Day Forty-eight: Has it really been a week already?

My week has flown by. We’re feeling so much better in a larger space. But the days just meld together—it’s a continual stream of logistics. Up to stagger breakfast (since Sophie can’t be left alone in the room.) Then off for a morning walk. Back to the hotel for a quick cuppa and then up to the house with Sophie to work for most of the day. Leave Sophie at the house around 4 to meet the boys back at the hotel for dinner. Squeeze in a walk after dinner (assuming we don’t walk TO dinner) and then back to the house to pick up the dog.  Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

It makes for a very choppy day, especially when you get to one place or the other only to realize you forgot something. Oy.

And our one month stay has quickly become two. I’m hopeful that will be the end of it. It all depends on how quickly our insurance can get around to issuing checks (and if they have to go through our bank, or can directly issue the checks to us. If they go through the bank, well… it’s Bank of America. Need I say more?)

As of this moment, the scope of work includes: (please keep in mind, this all started with a bathroom floor)

Electrical: Removal of all the knob and tube electrical. Apparently, the electrical upgrade we were told happened about 10 years ago, was a “cosmetic” upgrade. When you dig into the walls, it’s clear that only the places that would be checked were upgraded, everything still ties into the old knob and tube. Frankly, we were a house fire waiting to happen and are very fortunate to have escaped it. So the entire house will have be brought up to code in order for it pass inspection and for us to be able to move back in.

Plaster: Our home is lathe and plaster (JOY) and so everything that gets damaged in the rewiring will have to be replaced. Presently, that’s the bathroom and the kitchen–and will probably mean assorted walls and ceilings as the electrical is upgraded.

Bathroom: It’s an entire gut. Everything has been stripped at this point. There isn’t even a floor. It will all need to be replaced.

Kitchen: It’s not quite a gut, but the flooring, walls, ceiling, and cabinetry will have to be replaced.

Plumbing: Um.. yeah, it’s looking like everything will have to be brought up to code. It’s a central plumbing situation, so one repair means it ALL has to be repaired.

Structural supports: When the bathroom was renovated 10 years ago, and plumbing was put in for a shower, all sorts of “short-cuts” were taken, putting the structural integrity of some portions of the house at risk. One wall isn’t supported and will need to be remediated before construction can commence.

<wende putting on her angry eyes> Whoever did this work. . . a POX on you and yours. The very idea anyone would put their OWN family at risk, doing home repair work just boggles my little brain. Doing a half-assed job tiling a bathroom because you watched some show on HGTV and think you’ve got the mojo to fake it, I get. Doing a home installation of plumbing that cuts into support beams in an illegal DIY job… insanity. You know who you are, and you should be ashamed. </angry eyes>

Ahem.

So that’s where we are. Or where we’re not. I suppose it depends on how full your glass is.