There's a hole in the bucket

First, thank you for your comments on my last post. It’s very helpful to me to hear what others have experienced and how they handled it.

Second, I’m still not sure if this is the big ol’ change or not because it could very well be massive stress. Last week, things were up in the air for me in terms of the next job and the uncertainty was definitely intense. Long story short on that, I accepted a full time permanent position and I’m scheduled to start May 4.

In addition to my job situation, we’ve been having some foundation work done on our house. The front half of the house (street side) is about 2 ½ to 3 inches lower than the middle. This is old settling but because we want to replace windows in the basement and the bedrooms, we need to get it fixed. Plus the slope is quite visible in our dining room. We have built in storage the previous owner put in and she accommodated the slope. That’s all fine and good since the shelves are level but when you look at the top, the slope is really obvious.

There are two ways you can fix this kind of settling: you can lift the frame of the house from the inside of the basement, or you can lift the foundation. Obviously lifting the foundation fixes the root of the issue and equally obviously, it’s a more expensive solution because holes have to be drilled through the basement floor and dug outside along the foundation. But we’d found a company based on a recommendation by a friend and their price was pretty reasonable, all things considered.

We think now that they anticipated the job would be pretty simple and that they could squeeze it in between other, bigger jobs. Ha.

As specified in the contract, they were going to dig 18 holes total, eight in the basement and the remaining 10 outside. They started a week ago Wednesday and by Monday morning this week, it was clear this was a very slow process. I don’t know if that’s because the digging went slowly but I do know that they were showing up after 9 AM, taking a good two hours at lunch and leaving by around 4 PM. So Monday morning, Kent mentioned that the project really needed to get moving since he would be out of town all next week. They decided to lift the house with just the internal holes dug—just eight of the 18.

Well nothing happened. I confess, it never occurred to me that maybe the house wouldn’t lift. But the part that just annoyed us both to no end was the sales guy going on and on about how it wouldn’t lift, we should just go with the internal frame lifting (remember, that’s the cheaper solution and doesn’t require holes dug in your basement floor), you might have structural damage (first that ever came up), etc etc etc.

This isn’t our first reconstruction rodeo (yet another thing to thank Boston for) so we’ve made it clear that the job needs to be done as specified in the contract with all 18 holes and lifting both inside and outside the basement. We may still be on the hook for additional work because our front porch may need to be removed so they can get to that part of the foundation. Fair enough, if that’s the case we’ll deal with it.

But yes, more stress.

That's life

I’ll confess I was feeling a bit complacent this week. Kent busted his butt and got all our budget stuff loaded into Microsoft Money Plus (it’s free, find details here from one of my favorite personal finance blogs) which is letting us track our budget pretty much in real time, we've tweaked and adjusted that budget so now it's really working for us, and we aren’t touching our savings (although they aren’t growing either alas).

You may recall we have an unfinished repair to flood damage in the foundation on the patio side of our apartment. We'd been calling around to various masons since April, but no one would return our calls, let alone come out and give us an estimate. We know it’s because our job is small potatoes to them; most of them have a lot of work right now from the damage all the brownstones across Boston sustained last March. So we asked our realtor for a recommendation, which he provided and he suggested mentioning his name. Wow did that ever work! We called Friday, the mason came out Tuesday and gave us the estimate yesterday—$3300. Gulp—we aren’t in Kansas anymore.

We do have the money, but replacing it will hurt. This is the nitty gritty party of budgeting, not the fun stuff. I’d much rather be considering spending that kind of cash on a super cool trip rather than on a house I dislike and can’t wait to sell.

Detail-oriented!

Me: You're going to think I'm too detail-oriented

Kent: Yes, yes you are

Me: But you know how the hot water lever on the bathroom sink is parallel with the wall? Well the cold water lever isn't and it should be.

Kent: ::eye roll:: That may be a much bigger job than you think. And you're not detail-oriented, you're obsessed.

Me: Am not! And it would just look better.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I ran some errands after that conversation and came home to take a picture of the faucet only . . . he fixed it!

