Thursday, January 24, 2008

What to blog, what to blog....

I'm really not quite sure what I want to write about tonight...I just know that I don't want to write it as late as I did last night. YIKES!

I've spent the majority of the day horizontally.....in my bed today. Couple of reasons which I shall not devulge. But,the reasoning behind it seemingly is accurate.

The time that wasn't spent in bed was spent either on the computer, in the car (driving), or dealing with home-improvement people. Ah...the never ending project: my home. Maybe I will tell you a little bit about that road block in my life.


I've been remodeling our home (inside and out) for almost 3 years now. From ripping up all the driveway, sidewalk and front yard...to replacing all 23 interior doors...reflooring every room....repiping the whole house...even replacing all of the duct work and both dual paks.

Well, when I originally started...and up until the past, oh, six months....I have been my own general contractor. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, that means: I decided which trade worked first, dealt with paying everyone, scheduling every trade, etc. It just got to be too much for me with my health being as it has been. So...we hired a friend as our General.

One of the trades we had hired was a woodworker. I had originally used him in hand-making our kitchen/dining room floor, mantle, 2 ledges, and our 9 1/2 foot tall arched dungeon-style front doors. The kitchen floors are 3/4" pecan with rustic/vintage nails at the end of each board (for decoration), the mantle and ledges are fir, and the only choice I had for the front door was oak. I can't stand oak...but, that was the only wood that the front door could be made of. The wood inside the house has a VERY warm, dark, almost mahagony color to it...and all of it is DEEPLY hand-hewn and distressed....giving the house a VERY old, Spanish feel to it. Many of our friends say it's like stepping into a Mexican hacienda. I truly adore the feel. Each room is a different color, with different flooring...but, the colors are used over an over again in the house...just not in adjoining rooms.

Ok....that picture being painted (can you see the house??) let's move on.

(Here's a picture of our dining room with it's new knotty alder doors. There is painting that has to be RE-done...and the wood will be stained to match the color of the dining table on the right side of the picture. That's basically the color of all the wood throughout the house.)


Photobucket


Now, the general has rehired the same woodworker (at our request), to make sills for all of the windows and a casing that wraps around the ledge of our staircase...which consists of three LARGE lengths of wood.

Wood was delivered yesterday. I was away from home.


I came home, and looked at the wood that my contractor was working with. Oak. LIGHT oak, to be exact. Light oak that wasn't HEWN, to be precise.

They were about to put it under their Skillsaw. Thank GOD my luck didn't fail me here. They immediately stopped, and said there seemed to be an issue with the wood. None of the wood had finished ends. Nothing measured out correctly...AND, when they tried to put the capping on the railing, it overlapped the sides by 2.5" ...and showed the unfinished oak underneath.

Guess what? Once again, this woodworker has been paid in full...and I feel like I won't get this corrected. Please, say a little prayer for me on this one. We've had our front doors for almost 2 year now, and ever since they were installed, they were to be weatherstripped. Guess who finished them and when? My current "handyman"...and about 3 months ago.

Oh dear...I am rambling on and not very funny tonight. I must be tired.


Anyways....I might pop back on tonight if something else stirs in my head.


Until then, I shall continue watching "Mirror Mask" with my daughters. I really like this movie. If ever you saw "Labyrinth" with David Bowie (and appreciated it)...you would adore this movie, also. Very bizarre.

Possibly more so than Tim Burton's creations.........

No comments: