How do I get to my blog? What’s the password?

I got left at home this fine Saturday morning when Lou went to Home Depot, so here I am, on the blog of all places. We have fun house guests visiting (and I don’t mean the appliances hanging out in the guest bedroom), so I have a nice excuse to stay in and eat pastries while he gets early morning errands done. Is it strange to not be walking the aisles of my favorite store right now? Yes. Do I miss driving through the crowded South Bay Center parking lot swearing at people? Of course. But there’s always tomorrow morning. Or even later tonight.

So that leads to me finally dusting off the ol’ blog. Again. Like catching up with an old friend, there’s a lot to update you on, but I don’t want to bore you or talk all about myself, so first I’ll ask you how the kids are doing, your job, that weird thing you were seeing the doctor about – is it taken care of? Good.

Now that the pleasantries are out of the way, OH DID YOU WANT TO KNOW ABOUT THE HOUSE??!?

Well, we waited all summer for that electrical permit to happen so we could get the full building inspection permit thingy. Done and done! We didn’t even get hassled to fix anything or pay additional fees. Weird. So now (like, now, today) we’re getting the kitchen ready for the plaster man who’s coming this week to drywall/plaster/make the ugly go away. This is huge. No more crumbling walls in the kitchen, Jesus will have to find a new home, and we’ll get to put the cabinets and appliances in within a week or two.

Hopefully the last time you’ll ever see the kitchen like this.

Also in the kitchen – a new view out to our backyard where the tomatoes are overgrown and the shrubs are turning brown from a fungal root infection. The new window was Lou’s idea, I could have gone either way but since the kitchen is the one room that’s completely redone, top to bottom, a new window makes sense. And it is very pretty.

Meanwhile, not in the kitchen: A few months ago I decided since the kitchen wasn’t going anywhere fast, I’d make the living room a place I actually wanted to spend more than a few minutes. So I rearranged the furniture (it didn’t help but the newness was fun for a couple of days). I got a little crazy and went dark on the walls. After six years of wanting a new couch, we took advantage of a sale and tax-free weekend to get one.  And finally, we even put up some shelves and unpacked our books. It’s like we live here now.

And of course, the new couch is grey (not our living room, photo from here).

Next, I decided our bedroom was an awful place to be due to the random furniture, bare walls, and icky light that comes through the cheap blinds at night. So the crazy came back and I painted the walls a different shade of dark, we rearranged more furniture (this time it actually made a big difference), and we put up curtains. It’s now a dark cave and you can sleep for 12 hours straight and it is wonderful.

Paint. Curtains. Rug. Grey. Duh. 

And while the company associated with this next update deserves its own blog post rant and Yelp review and Angie’s List review, I just can’t even be bothered because I already took their survey, called and yelled at them, still sent them a check for their “services,” and now I am just done with them.

The good news is, we got the house insulated. The exterior walls on all three floors, plus the attic are now full of cellulose and foam. The dudes who did it said they didn’t see one shred of insulation in our walls before they started, and that they had never put so much insulation in one house. And that was BEFORE they came back a second time to fill in the giant sections of walls that they missed. What? Yes. The empty sections that were found the following week when their OTHER service team was installing the heating system we bought from them. See, since our house might actually keep in heat and stuff, we installed some fancy in-room wall units that heat and cool. The rebates plus the no-interest loan and low monthly payments plus the energy efficiency of these things even, I’m guessing, in January when it’s freezing, all add up to what will surely be less than the monthly oil bill the radiators and boiler system produce.

Unfortunately, this whole process – the initial efficiency assessments, the coordination for and installation of products, and general communication – is poorly run through an unorganized company that may or may not be just a bunch of people working from their homes making phone calls and sending emails under one supervisor’s name. I’m about 67% sure that’s what’s happening. Whatever. It’s done now. Let it fucking snow.

Advertisement