It's been awhile. Things have been happening, some too fast, some not fast enough.
Our friend Hasan has come and gone. You need to have a Turkish farmer as a friend: he didn't want to sit around doing nothing, so he rebuilt our brick front sidewalk, helped with some of our painting, and painted his friend (and ours) Beth's front porch. He and I visited his friends on a farm near Woodville where he worked nearly thirty years ago - this was to be a one hour visit, but it lasted five and a half hours. Other friends came to visit him. We dined out, we had dinner guests, we had picnics, I managed to not gain weight. Today the three of us took him to the Mall of America and then to the airport.
Three of us? Meet Yelena Chikulaeva, Lena (Lee-ehna) for short, 15 years old, from Petrozavodsk, Russia. That's several hours' drive north of St. Petersburg, so she'll be ready for the cold weather. She is in an exchange program, and we volunteered to be a "paper" host family, and the paper has taken human form. We don't know how long she'll be with us before the program can place her with a family with school-age kids, but we're getting her set up for school as if she's here for the year. She has been here for a week. It turns out that she and I have similar tastes in music. We had to pry her out of the Mall of America. Seems like a great normal kid.
We still have no furnace or air conditioner, but we have some shiny sheet metal and some hope. The laundry is going great. Most of the exterior paint is done, but we have some stain to apply on the porch deck and steps. Someday we hope to get some more dirt, and get it leveled for proper drainage, and start some grass, and replant the garden. And, just maybe, the contractor will show up and put up acceptable screening on our front porch.
It's all too much. I tend to shut down a little bit when too much is happening all at once, and if I'm in the middle of something I've been told is important, like painting, I might keep doing that or go back to it too soon instead of visiting with friends or family. Now, give me one thing to do, and one person to go have a beer with instead of doing it, and my priorities straighten out right away. But two or more things and two or more people, and forget it. Gimme the brush.
Monday, August 18, 2008
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Wednesday, Wednesday
It's a slow news day, except it's not all that slow. Big news: Ross popped the question. He and Laura are now officially and for real engaged! Wendy and I like how he managed it: it wasn't exactly a surprise, since both of them were in on the making of the ring, from a stone from his grandmother, and this had been ready since early summer. But he found a nice setting with meaning for them, and Laura could hardly talk when she called.
Our friend Hasan, from Turkey, will be here this weekend and stay for about 9 days. His elder daughter, Canan (pronounced "Janahn"), is enrolled in Ann Arbor at the Ross Graduate School of Business, University of Michigan, and they are getting her settled there. Getting a Ceylan ("Jaylahn") daughter settled is a little more of a project that it might be for some other families, but Canan has a week of activities so Hasan can come visit. I'm a little surprised that Hasan's wife, Ayse ("I-sheh"), isn't here. Hasan is the wise man who taught me to drink Raki ("Rockeh"), the anise-flavored drink, very Turkish, and live to tell the tale. I have taken a couple of days off to enjoy his visit.
We may or may not be at least a welcome host family for a young lady from Russia. If she comes to us at all, it will be next week, for a period of time not yet determined. Lena is from a city north of St. Petersburg, plays the violin (our contact was Laura's Suzuki violin teacher), and does a pretty good job corresponding via e-mail in English.
It's Dunn County Fair week, the only week that our neighborhood worries about closing the garages, locking the houses, and keeping the carnies out of the shrubbery. We live near the fairgrounds, and the walk to the downtown taverns goes right past our house. It's a small county, under 40,000 population, so the fair does what it can but isn't as exciting as it was when we had a small child in the house. We'll go down one evening for fair food.
We keep finding out more about how our contractor didn't do a good job for us. We had to have some repair to several floor joists; not that Larry broke them, but they were just hanging there and he didn't even mention them, much less try to address the problem. I think the problem was hidden when the house was held up by crappy old walls, but those were removed and this was a remediation that should have been done but wasn't. There's also a bit of a problem involving the treated lumber boards between the old sill and the new block foundation: the treated lumber is considerably too narrow to do its intended job. This also means that the contractor straight out lied to me when I asked him about the apparent poor fit. The accumulation of flaws and problems is reaching the point that lawyers may have a chance to make some money.
