goin.round

so when last we left off, we'd just received a not so positive result on our electrical inspection. 

well a few days later we got the official report on what still needs to be fixed, and after having discussed it somewhat with dad, theres a lot i can do myself it would seem, some clarification needed on some things, and still some that i am not able to do - mainly, the new service line. no thank you. so thats kind of where we are on that. in limbo for the moment. im sure ill get around to doing a lot of it sometime in the semi-near future, but i dont know for sure. work is kinda an issue when it comes to devoting myself completely to the electrical thing. and since we know what we do have is safe and its all working, its hard to convince myself that this is something of great importance, but meh, whatever. i think it all has to be done by the end of march, so im sure itll get done sooner rather than later. moving on...

well thursday, as i mentioned in the last post, we were having an inspector out to check out the new joists, columns, and footings in the basement so that we could finally and once and for all get the certificate of occupancy situation completely sewn up. so around lunch time i headed home on thursday and waited for the inspector to show up. well around 12:15 i hadnt seen or heard anything from him, and i had to be back at work in half an hour, so i made a phone call and he assured me he was on his way, just running late. okay... well about 10 minutes late, sure enough i hear noise outside and see this big old' cowboy striding up my front porch and knocking on my door. for those of you back home in texas, you know those cowboy santa clause images you see all over the place around christmas time, that is exactly what this guy looked like. long curly white hair, and full beard, round body, and then cowboy jeans, boots, hat, and to top it off - a biker style red white and blue patriotic leather jacket. haha, this guy was awesome. and he talked with that slow southern drawl to boot. anyway, just from the looks of the guy  i knew we were going to be just fine, so we meandered down to the basement as i tried to charge his memory of the situation, and he tried to recall everything, and we walked around and i pointed out all the work wed had done and explained all the details of what he was looking at, and he just kept nodding and sayin yep. 10 minutes later he was on his way out, shook my hand and with that he assured me everything looked good to him, and we were fine to get our certificate of occupancy. so, i guess that means we're good on that! oh, just a small side note, he damn near fell off the porch when he leaned on one of our rickety old railings and it gave under his weight. luckily the house next door is only 3 ft off the porch and he was able to put his hand out and save himself the 2 foot tumble to the ground. and luckily for us, he chuckled and said hes seen that happen more than once in these old houses as i assured him we were going to be fixing the railing very soon. anyway, so he was satisfied with that response and went on his jolly way.

late last week, the roofers pulled down all their ladders and ladder jacks from the side of the house, so i called up my contractor to get the details. it turns out that the people next door needed access to that side of the house, and so they obliged. but at the same time, he said they were pretty much finished anyway. theres one window that still needs a little attention and they didnt finish all the painting, but he needs to discuss some rotted wood issues they discovered with me before we go any further with the painting anyhow. basically theve found some of the fascia boards are rotted out and he didnt want to waste our money painting them if we were just going to replace them, however he never intended to replace them in the original scope of work either so he didnt tear into them, because who knows what the wood looks like behind them. and if you start tearing in and find more rotted wood, its just a big can of worms at that point, you know? so we're going to have to look at where he thinks the damaged stuff is at some point in the near future, and then decide where, and if, we want to go from there. 

so i mentioned the people next door. well, for those of you that may or may not remember from blogs past, the house to the east of our house, has been vacant since well before we moved in, but we'd heard from the neighbors across the street that an urban renewal development company thats been buying up property in our neighborhood owned it. well wed never seen anything being done to the place, so we werent sure what was going on with it as far as rehabbing or whatever, but last week, i think it was wednesday there suddenly appeared a dumpster in the front yard when we got home from work, and it was obvious someone had started demo. well, since then, theyve been out there working on that house every day and have pulled off all this terribly tacky asphalt shingle brick pattern crap that was on the sides of the house, tore down the porch, and have started thoroughly gutting the inside of this little house. karen and i are very excited that this is going on, and its a lot of fun to watch their progress everyday. even though theyre still in the demo phase, this eyesore of a dwelling is looking exponentially better everyday. =]

this weekend karen and i were both sick. she was getting over it, and i was only just catching it from her, so between the two of us being sickly we didnt get a whole lot done around the house. we dont know what it is we had/have [im still sick and feeling pretty out of it at work right now...] but its something thats definitely goin round her office. she said at least 4 or 5 people in her section alone were out last week sick, so it was bound to catch her and then i as well. so anyway, ive got it now, and shes feeling mostly better, and im seriously considering going home at lunch. 