Soooooooooooo close

Kent and I just destroyed our to do list this weekend. We have minor touch ups left but that's about it. I am so relieved to have our apartment feeling more like home.

With a vengeance

I’m pretty good at paring my things down; I’ve never been much of a pack rat (although I was married to one in my first marriage). I’ve talked before about how many times I’ve moved over my life and I do think Kent is right—I constantly prune my belongings in anticipation of the next move.

But when Sal’s delivered our salvaged clothing and household items, Kent and I both knew it was time to be utterly ruthless. (Kent used to be a pretty good pack rat himself and decided seven moves ago he was done with that, so now he purges with the best of them.)

Before we could do the sorting and tossing, though, Kent had to make things safe for our cats—especially Wally. Sal’s delivered almost everything on hangers and covered with plastic bags like you’d see at the dry cleaners. Then the hangers had been rubber-banded together. Well Wally likes nothing better than to eat plastic bags and rubber bands, so Kent spent about 90 minutes just taking off the bags and the bands.

We spent yesterday going through over 20 linear feet of hanging belongings. We needed to determine which items just hadn’t been saved (most actually had) and after that the purging began in earnest. You can get a glimpse of the stuff we went through in the slideshow to the left. At one point our queen size bed was entirely covered to a depth of about 18 inches with items we were donating to Goodwill.

We also had to sort through our shoes. While we’d done a rough cut last fall, we needed to finish that chore up and it was not a lot of fun because at this point we had mostly ruined shoes left—and when I say ruined, I mean shoes with mold growing on them and stinking of mildew.

We did get one very nice surprise. We’d both written off our down booties as ruined just because they’re down-filled and we knew they’d been below the water line. I sure didn’t think they would have been salvageable. I opened up one of two boxes from Sal’s and there they were, all pristine and just waiting for us.

We filled the back seat and cargo area of my CR-V with items to donate to Goodwill. I'll probably find more things to donate but we made a lot of progress yesterday.

Edited to add that the quilts my mother made me look to be fine. So that's more great news. And also here's a picture of the cats after Kent did the plastic/rubber band removing exercise. Clearly they were worn out.

Easter's coming

And we are headed to Virginia--Smithfield to be exact. We'll be visiting Ben, Jen and Alison and heading back to Boston on Monday. In addition to looking forward to seeing family, Kent and I are really looking forward to the sunshine and near 80 degree temps they're experiencing.

In fact, I'm not packing my vitamin D. Crazy!

In other news, we didn't pass our inspection. The inspector believes we need a range hood, she says it's an architectural requirement. We are gathering more information before we meekly roll over and spend another $1,000 on something the code doesn't seem to require. This may be a losing battle, so stay tuned.

Kitty stress

We are moved in, although everything is still a chaotic mess. On Friday, Bostonian (the company who did a lot of the cleaning and restoration) brought the things they'd boxed up back to the apartment, about 60 boxes. It's very odd and random what they packed out and what they tossed because some of the items they brought back are clearly not usable any more. In most cases, those boxes were also wrapped in large plastic bags, probably because the contents were wet when packed. For example, Kent's power tools were in a canvas carry all under the bed which meant they were all under the water line. But the bag and the tools were returned. Of course the tools don't work and the bag is disgusting, but we have it here.

In addition to all that stuff which we haven't begun to put away, we also had three car loads of things to bring over from our temporary apartment, plus the cats in their carriers. We did as much as possible to mitigate the stress for the cats. We did all our packing at the temporary apartment yesterday morning, and didn't leave the kitties alone until we brought them home. While we packed, Eddie cried, Chloe talked and Wally hid under the hood of my coat. Of course you can't explain change to animals and they're pretty unsettled. All three have been running around crying and crying, and of course getting into every box they can reach.

And Wally, the plastic eating freak, ate enough plastic last night to make him throw up spectacularly. So after dinner, we removed plastic from every box and put it all outside, plus made sure he couldn't slither into boxes. He loves to do that and often knocks the box over while he's inside it.

