Update August 5

7 days left.


So now there's theory, planning, and hoping. Then there's execution. Theories, plans and hopes are nice, aren't they?


Today I got the laundry room painted a "springtime' green (so at least I can wear sunglasses and look cool while I do a chore I hate), so all that's left to get things in there is to caulk the "wash pan" for the washing machine. Not too big an issue left, but so far, it could still be the lynchpin for disaster.


Then I sat on the floor of the bathroom and scraped and rubbed all the residue from the mortar off the tiles as best as I could. Mosaic tiles, it turns out, are a bitch to set. There are many more joints you have to watch out for, to make sure you keep mortar out of all of them. Nicely theorized, poorly executed. Luckily, there's only about 35 sq ft of flooring to examine and scrape with a razor blade, but boy are there are lot of joints in that sq footage! Now that they've all been cleaned, I should be able to grout tomorrow. Should. It appears I may need precise measuring equipment to mix the grout, which may be hard to come by, seeing as we're so perfectly fortified for preciseness at the house.

I also assessed which areas I needed to add more tile, along the edges of the floor, where the trim/baseboard pieces won't be covering it enough to just fill in with grout. Got the tile saw set up outside in time to see the across-the-street neighbor that we haven't met supervise a tree removal from the back yard and watched the tree trucks trying not to tear up my yard getting out of his (I think if I hadn't been standing right there we'd have trench marks by now in our zoysia). We had a wicked lightning storm blow through here last night . . . I wonder if he lost a tree in it? Anyway, I got lots and lots of tiles cut in half. By the time I cleaned up from all the cutting and placing of tile, I had to leave to show a client a house.

I swung by the house afterward and saw that our electrician was there, energizing and powering up all the circuit breakers, testing everything, and wrapping the rest of the items up. Power was out so all Rich could do was sweep. Funny enough, after the power's back on, we had a huge thunderstorm roll through and just as the electrician was checking a GFI outlet, the power goes out. We all froze in our tracks for a moment. Luckily, we heard a transformer in the background, so we figured it wasn't anything we did! After a bit, it finally came back on for good, and the boys continued to work. I was still nicely dressed from my appointment, so I just cleaned up a couple of rooms and then finally left when the rain slacked off.

Since then, Rich's work went berserk from the same storm . . . alarms going off, elevators stopped working, mass hysteria. He's been called in, so now our electrician is wrapping up and leaving on his own.

After I type this, I have to go soak my right hand/wrist in ice water . . . if what you do is repetitive, and you're under stress, can you yourself be the injury? With all the mudding, sanding, painting, scrubbing, and with me being so NOT left-handed, my right wrist is swollen from the efforts. Now beefy hands looks more like Shrek hands.

We might have a lead on help and a truck for Sunday . . . they're going to quote for us tomorrow to see if it's worth it to have someone else move the big stuff. We're not really packed correctly for someone else to move us for the smaller stuff, so it'll be interesting to see what we can get them to do for us. And if we can get the truck for Sunday. I definitely feel like I'm herding cats, with just about everything having its own rabbit trail to track down, or at the very least, think out to its logical or sad conclusion. Ideally, we could be sleeping on a futon mattress in the living room with one TV and all of our office equipment here, and have all of our crap at the house, with us not living there, by Monday. ??????

Tomorrow's the big push to get the bathroom functioning. The laundry is mostly ready. If we can get all the sheetrock sanding done and the bathroom functioning before everything's moved in on Sunday, we'll be in great shape. And we'll have to clean the house enough to receive all of our stuff. Simple, right? Ha. Again, a girl can dream.

Off to make a list of what needs moving for tomorrow's consult, and an ice bath for the hand.