Week 3 finds me a bit impatient. I can see the vague outlines of my HGTV dreams coming true, but not fast enough. My brother-in-law framed it correctly, when he said (and I’m paraphrasing here), that he is living an HGTV show vicariously through me. But it’s not over in an hour. True. So true.
When he came back from a trip last week, my adorable nieces left a note on their bedroom door that reads “Boom goes the cannon means wen you go to the bathroom and means when you go poo.” Of course, at that age, this is hysterical. And of course, at any age, that is pretty funny.
So like the firing off of a cannon, a few big items were dropped off at the house this week. Four of five of my appliances were delivered. I got my refrigerator, range, washer, and dryer. Of course, there was a bit of a problem. The appliances were deliberately left in the boxes so that they would have some protection from the dirt and stuff during the ongoing work. But the washer and dryer boxes were just a couple of inches wider than the door down to the basement. The frame of the door to the basement have to be removed in order to fit the washer and dryer WITHOUT the boxes. Fortunately, I was planning to change out that door anyway. The twist is that I need to figure out how to keep that wider entryway post renovation so that the appliances can be removed when they eventually die out. I may consider just not having a door at all. I’m opposed to accordion doors in principle but who knows? I may have found one that may change my mind.
Much progress has been made in the basement area. The egress window has been installed and the window well pieces have been delivered. The concrete has been busted up and pipes roughed in for the new bathroom downstairs. Work on the ducts have started. They are being reworked and slimmed down so that there is some headroom.
The kitchen is slowly coming together. Some new pipes and a new window were installed. More framing were done on the ceiling. The plan is to drop the ceiling a bit to make room for the new duct work. The contractors also did some work in the upstairs bathroom. A subfloor was laid down as well as new pipes and a window were put in.
On the DIY side, my effort has focused mostly on the covered porch area. I am prepping it for painting. But given the condition that it was, it is taking me quite a while. I had to patch up holes in the drywall, caulk up a ton of cracks everywhere, clean off years of dust, and scrape off gum that was painted over. I don’t even want to know why.
During a lunch break, I went into the heart of Del Ray and had lunch at Pork Barrel BBQ. I’ve been a BBQ snob for a while, especially since a trip to Austin TX and my BBQ mecca out there. The burnt ends that I got there were pretty good, collards excellent, and the sweet tea was just sweet enough. Unfortunately, they had a pretty good selection of bourbon and I was not able to partake in it. But in a few months, I expect to correct that oversight many times over.