but anyway, we did get a little bit done this weekend. in the office, the light had stopped working as soon as my parents had left town and it had been a bit of a mystery as to why. id taken the thing apart at some point to check the wiring and it all looked good, the switch as well, and wed tested at least 3 different working bulbs in the thing, so we werent sure what was going on. it had worked fine before theyd left, and my dad had checked it right before they left, so it should be working. well anyway, last weekend when wed gone to lowes wed gotten some new track lighting to go in the office [we wanted spots for art work in there anyway] and this weekend i decided to put it up. so i took down the fan/light that was there, inspected all the wiring once again, and installed the new track lighting. it actually went up very easily now that i know what im doing, and i had no problems at all really - well, save dropping screws every 5 minutes, but thats neither here nor there, and im happy to report it is fully functional and wife is quite happy to now be able to use her office after work. shes spent half the weekend in there organizing her school papers and getting ready for the next trimester to begin. 

other than that, kared did some sewing projects and i spent a lot of time fiddling with my computer, but we didnt really get a whole lot else accomplished. we went for a walk on sunday, the weather was once again gorgeous this weekend, and grilled hot-dogs - quite superbly this time around, yes, i am the grill master.... nah, thast not ture at all..] but the dogs were quite tasty. umm... yeah, thats it, i think.

so now im at work and feeling more light headed by the second and finding it quite impossible to concentrate on much of anything [including this...] right now, and im not sure how much longer im going to make it. hope you all have a good week.

happy belated pi day to everyone! [that was saturday] hope you had some, pi! ;]

when.the.circus.comes.to.town [ch.2]

well as promised, i will get right into the highlights of the circus' visit to town - although, since yesterday i started to really think hard about the timeline of events, and things started coming back to me a little and i might be able to lay it out slightly more linear than if id tried to in the last post.

projects.

[wednesday]

as i mentioned in the last blog, wednesday was the day my parents arrived, and one of the first things we did was head to the depot [oh this was only the first of many, many, many - too numerous to count - trips to the depot over the duration of their trip. basically, if we didnt go at least once a day - usually more like 2 to 3 times a day - to lowes or the depot, then the day just wasnt over yet...] and pick up a few fasteners for me to repair the dining room table. this is the same table i mentioned many moons ago [i find it necessary at times to allude in a light hearted manor to my native american heritage, feel free to ignore it altogether, but it makes me happy] in another blog that wed acquired via craigslist. its kind of a 50's diner style vintage thing with chrome framing and a blue vinyl top/leaf and came with 4 matching chairs, also chrome frame, but with green vinyl cushioning.

anyway, the legs on this thing had slowly been getting more and more loose as time progressed, and tuesday night [the night before the circus arrived] they all but completely gave out on us. we were in the middle of dinner when the table shook, then all four legs splayed out like those old cartoons with the dog chasing the cat out onto the frozen lake, and the table fell about 2 feet. luckily nothing came off the table, but at that point id had enough. id tried several times to fix this stupid thing by tightening its bolts, but the problem was that the bolts were rusted solid, and the original brackets for this table had somewhere along the line been replaced with some roughly cut wood shims... not exactly the original design intent. 

so anyway, when we got back from the depot wednesday night, i finally fixed the stupid legs with a few electrical conduit brackets and that was that. we flipped it over just as karen was getting home and it was good as gold - we havent had a problem with it since! =] other than that, like i mentioned in the last post, we procured the necessary permits from the i.b.i. and were ready to get going on the electrical whenever the time came. [definitely a great accomplishment!]

[thursday]

well karen and i were both back to work as usual on thursday so we missed out on all the fun that took place back at the house, but the general highlights of the day were as follows:

[1]the security company came by to repair the security system. recently we'd had a small number of false alarms and since we were still under warranty with the system, they sent out a guy to check the whole thing out and as it turned out, replace a bad sensor and a few batteries. since then we've had no further incidents - im sure the police are pleased. 

[2]kimber decided to take upon herself  the task of cleaning our basement. its much like any other basement in that its very dusty, dirty, and cobwebby [yeah, i made that up]. well by the end of the day shed swept up and vacuumed somewhere around 100lbs of dirt and debris from our basement into a giant trashcan - which proved to be something of an issue when it came to moving said trashcan... - and the basement had had a significant transformation! she did a great job, and we were very pleased. 

[3]mom had taken on the task of cleaning out the office and the closet on the second floor and getting the rooms prepped and ready for painting. additionally, shed gone through most of the house doing general organizing, cleaning, vacuuming, and some minor prepping to the various rooms we were planning to eventually tackle during their stay. 

