Progress..

My back is sore, and even my fingers and knuckles hurt, but it was a productive weekend..

We Installed Crown.. opps. I mean “Cornice” molding in 2 rooms, painted it.. then painted another whole room, and painted the Floor moldings of another… Might not sound like much, but that’s 3 plus days of work right there.. none stop.. and I had help…


Whew.. and the kitchen guy comes Thursday to start his end.. so she's starting to come together slowly...


My wife might argue that we’ve not done as much as we should have to the house yet, given that we've been here 5 months now (almost)but I’d argue otherwise.. Sure, its been almost 5 months.. but theres only 2 days in a weekend, 4 weekends per month.. so that’s actually 5x2x4=40 days.. less a wedding, a few trips to bridgewater, a Concert in PEI, and that’s not a lot of days.. especially with a 2 yr old child..

Anyway.. it does feel good to get that much closer to done..
We hadn’t count on painting the whole house, but we really have too.. I wont go into the whole story about the state of the house when we moved in.. but.. how can I put this... .. hmmm fundamentaly, I think its a great house.. I think it was built well, but the Builder had sold it to the previous owners... and they didnt exactly demonstrate "pride of ownership" as the real estate advertisings often say....

What do I mean? Well.. when we sold our old place.. we scrubbed every wall, every floor, steam cleaned the carpets, cleaned all the windows and screens, toilet, tubs ands shower, pulled evey nail, drywalled and painted the affected spot.. I mean that place was Spotless.. , were talking hospital corners.. the new owners only had to unpack…

When we moved into our place, however, well.. it was the exact opposite of that… so we’ve been scrubbing, and gutting for 5 straight months.. At the end of the day, it’s a good house.. the mess did suck some of the excitement out of it for us though… and forced us to accelerate a lot of stuff we’d hoped to delay.. like carpets and window treatments… they’re pretty gundgy… not to mention the drama over the chimney…

Im still in “negotiations” with the previous owner over it all.. Its not going overly well… but Im too tired of all that to rehash it. All I know is that one of 2 things is true..

Either:
(A) they were the absolute worst housecleaners of all time, and we’re left with the accumulation of a decade or more of Creosote and dirt on the carpets, walls, and so on..
or
(B) there was some sort of “event” dumping a larger amount of soot all at once that went through the whole home… If I were a betting man, I’d bet on the latter, but they are admitting nothing, and Im just fed up with it all..

I know one thing at least, win or lose, I’ll be glad when that part is over just so we can move on… but oh well.. We’ll see what develops..

I had hoped they’d hone-up.. as they say, and do the right thing.. Especially given the risk we were in had we actually used the Chimney, but they seem to have some sense of moral-exemptness, and have not been very “pleasant” to deal with to say the least.. I’d say the same of their lawyer, but I can’t fault him.. He’s just doing his job, just wish I could afford to hire someone just like him.. … Anyway, maybe I shouldn’t say anything, as were still, “negotiating” but Im beyond keeping my fingers crossed.. I’ll Hope for the best, but im prepared for the worst…

In other news.. I have the John Mulane gig on the 23rd, I was even offered some regular gigs with him, but with work and home, as much as I’d like to gig regular, I just can’t commit to it.. If I could make a living at it, sure.. but the odds of that, and stability, benefits, pension? Well.. its just not gonna happen.. but that’s ok.. Besides, this new band we’ve pieced together seems to show great promise.. We’ve assembled a good bunch of guys, that all seem to be on very similar pages.(work/family/music - balance). so it could be a lot of fun.. but also a Kick-arse band at that!! I look at the music room now, with all the additional gear everyone brought and wish I owned it all myself.. Drums, Pa.. etc.. but in time, maybe… in the meantime.. I really can’t complain either.. but I guess its just human nature to want more….

Ah well.. here we go.. another work week.. But hey! Its Tuesday already… it’ll be a short one…