Delays, Distractions, and Derailments

So, as of my last post, on 10 Feb, i meant to tell you all about our design ideas for the house renovation. And then life happened.

Delay: The floors need to stay torn up for the plumber... who has yet to arrive (all the plumbing is run under the house, which sits on beams laid across concrete piers in the ground). Dan persuaded the guy across the street (plumbing journeyman) to come help him, but he has been sick, so a little delay.

Bathroom and laundry room floors

Delay: The fuse box needs to be replaced with a circuit breaker box and the lines to garage need to be raised (extreme electrocution hazard for anyone over six feet)... and the electricians keep not showing up. Dan recently blew a fuse and now something-Dan-has-explained-to-me-that-i-still-don't-understand has happened to one of the outlets, which now requires an electrician. Have a new electrician lined up for 27 Feb. Little delay.

On the right, you can see the low-hanging wire:

Delay: One of the reasons we couldn't stay in the house when we got here was the lack of functioning HVAC. Nights are cold in the winter, and Dan does not do cold. A couple of companies came by to give estimates, but they kibitzed about our plans for the house more than anything else (more on that when i get around to a post on design). Got a new guy coming on the 28th of Feb... and getting him required several follow-up phone calls to schedule. Delay!

Dead.

Delay: One of the easiest and first things we did was order new windows. Several of the single pane windows are cracked, others have no latch or lock, a few have rotting casements and sills, nearly all lack so much glazing that it is a miracle the glass doesn't fall out in a light breeze. But these windows must be made to order and take time. They finally arrived, but the installers are backlogged. Delay!

Distraction: I finished cleaning the upper kitchen cabinets, though i did manage to knock a side of one out. Minor distraction and already fixed.

Distraction: Umm, and we got the wrong sized range hood... 6 inches too small. A return and an exchange. Minor distraction.

Distraction: The guys at the apartment building who weed whack the dusty puddles of grass growing in the parking-lot potholes offered to cut our grass every two weeks and pick up the large piles of leaves left by the tenants. Halfway through the leaf pick-up, they discovered that the leaves were incubating years' worth of large dog poop. They left saying that they would come finish later... By my calculation, that was two weeks ago, and i have since cleaned the rest of it myself ("poopie leaf bag" reference in the last post). Distractions. By the way, what is this stuff? I'm finding it all over the yard and see it in neighbors' yards. It looks like a sofa exploded.

Distraction: Don't want to buy a lawnmower for the short growing season here (and our short stay here), but we may have to at least get a weed whacker. "Every two weeks" mowing works for the front yard, which is bathed in hot southern sun all day, but the backyard garden area (overgrown with grass) and patches of grass in the rest of the yard, grow much faster. Distraction. 

Distraction: The weather is lovely and i want to get started in the yard. Just tidy it up, weed the beds, put drought-tolerant plants in the front yard, fill the never-see-sun spots in the back with shade-tolerant ones. I want to gather all the random rocks (some of which were used to fill in an old pond) and put them to some landscaping use. Grass can't go in until April... until then, maybe i can put the rocks in the dusty areas the feral cats use as a litter box. Distraction.

Derailment: Old dog poopie piles + feral cats and their time spent in (using) my yard + warm sunny days = Fleas.  All work on everything stopped while for several days we:

• Sprayed the apartment
• Spent hours per day at the laundrymat washing everything we own
• Vacuumed every surface
• Bug-bombed the house
• Sprayed insecticide in the yard (for which i'm going to hell since as soon as the spray brought the bugs to the surface, the neighborhood birds swooped in en masse and dined heartily, putting their young and eggs at risk)
• Poisoned the dog with a topical flea remedy
• Tortured the dog the following day when we put her in the tub and soaped her up to smother the greatly increased number of fleas on her -- during which time she peed blood from the additional stress the poison put on her already diseased and damaged kidneys (yes, i am going to hell)
• Started trapping feral cats to be relocated to the shelter (humane traps baited with sardines, except on Fridays and Saturdays because the shelter is closed Saturday and Sunday) - an ongoing distraction since the traps need to be baited, the cats transported (after 10:00am), and traps cleaned... five times a week.

Finally, after continuing to get flea-bit at the house, we called in the big guns. A professional killer: Rex the bug guy. In true Texas style, the two men began the bonding process by chatting about bass fishing, ex-wives, and boats. Eventually, they get to the matter at hand. The house and yards have now been so throughly saturated with poison, i fear for my own life.

So while we do boring stuff like continue to remove wallpaper (ugh), patch holes, and wait (oh, so patiently) for windows, and heat, and a circuit box, and a plumber... I'll give you an idea of what our options were for the renovation and what we are going with.

Wait! This just in...
The ease with which the living room wallpaper was removed was a fluke. Large swaths of the rest of the house have water/steamer-resistant "paper" that has defeated me. I *could* remove it all, but this 8' by 36" section was four hours worth of work... and you can see there is still some stubborn paper on the bottom left:

Looks like we might need to reassess our plan of attack; the strategy is to get the house done, livable, and rentable ASAP. What are our options at this point? Back to the drawing board?

Bonus! Two new borders and a new wallpaper:

*sigh*