[4]dad had spent his day going about tracing out a number of wires in the basement and trying to figure out what was going where, what was feeding what, where and how things were linked together, and starting to devise a plan of action to correct the numerous issues he was uncovering [yes, on top of the ones we were already well aware of].

[additionally] 

well, im not sure when this actually happened in the whole time-line scheme of things, but i figured id go ahead and give you the details now, as it will eventually be relevant to the rest of the story. i cant remember now if i mentioned it or not - i think i did - but just before my parents were scheduled to make their visit we decided to see if we could get the certificate of occupancy. as such, we discussed all the necessary permits and issues with our friendly city inspector, and we even ended up building a railing for the stairway up to the "penthouse" [as we're now referring to the attic suite - thanks mom.] and around the stair opening in the same. well im not sure if i got in to depth on how the inspection went, but we did pass - sorta.... 

he approved us in that the house was indeed a habitable domain, and as such we were legally allowed to occupy it [instead of continuing our stint as illegal squatters on our own property], however this was a conditional situation. during the inspection of the basement he found 3 places that he deemed "structural problems" in that there was "significant or considerable" termite damage to some of our floor joists from a previous infestation in the house. [as youll recall, we had a termite guy out earlier in the blog posts and he assured us there was no active infestation of any kind.] so in essence, we were given occupancy under the condition that sometime in the near future we would repair the structural defects and return the house to a safe environment. 

well the kicker was the way in which he was wanting this done. he wanted us to cut out all the bad wood in the floor joists, replace them with good wood. furthermore, where the new met the old we would need to add at minimum a 6x6 wood column to take the majority of the load off the new segment. if that wasnt enough, the new column was going to need to be placed within a new concrete footing that was basically an 18" cube, with 12" below the floor of our basement, and 6" above the floor which would also be the 6" the column should be set in.

so.... considering i dont have a saw to cut concrete, nor did we have the time to tackle all of that additional mess on top of the electrical issues and whatever other problems we would run into while the folks were here, karen and i decided to have our contractor do the joist stuff in addition to the roof he was still working on. 

and so... until i have a little more time and a jog in the memory, we'll leave this tbc...

when.the.circus.comes.to.town [ch.1]

well, as youve all undoubtedly noticed, its been quite some time since i last updated you on the little events of the wife and my lives. i do appologize, however, i've been extraordinairliy busy since i last wrote to you, and i still havent fully recovered - maybe this weekend. 

well when i last left you id been working some overtime and was getting pretty tired, but "the family circus" [as my grandmother so lovingly refers to all of us] was soon arriving and karen and i were looking forward to their visit. i ended up having to work more overtime before they arrived, but wednesday they got into town around 11:30 and i left the office for the day. the first stop we made was lunch at a little sportsbar around the corner where karen and i wanted to share a "wednesday special" with the fam as their first meal. we'd decided that any places we ate out during their visit would have to be cincinnati specific - or at least a place they couldnt eat back home in tx. well the place we went is called "head first" [i suppose it has something to do with the immediate adjacency to the red's ball park?] and on wednesdays they have "loaf." this is a wednesday only lunch special and its quite tastey, i was introduced to it during my short stent at my summer internship only a block and a half away, and had enjoyed it a few times. anyway, mom and dad and kimber were willing to give it a shot, so we all had lunch there before startingall of the weekend excitement. happily, everyone enjoyed their food [although the service was very sub-par from the usual and quite disappointing]and we soon bid karen adieu [back to work] while i took the gang home to unload and take a short reprieve. before karen got off work we also made a trip to the depot so i could grab just a few fasteners to repair the dining room table, and also a short trip to the inspection bureau to obtain a permit for all of the electrical work we were anticipating in the very near future. by the time karen was getting off work we'd started discussing dinner plans, and shortly after she made it home, we all decided on buca de beppo - quite an italian family dining experience. [http://www.bucadibeppo.com/] well dinner was amazing [pretty much the norm at buca] and as always - very filling. we had some of the best pasta dishes ive ever tried, deliciously fresh salads, and the fresh baked house bread - always a palatte pleaser! we left with about as much left-overs as what we'd actually eaten and headed home to get everyone settled for bed. at this point, i honestly cant remember if anything else happened that night, not to mention the order in which anything else for the rest of the weekend happened, its all just a blur, haha! so having said that, ill give you the run-down of the highlights.

first off - the food! 