The electrician is done. We have power and lighting in the basement, and some other additions and corrections that, hey, as long as he was here... and the heating guy isn't done, but he got our dryer vented, and we can do laundry at home. Now, if the washer will work properly (may have some issues with the spin cycle), we'll be happy about something.
So: some up, some down, but the engagement news is the big story, and it makes my daughter happy and makes my wife cry (joy, of course..?..).
Our friend Hasan, from Turkey, will be here this weekend and stay for about 9 days. His elder daughter, Canan (pronounced "Janahn"), is enrolled in Ann Arbor at the Ross Graduate School of Business, University of Michigan, and they are getting her settled there. Getting a Ceylan ("Jaylahn") daughter settled is a little more of a project that it might be for some other families, but Canan has a week of activities so Hasan can come visit. I'm a little surprised that Hasan's wife, Ayse ("I-sheh"), isn't here. Hasan is the wise man who taught me to drink Raki ("Rockeh"), the anise-flavored drink, very Turkish, and live to tell the tale. I have taken a couple of days off to enjoy his visit.
We may or may not be at least a welcome host family for a young lady from Russia. If she comes to us at all, it will be next week, for a period of time not yet determined. Lena is from a city north of St. Petersburg, plays the violin (our contact was Laura's Suzuki violin teacher), and does a pretty good job corresponding via e-mail in English.
It's Dunn County Fair week, the only week that our neighborhood worries about closing the garages, locking the houses, and keeping the carnies out of the shrubbery. We live near the fairgrounds, and the walk to the downtown taverns goes right past our house. It's a small county, under 40,000 population, so the fair does what it can but isn't as exciting as it was when we had a small child in the house. We'll go down one evening for fair food.
We keep finding out more about how our contractor didn't do a good job for us. We had to have some repair to several floor joists; not that Larry broke them, but they were just hanging there and he didn't even mention them, much less try to address the problem. I think the problem was hidden when the house was held up by crappy old walls, but those were removed and this was a remediation that should have been done but wasn't. There's also a bit of a problem involving the treated lumber boards between the old sill and the new block foundation: the treated lumber is considerably too narrow to do its intended job. This also means that the contractor straight out lied to me when I asked him about the apparent poor fit. The accumulation of flaws and problems is reaching the point that lawyers may have a chance to make some money.
The electrician is done. We have power and lighting in the basement, and some other additions and corrections that, hey, as long as he was here... and the heating guy isn't done, but he got our dryer vented, and we can do laundry at home. Now, if the washer will work properly (may have some issues with the spin cycle), we'll be happy about something.
So: some up, some down, but the engagement news is the big story, and it makes my daughter happy and makes my wife cry (joy, of course..?..).
Monday, August 4, 2008
Up In The Air, Part 12
I was going to start with a few reflections about our New York trip. But my fingers are so numb that I have to get this out before they seize up.
It has to do with dirt. 12 yards of black dirt, plus some sand for a base for the brick walkway, and the black dirt appears to be several yards short of what's needed. That came today, and the guy who delivered it helped spread some of it out in the general areas where it is needed. He used a Bobcat or something. We have several days ahead of us involving rakes, shovels, wheelbarows and cussing.
The numb fingers, and the aches in hands, arms, shoulders, neck, back, abdominal muscles, hips, and legs come not from the dirt but from the painting we got done before the dirt showed up.
The front of the house has a new porch, and all the rest of the house has new wood around where the house met the new foundation. Even considering the poor restoration of grade done by the contractor, much of that wood was about a foot or less off the ground. All this new wood needed primer, and all of it needed exterior latex in the house color. We wanted to get all this paint on the house before the dirt showed up, so we wouldn't have to screw around with that issue later.
