operation Big House" (apparently that's what the family used to call our house in Don's childhood, and he still calls it that). Creative spelling has been corrected by yours truly.

Operation Big House (7/5/07)

July 7: Finish mudroom demo / Fix downstairs bathroom waterlines / Clean up downstairs wood and tools

July 8-12: Pack upstairs / Move boxes into storage

July 9-12: HVAC Downstairs installation

July 13: Dumpster change out

July 14: Clean the downstairs (rest of plaster/nails/etc) / Tarp downstairs ceiling and windows / Move downstairs / Tarp downstairs “walls” / Run downstairs temp electric

July 15: Clean out attic / Buy trash cans for makeshift dumpster chute

July 16-20: Remove landing window / Build temporary stairway landing / Assemble dumpster chute

July 20: Remove upstairs doors / Remove upstairs blinds / Turn off upstairs water / Turn off upstairs electric

July 21: Demo Day 2 (which many of you should now have the evite for! If you don't have it and you want it, let me know.)

July 22: Install new attic trapdoor ladder / Clean the upstairs (rest of plaster/nails/etc)

July 23 or 30: HVAC Upstairs installation begins

Beginning August: Window installation

all kinds of news

The biggest news is that the new and improved Anapurna website is up. And, unlike the old site, you can actually successfully use it to buy things from us! Yay! Go check it out.

Other stuff going on, that I thought I'd get down before it drifted away in the massive cloud of to-do lists and scheduling I often find myself in:

Don got a call from the HVAC guy (who, incidentally, has the pointiest shoulder blades I have ever seen on a human being). Said guy is going to come over tomorrow night with a contract for us to sign -- with the original price they quoted us (yay!). He's really truly officially going to start work on Monday. It's like a dream come true! Air conditioning!

We're getting our nearly-full dumpster switched out for an empty one on the 13th. Benjer must love us, we rent so many damn dumpsters. This will be the third this year.

Demolition day, as you all know, is on July 21st. Don't forget to tell me if you want to come.

Windows will be installed sometime after that, hopefully in early August. All the paperwork has been signed for the financial stuff on that one, now we're just waiting through their lead time. Plus, we're getting the demolition done, which will make things easier for them (since they're doing all the framing for us -- they don't have to worry about the demo part).

At some point -- I am guessing next weekend -- we will officially Move Downstairs. I haven't made a lot of progress on cleaning out the office. This must change.

Don says that he'd like to have the upstairs subfloors done and all the final framing in place by the time school starts (August 29th). Considering that we're going on vacation for a week within that timeframe, it's a tight schedule. We'll see how it goes. I'm a little concerned about the plumbing for the new master bathroom, but Don seems to think it's "NBD".

proud possessors of hypothetical windows

Hooray! We have officially purchased windows. Or at least, we've signed a contract saying we're going to.

Apparently, the fact that we want to put in four bay windows makes this job a big deal. I had no idea. When we decided on putting the bays in, it seemed pretty straightforward. We knew we wanted one in our master bedroom, and the back bedroom's identical to the master, so it made sense to put one in there as well. And the dining room is practically screaming for one, and so then why not put one across the way in the family room? What can I say, we like symmetry. And all of the rooms we're putting them in will really benefit from them, so it seemed like a no-brainer. But apparently bay windows are a huge deal. Most people seem to only put one in, if any. I don't see why. If you're going to re-do the damn house, you might as well do it in a way that will make you happy.

Anyway. We're also putting in a round window at the base of the stairs, to replace the unwieldy square one that's there now, and we're putting in a huge picture window with double-hung windows on either side in the living room, which will do a lot to bring light into that room. Most of the rest of the windows are just replacing the old ones.

The best part? Every new window will have a sill wide enough for the cat to sit on, so she'll finally be able to spend all of her time staring out the window. Well worth the money.

a waiting game

Window people are coming on Friday evening to talk to us about stuff. They offer financing and they're having a great sale, so provided we can work out what we want with them in terms of actual stuff and timing, we're just going to go whole hog and replace all the windows in the house, including the ones which have been boarded over or filled with styrofoam (you think I'm joking, but I'm not!). We're also hoping to put in four (!) bay windows: in the master bedroom, the guest bedroom, the dining room, and the family room. Bay windows are large and heavy, another good reason for having the window people do the installation instead of us (in addition to not having to face the prospect of it taking MONTHS of weekend work).

The HVAC guy should be coming over on Monday to take measurements and work out the duct placement and maybe even give us a final price. He told Don that he's currently running about two or three weeks out, which isn't so bad. I can live three weeks more without air conditioning (although I'll probably whine about it).

In the meantime, we are going to play a lot of World of Warcraft, try and get our homework done (why did I think grad school was a good idea?), and maybe tackle the laundry room/mudroom at the back of the house. Just think -- maybe soon I'll be able to do my own laundry in my own house! It's the little things that keep me going.