haha! i cant help it, im a major "foodie" and i dont think ive talked too much about all the different places we ate this weekend with the family. [oh, and before i forget, josh and cassie showed up friday evening just in time for dinner, haha, and they were here through sunday afternoon as well - so when i say circus, we had all 3 rings in town, haha!]

well as i already mentioned, the first two places we went were head first and buca, and that wrapped up wednesday. 

thursday we didnt actually get to go out to dinner because karen and i both had to work late, then we had planned on going to a lecture at the contemporary art center [http://www.contemporaryartscenter.org/] which turned out to be a really awesome lecture that karen and i both enjoyed very much [and left feeling quite inspired!] and then immediately ran up north to finally [drum-roll please...] get karen a desk! thats right! shes been wanting one for quite sometime now and thursday night we got another craigslist deal of the week - the desk was 60 bucks and is in PREMO shape! [not to mention exactly what she was wanting]. so yeah, we all had leftovers and sandwhiches for dinner, but i didnt hear any complaints. 

friday karen and i both had lunch at work, but for dinner we decided to take the whole gang [now that it was finally all here] to dewey's [http://www.deweyspizza.com/] at newport on the levy for dinner. [where we were surprised to run into the previously mentioned amanda and patrick, haha! what a small world!] anyway, dewey's is a local pizza joint and well, its pretty freakin awesome. everyone was very happy with their salads and pizza and we again left quite happily filled and with plenty of left-overs. 

saturday i made breakfast, and again decided to go with the crowd pleasing pigs-in-blankets. they seemed to be pretty good to me, and i didnt hear any complaints, so im assuming the rest of the bunch was in agreement. at this point, i cant remember now what we had for lunch[or if we even had it on saturday] but i do believe that saturday was the night that kimber [thats sister for those of you losing track] decided to make us a homemade feast for dinner and we had some pesto chicken and pasta creation that was quite yummy with a side of fresh salad and garlic bread - it was all very enjoyable, thanks kimber!

sunday was josh and cassie's last day in town so we wanted to do a nice breakfast and decided to go to a local neighborhood diner right around the corner - blue jay. however, once we arrived, we discovered that they werent open on sundays and had to quickly re-route and decided on first-watch [http://www.firstwatch.com/]. its similar in concept to daybreak[], [which some of you may remember from my new years blog...] basically just specializing in breakfast, brunch, and lunch. sadly, cassie [thats sister-in-law-to-be for those of you now completely lost] had to do some homework for one of her online classes, so she couldnt join us, but everyone else seemed to really enjoy their various breakfast selections. i had the "bacado" omlette which is a giant omelette overflowwing with bacon and avacado with a side of the house specialty potatoes and a dollop of sour cream on top - i thoroughly enjoyed it =] by lunch time it was just a quick sandwhich or leftovers at home before josh and cassie were off to the airport after a rough weekend of great help, thanks guys! and for dinner, we had the girls [karen and mom] swing by city bbq [http://cityqbbq.com/] on their way home. city bbq is a great little bbq place that we found over in hyde park, definitely the best stuff ive had in cincinnati [even with my stuck up texas tastes for bbq, haha! we really do have the best bbq in the world in tx, but this stuff aint bad at all for ohio!] it was quite good, as usual, they really do have some awesome pulled pork and i stuffed myself silly, haha!

monday it was back to work, so a fairly usual day in that sense, however for dinner we had thai express which is a great little thai food joint near the university of cincinnati campus. its actually amazing how good this stuff is considering its practically a whole in the wall and the price is extremely reasonable. mom had never had thai food before, but seemed to enjoy her pad-thai just fine, and i think we all had plenty of heat in our dishes, haha!

well tuesday, mom and dad and kimber were supposed to be on a plane soon after lunch, so karen came home for lunch [i took off the day to help finish up house stuff] and we just had some more sandwhiches - they were always really good though! however, as it turned out, dad and i didnt get everything finished before it it was time for them to be leaving so mom and dad extended their stay an extra day and we were able to go out for one last dinner in cincy. this time we decided to take them to cactus pear, which is one of karen and i's favorite places to go when we have a south-western craving. its not your true southwestern that we're accustomed to in tx, but its got a southwestern flair and the food is generally quite good. this time was no exception and i think everyone was quite satisfied. they have some really awesome salsa thats fire roasted so it comes out black. which is a little odd at first, but once you taste it youre hooked. its not spicey at all really, so it doesnt really satisfy my craving for heat, but when it comes to flavor, its a great little option. 

