Slowly But Surely

Kevin has finally returned from his business trip to upstate New York and I have accomplished quite a bit since he left. Not only did I clear the weeds out of the stone garden, I mulched around our Hawthornes tree and pulled most of the weeds out between the paving stones. Or back patio area is finally starting to look inhabitable. Can a housewarming be far behind?

Not the Art Gallery

When I think about the word "louvre" I really had hoped that it would only serve one purpose in my life: to indicate the famous art gallery in Paris. "Louvre" or more aptly, "Louvred" has a whole new meaning for me. It refers to a door with slats in it for ventilation and it has become this week's headache.

We're having a new water heater installed, which is a whole story in itself. One of the results of the water heater installation is the need for us to bring our home up to new "County Standards." This includes either putting two gigantic vents in our stairway or adding a "louvred door" to our storage closet. This will allow for proper ventilation of our furnace and our new water heater, which will be using way too many BTUs in a classic case of American overconsumption.

I thought it would be easy to purchase a door. Well fairly easy. I thought tracking down one of those flat bed carts at Lowe's might be difficult and putting a couple of coats of white paint on the door might pose a problem now that the floor is finished and I have no where to paint. As usual, I underestimated the glee that the fates take in torturing me.

I went to Lowe's yesterday and couldn't find a door. (This was after I went to Home Depot, where I couldn't even get any service!) I finally went to the service desk and one of those derisive men helped me. You know the type. He hopes to bolster his self-confidence by indirectly pointing out how little you know and chuckling to himself about his superiority. Putting that aside for a minute, I discovered that I had to order a door and it would take 10 days to come in. Probably not soon enough, considering that they're installing the furnace on Monday and the inspector would be coming within a week. I figured I could work something out until I saw what the door would be made out of.

As usual I am the only person on the planet with this problem, so door manufacturers see absolutely no need to make white prefab louvred doors. Instead they make these very tacky, crappy, yet expensive pine doors. Looking at this material, I stood there picturing the 4+ coats of paint it would take and all of the drips I would have from the sheet frustration of trying to coat all of those little angled slats. I quickly saw this was not going to work.

I wish I could tie a pretty little bow on this story and tell you that I've decided what to do, but alas no I haven't. My brother did tell me the vents in the wall were a possibility. But then who wants giant vents up and down their walls?

The Rake

Yesterday I completed a task I've been dreading for weeks now. I raked out all of the stones near the house, pulled out the weeds, put down newspaper and raked the stones back. This sounds simple enough. But try doing this with a plastic rake that's supposed to be used for leaves.

While it did end up being a good workout and there are no more unsightly weeds I do have a giant blister on my hand. There's no such thing as being a delicate flower and working on a house. Just call me Handy-Chick!

Fini

I finished putting the laminate flooring in Kevin's Office yesterday. We started working on it together on Sunday and I was able to finish the rest of it myself after we got past the doorway. There is something so satifying about doing projects like this. You actually see results. As you go along, a floor is created. There is an ending point and it's actually in sight. (In case you didn't notice, I am very goal oriented.)

I called my brother Sunday night to encourage him to come help with the finishing pieces. Those are all of the weird sized pieces that go along walls. It's a little hard to explain. He told me not to get too excited as those pieces took a lot longer to do and I have a lot of them to do. Sigh. Just when you think the end is in sight!

We've Been Tagged

Apparently we've been tagged by our friend Steve to tell you "Six Strange Things/Facts/Habits About Us." Since he was so kind as to be so explicit as to tell everyone that he has had sex with women despite the fact that he's gay, we're up against the wall here for sensational news. I do seem to blurt out most of the horrific things happening on the house, but I'll try to come up with some more. (My parents read this blog, so sorry Mom & Dad ahead of time.)

1) This house is about the 40th house we looked at. Amazingly our realtor stuck with us and at some point, Kevin let me go look at houses on my own in the vain hope that I would find something.

2) The sound of people flossing their teeth drives me absolutely insane. All I can think about is food flying out of people's mouth every time I hear "ping!"

3) Kevin and I were obsessed with "Keeping Up Appearances" for a long time. It's about an elderly couple in England with a domineering wife and a long suffering husband. Hmm, what does that say about us?

4) I have a navel ring and its 10 year anniversary is May 1st. It was a college graduation present to myself.

5) No, we're not pregnant and I'm sorry Mom that you have to hear from everyone else about their grandkids.

6) I love "Gilmore Girls," I actually pick up the phone and say, "What do you want? You DO know that Gilmore Girls is on?" to whoever calls during a new episode. That's not so weird, but did you know that Kevin now likes "Gilmore Girls" too?