Last night he found a spot on the new couch to be calm for all of about 30 seconds. That's when I got this picture.

A list

This week as I commuted, I came up with a list of what I will and won’t miss when we move out of this apartment on Mass Ave.

What I’ll miss

1. The view.
2. The closets.
3. The ability to wash and dry multiple loads of laundry all at once.
4. The pizza cutter (it works really well).
5. Direct sunlight coming in the windows.
6. Having a concierge who can sign for packages. VERY convenient.

What I won’t miss

1. The crazy shower that either takes about 10 minutes to warm up or starts out with scalding water.
2. The slow drain in the shower.
3. The street noise. Unbelievable.
4. How hot the apartment gets if it’s sunny and above 40F.
5. The toaster—seriously, people, if you aren’t using a toaster oven, you are crazy.
6. The fridge with the freezer on top. Highly inefficient, and the back of the fridge is too cold so things freeze.
7. The door slammer across the wall.

I'd be excited

Except I'm pretty tired.

We have two working sinks, a working shower and a working dishwasher now. Apparently our dishwasher was horrible to install and much cursing was involved.The dresser is from Ikea and Kent spent time today putting together that and our dining room table.

He did other stuff too but my three remaining brain cells have gone on strike and I don't remember everything he did.

Cool boxes, not cool damage

First a little video that shows off our new litter box storage solution.



And second, a couple of pictures of the water damage from our nor'easter I mentioned.

Counters

So it's been two steps forward, and sometimes two steps back. For example, I mentioned the water damage we got last weekend during our nor'easter when we received 9 to 10 inches of rain mostly blown horizontally for about 36 hours. What I didn't say (because I didn't know) was that the dry wall above the windows was pretty severely damaged and repairing them isn't going to be a matter of a little spackle and paint. But as Kent pointed out, we no longer flinch when holes are cut in our dry wall.

Then we had another issue that came to a head today. Our new fridge is a french door fridge and the cabinets needed to be moved about an inch to the left, otherwise we couldn't open the right door. Kent said the contractors were not at all happy about that, and neither were the granite installers since they had to stand around and wait while the contractors moved the cabinets and re-leveled the dishwasher. But the kitchen looks fantastic now, don't you think?

We also had granite put on top of our new cabinet in the bathroom and here's what that looks like:







The plumber had to reschedule (no bathroom sink yet, also the dishwasher and kitchen sink need to be hooked up along with the ice maker in the fridge), and the electrical inspector somehow went to the wrong place and your guess is as good as ours as to when he will return.

The countdown continues. We have to be completely out of here by Thursday, March 31 which means in practical terms we clear out of here next weekend.

Look, look!

We did get water coming in through the drywall at the tops of our living room windows this weekend *shakes fist at the nor'easter* but just look at the progress Kent is making with the painting. I want to echo Pinocchio and say we are almost at the real apartment stage!

Transitions

I don't mean life transitions either. The tile installer came back yesterday and put in the marble transitions between our living room and where we keep our computers, and between our bedroom and the bathroom.

The one in the living room (picture on the left) is pretty long and borders marble tile. Kent said the guy brought in five foot sections and when he saw the tile, he cut his sections down so the seams match the tile seams. I love that kind of attention to detail. The picture on the right shows the transition from the bathroom to the bedroom.

Progress!

Here's the living room looking from the windows toward the kitchen. You can see the 24 inches we've walled in on the right side of the pass through. That gives us both extra storage, a safer place to put the microwave and the bonus is that we will put a small table in front of the wall there to the right so we have a little dining nook.

This picture shows the kitchen from just on the other side of the pass through. You can sort of see our new refrigerator there. It's a countertop depth fridge and while we gave up a small amount of storage in the fridge and freezer, it wasn't much. Getting more visual room in the kitchen was more important to us.




This picture sort of shows you what the granite, wall color and cabinets will look like together. The previous granite was black which didn't work well in a dim cave like ours. Plus no matter how much we holler, the boy kitties will get on the counter and black granite showed everything.