anyway, thats all the food stuffs for the trip, and it seems i spent my time quote for the day without even delving into all the house stuff. so, for next time i guess we'll have to play a little more catch up and actually hit the project highlights, haha! hope youre all having a great week!

little.victories

1.30.09|friday

well when last we spoke of current events it was friday afternoon and if memory serves, we were discussing the new windows, the inspections|permits situation, and my parents had just informed us of their impending visit. for those of you who actively read the comments as well, you already know that i mentioned in one that amanda was coming to town friday night, that was the basis of our evening's activities.

so after work karen and i called up amanda and we arranged our schedules for the evening and planned what we were going to do. amanda had some meeting to attend when she first arrived in cincy and we werent going to meet|eat till after 8pm, so karen and i decided to make our first stop dinner [seeing as we were famished post-travieller] and after a short debate on what sounded good we ended up at deweys for a nice big salad and a nice big pizza. it was delish as always and after dinner we headed home for a little hard work. 

we got back at the house around 6:30 and the place was a disaster so we spent the next hour and 45 minutes cleaning any and every-thing from one room to the next. just general tidying up, straightening, putting things away, organizing, and where necessary some good old fashioned cleaning of floors, surfaces, etc. at 8 amanda notified us that she and pay-trick [thats patrick in "amanda speak" - her boy... well, im really not sure what they are technically...] were at hideaway [another local northside restaurant that has some pretty delicious food and a funky-eclectic atmosphere that karen and i find pleasing and humorous. they also have the most awesome appetizer called creamer potatoes with special hideaway sauce - if you ever venture to hideaway you HAVE to try them... mm-mmm, delectable!] and were ready for our arrival. so we finished what we were doing, bundled up for the cold [high teens to low twenties i believe] and drove the 4 blocks to meet them, lol! [it was cooold!] soon after we arrived a few more of amanda's friends from cincy joined us as well and the 6 of us waited for a table and had a few laughs. eventually we were seated and had more robust conversation and some of the fore-mentioned creamer-potatoes, and eventually main courses [i was still full from deweys so i abstained from a main course, haha]. we had a good time hanging out and having dinner and eventually it was time to hit the road so we said our goodbyes and then amanda and pay-trick followed us over to the house so that they could be the first of our friends to see the new place! how exciting!

well for the next couple of hours we gave them the tour and then enjoyed more conversation and laughs [not to mention a little wine and some of my mother-in-law's AWESOME fudge! which we all thoroughly enjoyed! thanks mom!] before they ultimately said their goodbyes and headed home for the night. it was a ton of fun getting to have a social life for a night and we loved being able to finally entertain at the house - even if it was only for a short while and the place was a disaster, lol!

1.31.09|saturday

saturday morning we slept in a little, but eventually were pulled from our warm cozy bedding by our desire for sustenance. i was the first down and got coffe started and then decided to make some of my famous breakfast burrito concoction that i can only refer to as "breakfast mix-up." i wont divulge my secret recipe, but i will say its always a pleasing meal for karen and i and will surely fill you up! for us it made a quite satisfying brunch [as it was nearly noon by the time we finished] after which we decided to relax on the dining room sofa for a while and watch some west wing. [i LOVE west wing!]

i honestly cant say how long we vegged out, but at some point we decided it was time to get something accomplished for the day and the first thing we did was unpack and put away a bunch of boxes that were still in the dining room. satisfied with that project and ready for the next, we decided to move all the furniture away from the walls and get started prepping the dining room for painting. it was the next room in line and we were anxious to get the ghastly sponge-painted catastrophy that was our dining room out of sight and out of mind. so for the next few hours we cleaned, taped, and plastered the walls on 2/3rds of the room. [we've decided that the only way we can really do these rooms and live in the house at the same time is to do half a room at a time until completion and move all the furniture from one side to the other, but still have it in somewhat of a useable arrangement. such was the case with the dining room as well.]

eventually karen decided to call it a night [without telling me, lol, i thought she'd just gone upstairs to use the restroom or something] and i did a second run-through of plastering before assisting a neighbor in freeing her car from the snow and then eventually a nice-hot-shower and bed. [karen had passed out pretty quickly, so she didnt even notice my absence until i made my way upstairs and woke her, lol!]

