Sunday, November 7, 2010

Back In Business. Or Rhode Island With Minimal Business.

So.  The Road Trip is over.  We came back a week or so ago and have been kind of sitting around ever since.  I’m still in the process of writing all about it here, but figured I’d get my regular house blog readers up to speed.  All seven of you.

Miraculously, nothing in the house or outside of the house was destroyed.  I was shocked to say the very least.  Not only was nothing in the house burned, exploded, melted, eaten, broken, leaking, busted, stolen, ruined, etc., but the house was in better condition than when we left it.  Also?  Amanda’s terrible car wasn’t even stolen or broken into.  Can’t win them all I guess…

As I said, the house was in better condition than when we left it for five plus weeks.  This was because I asked Al Medina, General contractor to finish up most things in the house while we were gone.  I figured that since we got too much money from the insurance company, I could give some of it to Al to keep things moving while we were gone.

When we first got back, I checked the mail:

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We have a mail slot, so it could just pile up inside the door.  It piled up for sure.

One of the things that Al and his folks did while we were gone was hang some cabinets in the first and second floor kitchens:

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He also finished up each galley, including painting the second floor countertop grey:

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He replaced the first floor shower surround (as the old one was hilarious and made partly of wood):

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New bathroom floors for the first and second floor bathrooms:

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Finished up the painting on the first and second floors:

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There are still some little things that he overlooked, like this bathroom floor trim:

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For the most part though, Al Medina and his crew are finished up here.  Still to be done though?  Refinishing the floors, installation of electric baseboard heaters and a little bit of plumbing.  Oh, and finding tenants that only smoke heroin a few times a month…

The washer and dryer have been installed in the basement.  That is good news.  The bad news?  The waste pipe that drains the washer is super clogged.  I found this out a fun way, when testing out the washer.  A bunch of water came spewing out of it.  not as bad as the last house, but still, stinky water is no good.

I sat in the basement for an hour watching the washing machine fill up and drain.  When it drained, I got to unplug it, then head outside to dump out a bucket of dirty, detergent filled water.  The bucket pictured here:

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Apparently, the washer uses three five gallon buckets of water per cycle.  I wish that was in the manual.

Joe Merritt, Plumber is headed here Monday morning to take care of that, as well as replace some leaky valves in the basement.  No big deal.

Hopefully, Dan Casta, Electrician will also make his way here this coming week to install the heaters and hook up the brand new electrical meters that were somehow installed when I was away.  I was, again, shocked.

Next installment?  A video of what happened at 10pm or so at the neighbors house.  You won’t want to miss it.

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