The net result is that I did two 3/4-laps of our house on my back, trying to paint the underside and the new sill trim. Laying on sand, clay and the odd rock, doing situps to dip the brush, trying to hold a ten-inch-long brush so it could get under an eight-inch-high board, holding my head up with my off hand, pounding in the paint with the brush so the rough-cut cedar would be entirely covered, all done twice in two days (all right, Wendy did one side one day, but I did a lot of both coats of the lower portion of the porch skirting), all of this has stressed muscles and joints that haven't been called upon in decades. Sunday in particular threatened rain, so I kept after the painting as long as I could. Do you know how you sometimes get stupid, dogged in the pursuit of something - in my case, completion of this task - beyond reason or comfort? Rain finally came in the night, after the paint had set up.
The soil we had gotten from the contractor, and what was left of our yard, is clay and sand. Everybody says, "oh, that'll grow a lawn, that'll hold the moisture," but we need some black dirt and some organic material if we hope to restore a garden area. We ended up with many yards less of dirt and yard than we began with; there was no effort to restore original grade, much less to deal with the fact that our house is now a foot and a half higher than it was. The clay and sand kick up in the rain, leaving quite a coating on the lower reaches of our house. The gray block of the new foundation now appears tan, which helps it match the paint (Benjamin Moore's "Waynesboro Taupe"). The mess today reflects the success of my weekend efforts, as the paint appears to be holding up, and justifies the extra ibuprofen. Once we get the black dirt around, and some vegetation established, the amount of dirt kicking up will be reduced by a gazillion per cent. We'll also work with drip rails and, eventually, with gutters and downspouts. The way this project gobbles up money, we should consider gargoyles.
We have much painting to do, including our back entryway, parts of the porch skirting more than 12 inches above the ground, and the porch itself, including way too many railing spindles. Some of this already has primer, but we have a ways to go. We have to put stain on the porch decking and the steps, and decide whether to paint the risers (the vertical part behind the step) in the taupe or stain it to match the treads. Then we have to choose how much, if any, of our trim color to use: pillars only, pillars and handrails, or none at all. We have selected a green stain for the stair treads and the deck, and our trim is a cranberry red, so we could accidentally find ourselves in a Christmas house.
This must all be done before somebody screens off half of our porch. Our contractor has this in his bid, but we don't think we'll ever see him again, so we may have some time to rethink the screen issue. The porch looks fine now without screens, but the dog and the cat enjoy being on the porch during the day when we're gone, and this can't happen without the screened area. Hey, I also enjoy the reduced bug traffic in the screened area, as anyone who recalls my blog of a couple years ago will recall.
Good news: last night's significant rain did not put any moisture into our basement. This was one of the points of the whole exercise: a dry basement. More good news: running two dehumidifiers, we are getting the new-concrete moisture out of the basement. Better yet: the washer is hooked up to its plumbing, and the dryer is vented.
Bad news: although the dryer 220 outlet is still around, the cord to it is almost completely severed. The washer needs about a 20-foot extension cord to reach a working electrical outlet. There's a crack in the exterior of one concrete block, which we can say was the doing of the contractor, even after the original and best concrete guy (not the ass-clowns brought in by the contractor, because the original guy wouldn't come because he wasn't getting paid, who made a hash of pouring the concrete floor and did sloppy work of putting in the last blocks) fixed the interior cracks in his work, which may have been caused by the contractor's early and sloppy backfilling of dirt against the new foundation. And we have several stringers, holding up our dining room (or not, as it appears) that seem to be floating free rather than supporting the house by resting on a beam.
While I was crawling around my house on my back, I noticed a great many areas which seem to me to be waiting for a whole bunch of foam insulation at the least, if not the tender care of a quality contractor who might have done some repair during the construction. Our old house has varying degrees of wood integrity around the lower edges, and it looks like some more help is needed. Then there's the issue of "code." The contractor wielded the word like a magic cape, which was more like a screen behind which he got by with a whole bunch of inferior work. "Code says..." and, you know what? Code says something different, if not opposite. My main questions: did he not know, or did he lie like a rug?
I'm putting the whiskey down now, as I have to go to work early tomorrow, but I have a vague sensation that it's a handy thing that we know some attorneys through church. Shopping list: some George Dickel (#12 Tennessee Sippin' Whisky), some Anisette (unless Hasan manages to bring more Raki than is permitted; ouzo is also good but don't tell that to a Turk), and some Capzaicin rub.