Here's the new stove (not pushed back all the way--the electrician comes tomorrow along with the tile guy who has a little more work to do, too).

You are looking at our new closet in our bedroom. It's got three sliding doors on it which will be painted (go, go Kent!). Having three doors should help us get into the closet pretty easily. The other door you see on the left is half of the door from our bedroom into the bathroom. Everything is pretty tight in the bathroom and our friend Peter (who is an incredible interior designer) suggested we use split doors so we never have the full width of a door getting in the way.

How much paint does it take to paint 1,000 square feet?

About this much.

 

We are using Martha Stewart paint in Glass of Milk for the trim, the bedroom walls and the bathroom walls, Fledging for the rest of the walls, and Buckwheat for a contrast wall unless we decide we hate it in which case we'll repaint it Fledging. Actually Kent is doing the painting since I'll be in Portsmouth, NH all week.  

Floors!

We picked cypress for our floors. Kent said they are a little darker than he thought they would be but at the same time, they move light since they are finished and a bit shiny.

The first picture looks toward the kitchen; we've walled off about 24 inches of the original pass through. That way we get more storage in the kitchen plus we'll have a small area in the corner there (where the doors are stacked) for an eating nook.

The second picture is a close up of the floor. Originally we thought we'd go with a really light maple but once we saw it with the kitchen cabinets we realized the contrast was much too stark. We were able to reuse most of the upper cabinets which has helped a lot in keeping within the reconstruction budget.

Finally, the third picture shows how we've reconfigured the storage under the stairs. We'll have a small somewhat normal closet to the left of those boxes which you can't see. Those boxes slide out and are where we'll  put the litter boxes. We can stack things on top of the cube that houses the boxes (it's accessible from the closet side) and we've had doors made. Whenever we move on from this place, future owners can put the doors on those openings. We'll put fabric on a rod in front of them so the cats can get in easily, still have light to do their business and also help the rest of us not have to see it. Previously we'd had the litter boxes in the TV console, which worked well except our cats are litter flingers. We both got tired of cleaning up thrown litter in the living room all the time. Hopefully this will help a bit.

No pictures yet

But the bathroom tile was going in today. When I walked over to get the car for my commute, I saw the tilers outside so I asked what they were working. How cool would it be if we really were able to move into our home in a couple of weeks??

We have walls

Yes, after four—FOUR—months, we have walls again. Those white boxy things you see are our two new HVAC systems. They are split ductless systems and will both heat and cool the space. There's a unit outside about the same size as a heat pump, and the pipes that run out there are hidden in our new walls.

Progress

Reconstruction continues on our apartment. In the last couple of weeks we’ve:

*Ordered the kitchen appliances and cabinets.
*Ordered the new flooring—we are putting in engineered wood, which is wood veneer on top of engineered wood.
*Bought the tile for the bathtub.
*Picked (but haven’t yet purchased) a new vanity for the bathroom.
*Decided we did want to put in the split ductless heating/cooling system.
*Bought a new hot water heater.

And our general contractor has made a lot of progress too.

*All the ruined dry wall has been removed through out the apartment.
*The tile from the tub/shower was removed.
*The marble tiles in our hall and office areas have been cleaned and where necessary, regrouted.
*The new closet in our bedroom has been framed out (hurrah!).

There’s probably more but I’m not remembering all that at the moment. Instead I’m busy packing for our trip to Jamaica. I may post a picture or two this week but then again, I may be busy doing nothing.

See you next weekend!

Hidden details

(De)construction continues on the apartment and it’s a big ol dusty mess in there. We have a closet in our bedroom that goes underneath the front sidewalk, and I’d always figured that closet was not original to the building. But once the dry wall came out of that closet, we could see the brick work and I realized that it had been there all along. It was probably part of the way coal was delivered and stored for the house.

Take a look at these pictures. You can see arches in the doorway to the closet and also in a wall at the end of our tub. That arched opening was covered over with dry wall. I wish there were a way to have those arches show but that would require reconfiguring our entire bathroom and that’s not in the budget.