2.1.09|super-bowl.sunday

haha, super-bowl sunday indeed... 

karen and i had decided the night before that we were going to get up early sunday morning and get one coat of paint on the dining room before church so that by the time we returned it would be ready for the second coat. well as arranged, we got up early and did some painting and were really excited about the new color. its kind of a sagey-olive-green [although it reminds me more of what i consider to be army green than anything else] and after the first coat we were quite pleased as we headed upstairs to get ready for church. the paint went on very well and thr room looked a trillion times better after one-wet-coat. [that sponge paint was horrific!!]

well, as it often seems to happen, we finished getting ready for church at about 10:05. church usually starts at 10am [although this weekend for super-bowl sunday they were starting at 10:15am. regardless...] it was obvious we werent going to make it to the 10am service, so we resigned ourselves to doing a once over of all the shopping lists before treating ourselves to a breakfast at ihop before attempting the later service. 

well i dont mind telling you we were very pleased to discover that ihop had all you could eat pancakes! hahaha! i enjoyed the hell out of some pancakes and was quite proud of myself for putting away 3 plates of them =] however, in light of the all-you-can-eat situation, the plates they brought you were about 2/3rds the norm. at any rate, we were nicely filled to the gills by the time we waddled out of ihop, however it was only 11:30 and the next service wasnt starting for another 45 minutes. at this point we decided to make the quickest shopping trip on our list, a quick run to walmart for some lightbulbs and license plate covers [we finally got our license plates for the new truck last week!]

well... haha... things never quite go as planned. we got to walmart after 15 minutes of traffic [which was pathetic because it was only across the freakin bridge from ihop! where did all these people come from?? and where were they going??] but were sure we could get our few items and still make it on time. so we went in and found the lightbulb section just where we'd left it the last time we'd been there, however this is where we ran into a slight problem. we were getting lightbulbs because we had some cupons from our energy company that were going to expire soon and we wanted to take advantage of them before that happened. however the cupons were very specific about which lightbulbs [all cfl's of course! woohoo!] each cupon was for. well you wouldnt think that would be too much of a problem except that the specific packaging was shown on the cupon and the packaging of the lightbulbs in the store had changed since the things were issued. i wasnt sure if it was going to be a problem or not, but looked for the ones pictured for a while. 

to make matters worse, haha, while i was being anal retentive, karen got distracted by the adjacent fabric section and wandered off. it was an awesome find though, all the walmarts in denver, and im pretty sure texas as well, have stopped selling fabric and i assumed that it was a nationwide thing. recently karen and i have been looking for fabric to redo the new couches and chairs with, and joanns was a disappointment to say the least... whooo-expensive!

well we found all kinds of cool fabric and eventually i even found a sales associate [who was totally clueless about the lightbulbs anyway, so i just said screw it...] and got the closest thing i could find - oh and we also found some license plate covers, haha. anyway, by the time we checked out we looked at the clock and it was 12:30pm... so much for church. meh, they were doing some super-bowl sunday special thing anyway, and i was hardly interested in what that would turn out to be. i didnt mind missing it and we got to continue our sunday shopping anyway. 

after walmart we went next door to the depot [february had finally arrived!] to get a few things on our list - it was actually quite short considering how long it had been, 4 or 5 items total i think? followed by a quick trip to home emporium to pick up one specific item [more to come on that at a later date however], then next door to lowes for an additional supporting item to the one at home emporium, then finally next door again to bigg's to do our grocery shopping for the week. [whew!] after all of that we finally got home just before 4pm and were pretty tired, lol! well after unloading and putting away everything we decided to get to work, and jumped right in to the second coat of paint. it went on very smooth and we were really loving the color - it had only gotten better as it had greated us when we got home - fully dried and to its real color!

well after that coat of paint we were hungry again [although i dont know how!] and had a snack|supper and watched some more west wing [yeah!] and just relaxed for a while. however, around 6:30pm i was motivated again and we decided to tackle another project - re-covering the dining room sofa. 

well, after discussing our approach and testing some fabric and batting options, we searched the house for karens staple gun only to discover that it was pretty dinky and was NOT going to get the job done. we were both pretty revved up at this point so we made the decision to make a trip back to the depot to get a real staple gun and various staples and brads and such, and then continue the project. it was a very quick trip - we stayed focused: get in. get out. get home. - and before long we were stretching fabric and experimenting with the sofa. im not sure how long we played with that but we got half the sofa re-covered and so far we're really happy with it! i dont have pictures yet, im going to wait till we're finished with the transformation, but im really hoping it turns out well! =] after that i talked to my mom and brother for a little bit before bed and then karen and i passed out exhausted from our weekend.

yeah, we totally forgot about the super-bowl in the midst of all the projects, but then again neither of us were all that interested in it anyway - i didnt even know who was playing - nor did we have tv to watch anyhow. oh-well. 