It has to do with dirt. 12 yards of black dirt, plus some sand for a base for the brick walkway, and the black dirt appears to be several yards short of what's needed. That came today, and the guy who delivered it helped spread some of it out in the general areas where it is needed. He used a Bobcat or something. We have several days ahead of us involving rakes, shovels, wheelbarows and cussing.
The numb fingers, and the aches in hands, arms, shoulders, neck, back, abdominal muscles, hips, and legs come not from the dirt but from the painting we got done before the dirt showed up.
The front of the house has a new porch, and all the rest of the house has new wood around where the house met the new foundation. Even considering the poor restoration of grade done by the contractor, much of that wood was about a foot or less off the ground. All this new wood needed primer, and all of it needed exterior latex in the house color. We wanted to get all this paint on the house before the dirt showed up, so we wouldn't have to screw around with that issue later.
The net result is that I did two 3/4-laps of our house on my back, trying to paint the underside and the new sill trim. Laying on sand, clay and the odd rock, doing situps to dip the brush, trying to hold a ten-inch-long brush so it could get under an eight-inch-high board, holding my head up with my off hand, pounding in the paint with the brush so the rough-cut cedar would be entirely covered, all done twice in two days (all right, Wendy did one side one day, but I did a lot of both coats of the lower portion of the porch skirting), all of this has stressed muscles and joints that haven't been called upon in decades. Sunday in particular threatened rain, so I kept after the painting as long as I could. Do you know how you sometimes get stupid, dogged in the pursuit of something - in my case, completion of this task - beyond reason or comfort? Rain finally came in the night, after the paint had set up.
The soil we had gotten from the contractor, and what was left of our yard, is clay and sand. Everybody says, "oh, that'll grow a lawn, that'll hold the moisture," but we need some black dirt and some organic material if we hope to restore a garden area. We ended up with many yards less of dirt and yard than we began with; there was no effort to restore original grade, much less to deal with the fact that our house is now a foot and a half higher than it was. The clay and sand kick up in the rain, leaving quite a coating on the lower reaches of our house. The gray block of the new foundation now appears tan, which helps it match the paint (Benjamin Moore's "Waynesboro Taupe"). The mess today reflects the success of my weekend efforts, as the paint appears to be holding up, and justifies the extra ibuprofen. Once we get the black dirt around, and some vegetation established, the amount of dirt kicking up will be reduced by a gazillion per cent. We'll also work with drip rails and, eventually, with gutters and downspouts. The way this project gobbles up money, we should consider gargoyles.
We have much painting to do, including our back entryway, parts of the porch skirting more than 12 inches above the ground, and the porch itself, including way too many railing spindles. Some of this already has primer, but we have a ways to go. We have to put stain on the porch decking and the steps, and decide whether to paint the risers (the vertical part behind the step) in the taupe or stain it to match the treads. Then we have to choose how much, if any, of our trim color to use: pillars only, pillars and handrails, or none at all. We have selected a green stain for the stair treads and the deck, and our trim is a cranberry red, so we could accidentally find ourselves in a Christmas house.
This must all be done before somebody screens off half of our porch. Our contractor has this in his bid, but we don't think we'll ever see him again, so we may have some time to rethink the screen issue. The porch looks fine now without screens, but the dog and the cat enjoy being on the porch during the day when we're gone, and this can't happen without the screened area. Hey, I also enjoy the reduced bug traffic in the screened area, as anyone who recalls my blog of a couple years ago will recall.
Good news: last night's significant rain did not put any moisture into our basement. This was one of the points of the whole exercise: a dry basement. More good news: running two dehumidifiers, we are getting the new-concrete moisture out of the basement. Better yet: the washer is hooked up to its plumbing, and the dryer is vented.
