The Family Sideways: Looming move

Looming move 6/21/2007 09:00:00 AM

So yesterday a drywall guy showed up. I ran to the house over lunch to get some cleaning done (which reminds me, I need to pick up more vacuum bags) and there he was in the (to-eventually-become-a) den mixing up joint compound. Booya. I dropped off the stuff I was bringing over (like D's bike) and told him to help himself to some beers in the fridge (bribery works really well with contractors) and skedaddled.

Came back in the afternoon to get cleaning done again, and filled up the shop-vac I borrowed lickety-split with insulation and other debris I'm sure the attentive reader would have noticed previously in our pictures. Then I started tearing up the carpet in the living room, which went a little more quickly than I expected (though not quite as quickly as I would have liked). Today I'll be returning to get rid of the rest of the carpet we're removing and get the house as close to move-in-ready as possible (which is not very much. Basically, I think I'll just clean the kitchen).

The drywall guy who was there yesterday had been dropped off by his buddies, so he couldn't run away when I came back over. When they came by to pick him up, I offered all of THEM beer, and then magically one guy was able to speak English and asked me some questions about the job (yes! it worked!). So, they'll be coming back today to finish patching holes and putting up walls, and the guy who was there with the tape and mud yesterday will be back to probably sand and mud again (then after one more sanding, we're done). Then I can use the paint sprayer I borrowed to prime basically everything in the house. My goal now is to have the office "finished" by Monday before I have to work again (from my new office!). Then I'll finish the downstairs, then attack the upstairs, probably starting in the bedroom so we can get in there ASAP. Until such a time as at least the downstairs is put together, I think most if not all of our furniture will be living in the basement. we'll probably bring the dining room table upstairs so we have a place to eat, but that's a piece of junk anyway so it won't ruin the illusion that we're living in a construction zone.

Then I think we'll just go room-by-room and "finish" them one at a time. And by finish, I mean: paint and put in floors. Trim will be left for sometime in the distant future. Our closet won't get finished for god-knows-how-long, but once we paint and get floors everywhere we can bring the furniture in from the garage - a big step.

Tonight I unhook the office and tomorrow Qwest is supposed to switch our service to the new place. I have all the necessary wires RUN for hooking up the computers, but none of them are terminated anywhere, so that might take some time to complete. I'll get things up and running as quickly as possible though so we can let you know how things are going. Hopefully the first update will be sometime this weekend.

It's going to be a busy, busy weekend.

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