Thursday, January 10, 2008

Hello? ....Hello?

Oi! I have been a very, very bad blogger. Sorry. No, really. I'm sorry.

I've been at home nursing a cold all day today so I have no excuse not to write something long and profound. Or short and witty.

House update: we have an amazing new bamboo floor. It looks really quite amazing and we are both very happy with it. We have been able to move furniture back upstairs and S was even able to unpack a bunch of boxes. We ended up having to hire someone to level the concrete floor. After 3 attempts over Christmas (literally....we poured Christmas Eve and Boxing Day) to level it with Stone Mason's Self-Leveler, we decided to call in an expert for a consultation. We ended up hiring him to not only level the concrete but to install the underlay, floor and baseboards. I think we made a wise decision given the circumstances under which we were working. The holidays were busy for a variety of reasons and we really didn't have the time or expertise to finish it up properly.

There were a couple of exciting moments. I've chosen to remember them as exciting rather than horrifying. The actual leveling took place on New Year's Eve. We were banished from home until about 8pm. We had a party to go to out in New West and were very excited to be heading home to check out the lovely level floor, get changed and spiffed up and head out. I was in the second bathroom when S knocked on the door and calmly (with an underlying quiver of panic) said that we had a serious problem in the other bathroom and asked me to come and have a look. I thought perhaps Carmen (the cat) was in there doing something cute. Not so much. Leveling compound had obviously leaked through a crack in the floor upstairs and had drained through one of the potlights in the main bathroom. All over the towels, the toilet and the floor tiles. Eeeeeekkkkk! I immediately called the contractor and he instructed us to turn off the breakers for downstairs. However, we had to clean up before it completely hardened. So we ignored his warning (and, knock on wood, were safe) and spent the next 2 hours cleaning up concrete. The light was fine and we managed to get to the party before midnight and have a very enjoyable time with friends. On New Year's Day, the contractors showed up and checked everything out and said it seemed fine and that we didn't have to call an electrician. Phew. The second 'gotcha' was when they put down the last 2 boards they did so with the front door open. When they tried to close the door they weren't able to. Oops. Off came the door, shaved off a bit and voila! it closed.

I'm glad that's over with.

Now on to the painting.

And 2008. It's going to be a big year for me. I'm excited!

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