Rehabber’s Rehab

We’d been pretty unhappy with the electrician, from his constant complaining, scratching up our newly refinished floors, and leaving messes around, he has been one of our least favorite contractors (although I am sure he has not liked this project either as he is deathly allergic to cats, and has been miserable the whole time).  But when I mentioned my biggest pet peeve to him, that the two plugs in the bathroom above the sink were not level with one another, I was told that it would be “no problem” to fix it.

So when I came home from work tonight, and went in the bathroom and saw the GIANT hole in the wall indicating he had fixed it, I figured it was no problem, no big deal.  I said “so…I guess the electrician was here.”  Thor had been home for a couple of hours at the time and replied “yup, he was just finishing up a couple of things.”  Thor seemed happy with having our electrical work done. I asked Thor if the electrician was done, and he repplied in the affirmative, everthing looked good.  I asked Thor if the two electrical boxes were level now, and he said “huh?  The electrical boxes?”

He then went into the bathroom.

“*Fudge! Gosh Darn it!  Gosh darn child of an un kind woman! What the fudge!  What the fudge was he thinking.  That fudging incompetent unmentionable…” and so on.  And on.

Meanwhile I am in the kitchen wondering what just happened.  I ask him if he’s hurt.  Because if this was about the hole in the wall, how had he managed to miss it the previous two hours while he was home.  To which Thor replied “*Fracking butt eater.  He put a giant hole in the wall.  In my newly dry-walled forking wall!”

I guess he hadn’t noticed.

We passed our insulation inspection with flying colors and now have permission to cover up the walls with drywall. We originally planned to drywalling ourselves, but then looked into seeing if our mudder knew anybody. He came back with a price we couldn’t beat. So on Saturday morning Francisco and his buddy came by. A few short hours later the entire project was drywalled.

I’ve never seen anybody move so fast. These guys were actually running around the house while working. All we needed to do was finish a couple of framing things and try to keep them supplied with drywall.

On Sunday we took the day off after doing some cleaning and Francisco started mudding the walls to make them smooth. Mudding is an art that it just doesn’t pay to do yourself. You can never be as good as a professional. You can never be as fast, and its cheap work ($500). Unless there is a hole that needs to be patched you will never catch me mudding and sanding.

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By the end of the weekend the rooms had finally come together to look like actual living space. The bathroom had walls, the windows were surrounded by drwall, you could no longer see through to the outside, and a huge plus or plumber returned to install our new upstairs toilet.

With Liz finishing the painstaking cleaning of the slate tile we had a functional bathroom after five weeks of using the nasty and scary basement toilet.

By the middle of the week we could finally move back in, although we remained at Liz’s mom house because of the regular traveling for the holidays and the funeral in Galveston, TX.

Thor, Matt and I spent the week dry-walling in the living room where the half wall was removed, cleaning gooped up paint off the walls and cleaning up the disgusting mess created by the insulation that rained down when we took off the kitchen ceiling.  This stuff was so foul that Thor even broke down and wore a face mask.

Friday:

We were trying to clean up because Thor was hoping to move in over the weekend.  The goal was to have things cleared out at home to move them and to have the sanding done and things clean so we can bring things in on Saturday.  I was at home cleaning when Thor called me in despair.  The spackle wasn’t drying, there was no way to finish sanding and things were a wreck.  An adjustment to our plans needed to be made, and it’s hard to admit the goals you set are a little too ambitioius.  Fortunately help was on the way. (more…)

Back yard mess

We went back to the house today after the vacation and the 48 hour waiting period for the floors to dry.  The yard was just as bad as I remember.  I don’t know how much longer the neighbors will put up with it.  We were so excited to see the new floor with out the water stains and the holes filled in.  We arrived only to find that Matt had taken the key home with him after he had stopped by to take some more measurements!!

We had frustratingly locked all the windows and were unable to break in.  I suppose we should be comforted by this fact.  At one point Thor contemplated cutting one of the screens, he wanted to see the floors so badly, but was talked out of it.  I was then accused (for the first time in my life) of being too optimistic because I pointed out we can just wait until tomorrow to get in. (more…)