Bad news: although the dryer 220 outlet is still around, the cord to it is almost completely severed. The washer needs about a 20-foot extension cord to reach a working electrical outlet. There's a crack in the exterior of one concrete block, which we can say was the doing of the contractor, even after the original and best concrete guy (not the ass-clowns brought in by the contractor, because the original guy wouldn't come because he wasn't getting paid, who made a hash of pouring the concrete floor and did sloppy work of putting in the last blocks) fixed the interior cracks in his work, which may have been caused by the contractor's early and sloppy backfilling of dirt against the new foundation. And we have several stringers, holding up our dining room (or not, as it appears) that seem to be floating free rather than supporting the house by resting on a beam.
While I was crawling around my house on my back, I noticed a great many areas which seem to me to be waiting for a whole bunch of foam insulation at the least, if not the tender care of a quality contractor who might have done some repair during the construction. Our old house has varying degrees of wood integrity around the lower edges, and it looks like some more help is needed. Then there's the issue of "code." The contractor wielded the word like a magic cape, which was more like a screen behind which he got by with a whole bunch of inferior work. "Code says..." and, you know what? Code says something different, if not opposite. My main questions: did he not know, or did he lie like a rug?
I'm putting the whiskey down now, as I have to go to work early tomorrow, but I have a vague sensation that it's a handy thing that we know some attorneys through church. Shopping list: some George Dickel (#12 Tennessee Sippin' Whisky), some Anisette (unless Hasan manages to bring more Raki than is permitted; ouzo is also good but don't tell that to a Turk), and some Capzaicin rub.
Friday, August 1, 2008
Up In The Air, Part 11
Let's see, where were we? Oh, yes, beginning to have doubts about the ability and integrity of our contractor. It's been a little over two weeks since the last round, and since then, he billed us as if he had completed the work except for porch screening that should wait until wood can dry and we can paint. We have not finished paying, as we believe and can show that he has left some things unfinished and has sadly underperformed on some others.
The plumber (oops! a separate bid, contract and payment) has completed his work. We have all new piping in the basement, new sewage pipes, a new toilet in our back room, a new water heater, two faucets outside (up from one), a basement washroom roughed in so one can be added later, and laundry hookups. We could, if needed, run the washing machine. This all seems to work well and we are satisfied with the plumber.
The same can't be said for the dryer, as neither the heating guy nor the electrician (golly! two more separate bids and contracts!) have come yet. The dryer needs to be vented out the basement wall, probably through the sill, and the 220 receptacle needs to be reset. That may come next week or the week after. The heating guy (yes, it's a guy; we got a bid from our contractor's choice, but then got and accepted a bid from the guy who's taken care of us for about twenty years and who installed our current, and continuing, furnace and air conditioner) will begin his tasks next week; this includes almost all new ductwork as well as resetting the appliances.
We have not heard from the electrician about a quote or a start date, but this is a guy recommended by both our plumber and our heat guy; the contractor apparently hadn't considered the need for electrical work. We need exterior outlets, redone porch lighting front and back, new outlets and lighting in the basement, plus a couple repairs in the house that we might as well get done as long as the guy is here.
What is galling is that the contractor gave us a bid, didn't mention these needs or that additional cost might come up, and then sets us up for well over 30% in added expense.
It is also time to begin re-establishing our yard. We have to re-lay our brick sidewalk, redistribute some of the dirt the contracor brought, pitiful in both quality and quantity, and spread a great deal of additional dirt (even more added expense). Then we get to move back some of our garden plants, and begin growing lawn in about 2/3 of our yard. Most of the hedge and all of our trees survived, or so it seems, but we had a large hydrangea, drying out but still alive, that had been dug up and was waiting to be replanted, possibly split. This got hauled away with construction rubble. Worse, we still have some construction crap that was not hauled away, and that will go on our checkoff list if and when we get to walk the project with the contractor.
We're half hoping at this point that he settles for the short payment and disappears.