2.2.09|monday

well, thats today. and youd think that it being only lunch time i wouldnt have much to report, however i do have two victories to add to this update! this morning on the way in to work we stopped off at the city building & inspections office and officially obtained our permit for the wall! woohoo!! so now that we have all our permits in order, i just need to schedule a couple of inspections and hopefully we can get the certificate of occupancy soon !

secondly, about 2 hours ago i got a phone call, and i was shocked to find that it was the window people calling. theyd already ordered the correct sized remaining window, it was being fabricated this week, and would be ready for installation this weekend! so we're getting the last window installed saturday morning! woohoo again!!!

i love little victories! =]

this week is starting off pretty good so far, but now, ive got to get back to work. hope you all have a great week too! ill try to keep you updated on any more progress we make on the house this week - although i certainly cant promise anything, lol!

cheers! [and go... steelers?? where my cowboys at??]

win-ders!

[oh yeah, love that texan twang!]

so obviously the big topic of yesterday was the new windows. so heres a "small" update on yesterday...

when i last left you the guys were working on the windows and id gotten my truck stuck after dropping karen off at work and id discovered my own little ice-wonderland.

well after i finished blogging the guys were all but finished with the upstairs and had moved downstairs. so i went up to take some pictures, but much to my dismay, all of the pictures were turning out like crap. it was so bright outside, especially with the sun reflecting off all the snow, that everything was crazy back-lit and silhouetted. and the flash only seemed to make matters worse. so i resigned myself to waiting till dark out to get the rest of the pictures.

not long after id gotten back downstairs there was a knock at the door [which was hard to hear on account of the hammering and drilling] and one of the installers hollered at me that there was a guy at the door. confused, i went to answer and a nice gentleman greeted me and asked if i needed a plumbing inspection. hot damn! id totally forgotten to call them that morning in all the excitement of the windows, luckily id attempted to schedule in advance and here he was! im not sure if ive mentioned this part before, so ill take a quick side-step to fill you in.

[inspections]

well as karen and i decided to get the windows put in we also decided it was time to go about getting home owners insurance if at all possible. so last week id made a phone call to our insurance agent and discussed the matter with him, and he seemed happy to work with us, but there was no way of getting around that thorn thats been in our side from day one... you guessed it, the certificate of occupancy. we'd been trying to get all the work done necessary to get the c.o.o. [lol!] but at this point we'd really been putting off contacting the city building inspections office because well... we hadnt exactly done everything legit and we were afraid it was going to bite us in the ass. now before you think poorly of me, we didnt really know either way how it was going to go, so it wasnt like we were attempting to be shady. let me explain... the wall for starters, well when we hired the masons out to do the wall we discussed getting a permit and they told us that the only reason we'd need a permit is in case the inspector was out while they were working and wanted to see it. since we were getting it done as a weekend job and it wasnt going to take more than that weekend [and the inspectors dont normally just drive around on the weekends looking for people out doing masonry work] we shouldnt have anything to worry about. now i specifically asked him if there was going to be an issue with the c.o.o. and he said as far as he knew there wouldnt be, as long as the work was done correctly they shouldnt care one way or the other about a permit. second was the plumber. when we hired the plumber we discussed permits yet again. after our discussion he formed me that most likely we would need 1 to 2 permits depending on the situation, but he was going to see if he could get around them by doing things a little differently but he'd let me know. i told him that it was fine with me, but that if he needed to pull one, go for it, i didnt mind paying for it... and thats the last i heard about it. so getting back to last week [and now that we're clear that i did ask my contractors up front about permits] after talking to the insurance agent i had no choice but to call my guy at the city building office. dont get me wrong hes a really nice guy [as many of you will remember from when i previously spoke about him in regards to us having the house barricaded oh so many eons ago...] and totally willing to work with me, i was just dreading the conversation because i didnt know how it was going to go. 

well sure enough i get him on the phone and the first thing he does is pull up our file on the computer and i hear "well, weve got a problem. im not showing any permits here." ef. so i discussed with him the situation and after talking through everything and being the nice guy he is, he said he had no problem working with me to get the permits and get the certificate of occupancy afterward. so he gave me the number of the inspectors office and told me to call my contractors and to call him back when i got my ducks in a row. all ill say is that im damn lucky, apparently there were some pretty nice fines i could have incurred, but he said this sort of thing happens all the time and as long as he can see that im trying to work with him, he'll let all that stuff slide and we'll get it done. [did i mention NICE guy?!] 

