House Update

Since I haven't posted very often, you might be under the impression that we have been too busy working on the house to write. Well, far be it from me to disillusion you.

***

Well, I guess maybe I will a little bit, by telling you what we are working on now. (By-the-by, I have received strict instructions not to show finished pictures of anything until everyone who is going to see the house, in person, has seen it. So I will have to content myself with showing partial pictures of everything, that won't really show you anything.)



Our most resent endeavor has been hard wood flooring. (And when I say "our" I mean "Paul's, with some help from Mark, with occasional help from 'go-fer's' ".) We were hoping it would only take 3 or 4 days to do the upstairs (downstairs is getting carpeted), and have now realized it takes 2 or 3 days per room. So far, the boys' bedroom, and the office are finished, and the kitchen/dining room should be finished today, leaving the hallway and living room.

Once the floors and painting are finished, there is still the trim, the electrical trim out, the kitchen installation, the plumbing finish up, and the (insert Darth Vader theme) Final Inspection!

The First Flower of Spring!

I found the first flower in bloom (in our yard) of the year! It was while raking the front lawn yesterday. I promptly ripped the plant out, it being a weed and all, but it's still supposed to be good luck, right? I also determined that rakes do not collect leaves, they just brake them up into microscopic pieces so you can't see them anymore.

Moving: The Apartment

So, after moving out of the rented house, we needed somewhere to move in. The most logical place was the mostly-undamaged apartment off of our house. We hooked up the electricity and plumbing, and moved in.

Having 6 people living in a one-bedroom apartment is. . . cozy. Mom and Dad have the bedroom, and us kids have bunk beds in the living room. Sandra on the top, Mark on the bottom, me on the trundle bed, and Timothy on the over sized beanbag chair, an air mattress, or the floor, as the mood strikes him. This arrangement was agreed on because of the order we usually go to bed, Sandra first, and Timothy or I, last. Which is fine, until the morning when the order is reversed, Sandra and Mark up before Timothy and myself. Usually it's fine, we're left to sleep undisturbed. But there has been the inevitable "miss-step" on a sprawled hand or foot.

The biggest change is probably going from 3 bathrooms to 1. If you take a minute or two longer than necessary to get dressed in the morning, you will quickly be informed by someone trying to bang down the door.

The kitchen is also a little cramped, even with no dishwasher, and no working oven (there is no propane hooked up, we heat the house with space heaters). We have 2 freestanding burners that make dinner preparations possible, if not exactly simple, and in place of the oven, we have a over-sized toaster oven that works just fine.

And there are no more excuses to not go to work (for us). No snow days, or "I-woke-up-too-late-to-be-worth-going days", you can just roll out of bed and be at work; it's not even necessary to go outside!

So, although we are all looking forward to the house being finished in a few long weeks, we are happy situated for now!

Moving: Outloading

Rules of Moving:


1. All oddly shaped objects that don't fit into boxes are to be put in slightly conspicuous places, and left to become someone else problem.

2. a. All heavy objects must be compacted into as few boxes as possible; these boxes must be stacked on top fragile boxes.
b. Extra cool points are given to people who can fit an entire set of world book encyclopedias in one box (Hooray!).

3. At least one out of every ten boxes must be incorrectly labeled.

4. At least 10 minutes of every hour is to be spent complaining how much everyone else is wasting time.



The plan was to move on Friday and Saturday, to be out of the house before the deadline (Sunday). By Saturday night, when we were nowhere near finished, we went into extra-work mode. (Smith equivalent of panic mode; we never actually panic.) By Sunday night, we were basically finished, and I thought I had seen the last of 85 1/2 B. Then on Monday, we had to go back to sweep the basement, and bring all the cardboard and newspapers and recycling bags to the dump. Then on Tuesday, we had to go to put the 35 contractor bags of garbage out on the curb (pick-up is Wednesday morning), Wednesday we had to pick up the mail. . .the saga continues.

We have many pleasant memories of this house: visits from family and friends, the holidays spent together, the blazing horns of ambulances and fire engines every few hours. . .