Now for today's good news. When we stopped at Trader Joe's in Woodbury, MN, on the way home from New York, I bought a six-pack of Vienna lager from Trader Joe's Brewing Co., San Jose, CA. As it happens, Gordon Biersch, the brewpub operators who make one of my all-time favorite beers, Gordon Biersch Marzen, have their growing bottling operation in San Jose, CA, and I had some hope that Trader Joe's beers were coming out of that plant. I finally cracked a chilled one tonight, and a visual from the cap and the bottle rang a bell. The letters T and J in the logo surround a shock of barley drawn a certain way. Damn, that looked familiar...and sure enough, the G and B surround the same shock of barley. Oh, yeah. Gordon Biersch. I had an email from Gordon Biersch today (mostly restaurant coupons; the closest so far is in suburban Chicago), so confirmation was too easy. Better yet, the Trader Joe's Vienna Lager, an amber beer, offers a malty, slightly caramel taste and enough hops to balance it out. $5.99 the six pack; $1 beer isn't cheap for home, but it's cheaper than most of the super-premiums. I did run into a special on Colorado Kool-Aid (Coor's Original Banquet Beer): a case of 24 16-oz cans for $15.99. This, ice-cold, will be perfect on a weekend of painting and yard work in 90-degree temperatures.
The plumber (oops! a separate bid, contract and payment) has completed his work. We have all new piping in the basement, new sewage pipes, a new toilet in our back room, a new water heater, two faucets outside (up from one), a basement washroom roughed in so one can be added later, and laundry hookups. We could, if needed, run the washing machine. This all seems to work well and we are satisfied with the plumber.
The same can't be said for the dryer, as neither the heating guy nor the electrician (golly! two more separate bids and contracts!) have come yet. The dryer needs to be vented out the basement wall, probably through the sill, and the 220 receptacle needs to be reset. That may come next week or the week after. The heating guy (yes, it's a guy; we got a bid from our contractor's choice, but then got and accepted a bid from the guy who's taken care of us for about twenty years and who installed our current, and continuing, furnace and air conditioner) will begin his tasks next week; this includes almost all new ductwork as well as resetting the appliances.
We have not heard from the electrician about a quote or a start date, but this is a guy recommended by both our plumber and our heat guy; the contractor apparently hadn't considered the need for electrical work. We need exterior outlets, redone porch lighting front and back, new outlets and lighting in the basement, plus a couple repairs in the house that we might as well get done as long as the guy is here.
What is galling is that the contractor gave us a bid, didn't mention these needs or that additional cost might come up, and then sets us up for well over 30% in added expense.
It is also time to begin re-establishing our yard. We have to re-lay our brick sidewalk, redistribute some of the dirt the contracor brought, pitiful in both quality and quantity, and spread a great deal of additional dirt (even more added expense). Then we get to move back some of our garden plants, and begin growing lawn in about 2/3 of our yard. Most of the hedge and all of our trees survived, or so it seems, but we had a large hydrangea, drying out but still alive, that had been dug up and was waiting to be replanted, possibly split. This got hauled away with construction rubble. Worse, we still have some construction crap that was not hauled away, and that will go on our checkoff list if and when we get to walk the project with the contractor.
We're half hoping at this point that he settles for the short payment and disappears.
Now for today's good news. When we stopped at Trader Joe's in Woodbury, MN, on the way home from New York, I bought a six-pack of Vienna lager from Trader Joe's Brewing Co., San Jose, CA. As it happens, Gordon Biersch, the brewpub operators who make one of my all-time favorite beers, Gordon Biersch Marzen, have their growing bottling operation in San Jose, CA, and I had some hope that Trader Joe's beers were coming out of that plant. I finally cracked a chilled one tonight, and a visual from the cap and the bottle rang a bell. The letters T and J in the logo surround a shock of barley drawn a certain way. Damn, that looked familiar...and sure enough, the G and B surround the same shock of barley. Oh, yeah. Gordon Biersch. I had an email from Gordon Biersch today (mostly restaurant coupons; the closest so far is in suburban Chicago), so confirmation was too easy. Better yet, the Trader Joe's Vienna Lager, an amber beer, offers a malty, slightly caramel taste and enough hops to balance it out. $5.99 the six pack; $1 beer isn't cheap for home, but it's cheaper than most of the super-premiums. I did run into a special on Colorado Kool-Aid (Coor's Original Banquet Beer): a case of 24 16-oz cans for $15.99. This, ice-cold, will be perfect on a weekend of painting and yard work in 90-degree temperatures.
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