well after that conversation i called my contractors up and discussed the options with them. the mason was clueless... he didnt really know anything about permits and said he'd try to help me out if there was no other option, but he didnt know how much help hed be... great. the plumber was more helpful, he said that from our conversation he felt like i didnt want him to pull a permit, and apparently there was some miscommunication. but it was no big deal to him, hed get a permit pulled and call an inspector and let me know. well that was good news [and a segue to the inspector showing up] so i still had an issue with the masonry permit and wasnt sure what to do there and went ahead and called the inspectors office to ask them. well again i talked to a really nice guy, he gave me all the info i needed and it turns out i can pull the permit for the masonry work myself, so theres no problem at all. all i have to do is go down to their office and fill out the paperwork and we're good to go on that one, theyll schedule an inspection of the work, and unless they have a problem with what they see, we should be in business for getting the c.o.o.

so fast forward to this week, monday. we get home after work and i find a notice that the plumbing inspector had been by and that i need to call his office. well crap, the plumber never told me he scheduled a time for him to come out, so obviously he couldnt get in to see anything. well i called him up and discussed the issue and thats when we attempted to schedule for thursday morning. [i say attempted because he said he couldnt guarantee any appointments and this was obviously before the winter storm disaster blew through town...]

[fast forward to the present]

so when i saw him at the house i was elated! i welcomed him in and he got right to it. we went down into the basement, i showed him the hot water heater [the permit in question was for a new hot water heater - in you get a new one, you need a permit. so just keep that in mind if youre thinking about getting one. also, if you do any work related tot he main waterline - you need a permit. somehow my plumber got around that one i guess...] he went through his check list quickly and 5 minutes later he wrote out a form, put a sticker on my hot water heater and told me to have a nice day. that was it. we got our permit. pretty damn painless, lol! so now i just have to get around to pulling that permit for the masonry and schedule that inspector and we'll really be in good shape, eh? 

anyway, after the inspector left it was nearing 11:30 and the window guys were making some progress so i decided i better see about getting my truck un-stuck so i could get to work later. i went out and did some rocking for a while, forward, reverse, repeat. it moved a little here and there, then eventually i finally got a little traction and moved laterally about 10 ft, at which point i was stuck again and getting ever closer to that snow pile with the chewy toyota center [yummy... heh]. well at this point i was now half in middle of the road, half on the side of the road turned nearly perpendicular to the curb and not moving. i started the process over again, when my favorite neighbors come out to investigate, haha. theyd heard me working at it [ive got a v8 engine, lol, its not quite when it revs... although just the 2wd obviously, heh] and decided to see if they could help. and not long after they showed up, the window guys had stopped working and come to lend a hand as well. so tracy jumped in the front seat [the smallest and lightest of us all] and the rest of us got in back and started pushing and she tried to go forward. at first we made no progress, so we told her to try and reverse a little so she could get some momentum. and it worked! she backed up a little, then we all pushed as she got about 6 inches of momentum, and thats all it took! she finally was able to get it over the snowbank and onto the street! so that was a small victory. =] we got sahara out and parked in a much better location and then i went back in to watch the window guys install the remaining windows and help resolve any problems that may arise.

im happy to report, that there werent really any problems. haha. the only one we did face was when they first got there and they told me that theyd been sent with one window that was the wrong size. for whatever reason the fabricating guys gave them two of one window and didnt give them one that we needed, so they ended up with a duplicate of sorts. not sure what happened there, but it was no biggie. he said he got the right dimensions, hed put in the order for the right size and then in 2-3 weeks theyd be back out to install it, piece of cake! 

so at about 1pm they were on their way and i was on my way into work for the remainder of the day. i ended up staying a little later than id expected to [about 6pm] and poor karen was stranded till i could pick her up, but once we got home she seemed very happy with our new windows! the difference in the living room is just crazy with having 2 windows now that arent covered in plywood, lol! anyway, the rest of the evening was pretty laid back, we had chinese take-out and watched rocknrolla [i really liked it, very much in the tradition of snatch or lock, stock, although a bit slower... could have used a little more momentum throughout. i was a little shocked at how small jeremy piven and ludacris' roles were in the overall scheme of things, but maybe thats just me...] before turning in early. it had been a pretty exhausting day for me.

oh and one last thing, my dad called from saudi arabia this morning to tell us that he and my mom are making a trip up in a couple of weeks for a visit, so that shoud be a lot of fun. maybe we can get some of that electrical problem figured out, lol!

well, i know all you really wanted was pictures of the windows, so heres one for the site, and the rest can be found at my.pix.

cheers!