Moving: The Movers

The mover-people that were supposed to get the rented furniture came 9 am Friday morning. Which was fine, except that we hadn't started moving our stuff yet, so all our things were in the way, and mixed up with theirs. So we spent the early morning running around like chickens with their heads chopped off, looking for missing rented items, and then finding them in the bottom of boxes already looked through, and sworn empty.

When the movers arrived, they reminded me of a quote:

" ' But, look at it today: right here in Liberty we got hundreds of lawyers, thousands of 'em, as far as the eye can see: nothing but lawyers!'

'There are only 2 Lawyers in Liberty.'

'Oh?. . .Yeah, well, then, they run around too much.' "

I thought 5 movers came. Every time I turned around, one of them was underfoot. They were everywhere, and moving fast. It was about a 1/2 hour after they arrived that I realized that there were only 2 of them.

I spent all morning worrying about finding all the rented stuff, but I could have saved myself the trouble. They obviously weren't too worried about the things. They just threw everything in boxes, then had Dad sign a thing that said they wouldn't sue if they were missing anything (or something to that effect). After they left, and throughout the ensuing weekend, we discovered ourselves to be the proud owners of: a pillow sham that doesn't match anything, a can opener that doesn't work, a few flattened pillows, and various other towels and things that have showed up in random places.

(I'd like to say the reason I didn't get very many pictures this weekend, is because I was working too hard, but that is only about 1/2 true. The other 60% is that *someone* decided to steal the batteries out of my camera, and put them in theirs. They then proceeded to take about 2 pictures, and then hid the camera from me .)

(A small portion of the rented stuff.)

After the movers left, the real moving began.

Moving: The Boxes

Alrighty now, I'll try to give a brief over-view of this week, and maybe give a little more detailed account later.


So, - I've always wondered how long it would take us to move. Now I know. About 4 days, but we'll call it a week.

We started the process by making boxes, last Saturday. Paul and Uncle Jim racing against Mark. (I was informed that Paul and Uncle Jim are way better. Together, they did twice as much as Mark.)

When they had finished with them, they stacked them in front of the back door, on the couch, and other equally logical places.

Altogether, we made about 150 new boxes, plus all the ones that were already filled.

Then, we started staging the boxes that were already in the basement, never unpacked.

Then, we actually started moving.

One Year Already...

I can't believe it's already been a year since the fire, but today marks the first anniversary of that incident.

These are some pictures of what the house looks like, as of today. Doesn't look like a lot to show for a year, I'll grant you, but it does represent a lot of work, mostly done by ourselves, and although it looks like there is a lot of work still to be done, it actually shouldn't take too many weeks more to finish. We passed the rough electrical inspection on Tuesday (I was more interested in this one than the other inspections, as I pulled about 50% of the wires, and wired more than half of the recessed lights. Mark used his expertise on the more difficult parts; Sandra, Timothy and myself were slave labor for the simple jobs.)

We have started with the insulation in the main part of the house.

Sandra and myself were largely responsible for the insulation in the attic, which we did several months ago. There is no experience half so memorable as crawling around in itchy fiberglass, in the hot attic in the middle of the summer, and doing a permanent sit up for several hours, (the only posture that lets you reach the edges). Although I would assume doing the walls isn't so entertaining, I was still glad to learn that Paul and his friends are taking care of the rest.


The HVAC is almost ready for inspection. Like with the plumbers work, I am always surprised when I see what he has done. Unlike the plumbers, it is always a pleasant one. After only serveral days of work, he is almost done.

The first wall is up in the house! Paul put it up this weekend. It had to go up now, for some reason or other. We also passed the framing inspection this week, but we (obviously) can't put any other walls up until the insulation and HVAC is done.

The plumbers eventually finished the rough work, and we actually passed the inspection. . .shocker, I know!

Though the showers are the only ones in place, the plumbing for the fixtures are all there.

Well, this certainly wasn't how we were expecting to spend 2009. When it first happened, we were a little unsure how it was all going to turn out. But the Lord turned it all to good. We got payed to update our house, (which makes it nicer for us to live in, and easier to sell), it brought Mark back home, it kept Mark and Paul with extra work, and gave us a wonderful story. After all, how many people that you know can say their house burned down? We had it happen, and got all of the good, and none of the bad out of it!