Progress

W2's parents came out to the house on Saturday to help. A novel concept because there has been little help from that corner up until now. But on Saturday they were awesome. We got all of the framing out of the upstairs that will one day be the master bedroom and bathroom; all of the sheetrock out of the apartment; all of the wires out of the upstairs; all of the wires out of the apartment; got the water softener to work and something else that I am not remembering. But anyway, they were awesome. W2 and his dad accomplished all of this with nary an arguement or moment of tension. I even threw in the total wrench by suggesting we maybe, just might, want to think about incorporating all of the addition into the main part of the house and forgo the apartment option.

I did this primarily because I had learned of the challenges in finding suitable tenants in our neck of the woods. I didn't want us to go through all of the design hassles, money challenges and lest I forget to mention WORK, it will involve to complete the apartment, only to have it sit empty for months on end. If this were to be the case and I hadn't expressed my thoughts/concerns I would have been really, really frustrated. So I voiced my concerns. A definite wrench in the works. But then you start thinking of the possibilities of having that much more space...I could have my dream kitchen, W2 could have his dream sitting area off the kitchen, we would have access to the enormous deck we will be building this spring, and the list goes on. But do we, the two of us, really need a 4500 square foot house. The answer is loudly and resoundedly NO, we do not need that much space, but nor do we need an empty apartment, generating no income. So around and round we went.

Amazingly enough it was a visit to the local diner that eased my fears about renting the apartment and we are back on track for doing the apartment, with a few minor compromises to the original plan. We will use the same cabinets that we have in our kitchen, in the apartment so that when and if we decide to incorporate the space into the main part of the house we will have not wasted our money on something we will toss. For now, that's it and we move on with Plan A.

We got insulation in the wall to the blue bedroom, which should improve the temperature in that room as we have the calvary from tennessee coming to help with installing support beams in the basement and framing our bedroom and bathroom tomorrow. The massachusetts version of the calvary will also be arriving tomorrow so there enough hands on deck to lift the very, very heavy beams into place. I am fortunate enough to have to work and will miss this joyous task!!

I am eager to have a stove again. It has been over a month with no kitchen sink or stove. No sign of a sink in sight but with a stove I will be able to cook some meals and that will be an improvement over where we are currently...eating out every meal. With two buckets i will even be able to wash dishes. Much better than trying to wash them in the shower, as we have no bathtub until our bathroom is done upstairs.

We got the quote for the heating system...$7-10k, which is much better than the $18 -20K my pessimistic W2 had anticipated. But it still holds up the completion of our bedroom and bathroom. Can't put up walls until duct work is run for the heating system. Can't have duct work run until we have money to pay for furnaces and labor. Don't have money to pay for anything until our siding is put on the house and we get inspected by the bank.

So it all comes down to our horribly uncoorperative and communicative siding contractor!!! GGGRRRRRR! but I suppose that will have to wait for another day.