Like watching grass grow

Getting the wallboard done seems to be an interminable process. The guy is doing a great job, but it seems like he's doing almost all of it on his own, which makes for a long time. He's been there basically every day (well, maybe not Sundays), and arrived early enough that one day a neighbor called the police. Nothing quite like picking up the weekly town newspaper and seeing your own property listed in the police blotter - a quick call to the police station confirmed what happened. Anyway, with the wallboard up, the fireplace seems much more at home.

We had a bit of a disappointment last Saturday. We were there when it was raining pretty hard, and the window that originally leaked before the gutters went up was all wet again - a puddle. Several other window units (all non-operable windows) had water on the interior side - not between the panes but literally inside the house. One reason is probably that the apron that goes from the roof over the gutters hadn't been installed yet (it has now), but given the location of other windows, it looks like they will need to be reglazed. It's kind of surprising, given that these are pretty standard Empyrean products. Well, at least it's Empyrean's nickel if that's the issue, and hopefully they'll just pay for Steve to have his own guys do the repairs.















The tile guys showed up this week - started with the master shower. Looking good! (Of course, this will probably take as long as the wallboard.) We went to a glass place today, and they'll go out in a week or two to measure and prepare a quote for the shower door and sidelight piece. I think we've agreed on the glass - if not, we'll still go with what I like, right? While we were there, we also picked out the glass for a few of the kitchen cabinets...boy, it seems an eternity since we ordered those, but it's probably just 4 weeks. The glass place seems pretty good - we'll probably go back there for mirrors.















Last Saturday, we went up to a flooring place. The guy said they get really busy on Saturday mornings and that it's best to get there early. So, we scrambled to get up there early, didn't make it as early as planned, but there were no other customers in the joint. Oh well, we picked out a couple of woods so we can get quotes to see how expensive our tastes really are. You have to love these places that focus on selling to the contractors - they won't even begin to tell us the relative prices, so we don't know if we're even in the ballpark of the allowances until the flooring sub prepares the quote.

While we were up in the Wilmington area, we stopped in Burlington - home of a million malls and stores. There's this newish strip mall that had an LL Bean and we had a few minutes to kill and went in there. Tiny store, but may be worth revisiting when we're back in the house. Of more immediate interest is a store called Arhaus Furniture, which claims to specialize in recycled and repurposed materials for its furniture. A salesperson on the floor was talking a lot about how "green" everything in the store is - the website doesn't tout this so much, so I'm not sure where it really falls on the spectrum. We'll probably go back there and give more consideration to one or two things.

We won't go back to West Elm. We had heard of the place but never been there, and thought we might like the aesthetic of their stuff. Yuck. We could not get out fast enough. Basically, our cats could sneeze and the furniture would tremble. If our little Ping jumped up on it, it would fall apart. (Of course, this is the same sweet cat that crashed a speaker through the glass door of a custom-made cabinet.)

Back to the house. A load of stuff arrived from Empyrean, including mostly the interior doors and trim and the baseboards. It's hanging out in various locations, waiting for the walls to be ready. The painters were also at the house this week - mostly to stain the big folding door. I wasn't there, but Peter was, and here's the photo with the door open, painter at work. It was a gorgeous day, and everyone was in a good mood.















The excavator is a big step, because it means that work on the septic has started. A huge hole has been dug and is getting squared off. I'm surprised by how deep the hole is, given that the leach field is, by definition in our town, a raised field. I couldn't get a good look at it today, given the arrival yesterday of about 8-10" of snow locally.

I can't wait for a day that we can be at the house without anyone there. The last three weekends, there's been at least one guy there. As much as we appreciate people working extra, it's hard to hang out and enjoy the house with other people in it. Someday soon, we'll be able to hang out on the deck and eat lunch in the sun. Maybe even read the paper and take a short nap in the mid-day sun.