An effort to garner your sympathy

The whole week leading up to, er, well, the weekend was filled with a sense of foreboding.  Being an engineer means that I don't really know what that word means, but onward anyway.  Basically, we, ok, I, was not looking forward to dryer vent installation.  Seems a relatively innocuous task, no?  Why, of course, except at Garvin, where we elected to build a home without leaving a vent for a dryer.  Who us, dopes?  Nah.

Resultingly (not sure if that's a word), it means that someone had to crawl under the house with the dead bodies and rats and other creepy crawlies to get it done.  Since the boss (Hi Wife!) doesn't like enclosed spaces (NOTE: I don't believe that Claustrophobia exists) I drew the only straw and shimmied under.  Let me tell ya, the view ain't all that.

Figure 1.  The view from the crypt: Not a lot of headroom

The objective here was to cut a hole in the floor and put in that flexible ducting.  Easy peasy.  Well, it took two days, broke a drill, nearly broke an arm, but VOILA!

Figure 2.  May or may not be up to code with the Floam, but I don't even care

With that, we now (believe we) have a fully functioning set of appliances!  Well, we haven't turned on the gas for the range, but the microwave, fridge, sink, garbage disposal, washer, dryer, and theoretically dishwasher (NOTE: Test not completed, but it doesn't leak) all appear to work.

While yours truly was hoping the house didn't collapse above, the Boss (Hi Wife!) did a jam up job cleaning the inside, readying it for more visitors.  Quarter round was put in the master closet, caulked in, and given a coat of paint.  The backdoor was trimmed so that it doesn't stick on the floor, then repainted and hung (hanged, no: Installed!).  Also, the house apparently isn't done settling, because a crack developed in the dining room area.  D'oh!  Well, that's now been filled and painted, so it's back to ready.

Of course, while completely covered in schmutz some lady came strolling up wanting to check the house out.  I think my looking like a chimney sweep startled her a bit.  As we were leaving, another couple folks were planning to swing by for another look.  Hopefully, we can sucker, oops, I mean, sell one of them on this one!

It should be pretty quiet on the blog front for the next little bit.  We don't really have much else to do (sign some papers, perhaps).  But we do plan to "affect" the guest bathroom vanity and build some kind of panel to hide the plumbing, but other than that...  maybe wash the outside?  Does that count as a thing?

WHOA, whoa, whoa!  So, as this is being written, I asked the boss (Hi Wife) to check out the house down the street that had an open house today.  This is it:

http://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/46156384_zpid/2-_beds/2-_baths/days_sort/28.56057,-81.354629,28.55519,-81.361699_rect/16_zm/

Is that nicer than ours?  Seriously?  I can't tell, because I'm like a parent, convinced that my little genius is a future Thomas Jefferson-Edison-Jordan.  But, seriously you realtor-type folks, is this place more expensive than ours?  We're the cheapest date on the block, I mean, come on!

Have we met?

Yeah, it's been a while.  In fact, it's been more than a week.  "What's the hold up?" you ask.  You ponder, "why no more pictures of that fine craftsmanship?"  "How did I get this cheese sauce on my shirt?" you wonder.

Well, I can help you out with a few of those.  The cheese sauce came from your cheesesteak, derp.  All that wonderful, gooey cheese atop those perfectly sizzling pieces of beefsteak...  As for the pictures, I don't know what to tell you.

...ok, that's a lie.  The reason that there are no pictures is because we're really kinda done (another lie).  Well, at least done with stuff that photographs well.  The garbage disposal is in and plumbed up!  ...as is the dishwasher.  Both of which appear to function completely leak free!  Guess all those years of being a fluid system engineer have paid off handsomely.  Thanks to the Boss (Hi Wife!) for her ability to grease up the fittings and jam 'em all together!

There was, however, ergo, yet, a small, itsy bitsy issue with the installation of the range.  Well, two, if you count our own herpi-derpitude in trying to find fittings to, well, fit.  Once we got past that, there was a small issue in that the internal piping to the range hits the stupid stub out for the gas lines which prevents us from making the range flush with the back wall.  Oh well.  ...we're well past the point of just mailing it in just to be done with it all.

On notes-unrelated-to-work-but-still-and-yet-related-to-the-house, we've had a steady stream of lookie-loos.  ...even a few people coming by twice, but still no official offers (which are the best kind).  But, we're not worried yet, it's still early.  ...matter of fact, there are already a couple scheduled for RIGHT NOW!  Oh God, did I clean up?  ...and another one tomorrow, and another one for Saturday.

So, there's still hope yet!  Keep those fingers crossed.

That includes YOU!

Club Garvin

After such a successful Saturday of trim work, certainly Sunday's little amount of trim would be no issue.  Except that it was.  Maybe the walls and trim were just more wonky in the rooms that were left, and the tub piece in the guest bathroom already presented itself as a pain.  So, maybe it does make sense that what was left was more difficult.  But, either way, tis DONE!  Caulked in and everything.  Well, it's done unless the Boss (Hi Wife!) deems another coat of paint is in order, which, who are we kidding, there's probably going to be a request for two.

With the mitering skills completely dusted off with the quarter round, it was time to tackle the thresholds.  Apparently, it's not ok for the bar codes on the tiles to be exposed.  Seemed like it was an opportunity for us to give some contingency-type information to the new homeowners, kinda like leaving leftover paint, or samples, or something.  But, so much for being considerate.  It was with that instruction that the seams between sunroom and living room, kitchen and dining, and bathroom and hallway were addressed.  Here's what all that mitering looks like with the pieces in place.

NOTE: The boss (Hi Wife!) will almost certainly not like the overhang to the tile, but oh well!

Figures 1-7  My geometry teacher would be sooo proud!  ...because of the angles.

That last piece of trim (on the left of Figure 7) is really the whole coup de grace (misspellings don't count if it's in a foreign language).  That piece had to be hogged out in the back where it meets the cabinet and then the end had to be mitered at some odd angle to match up with the trim of the cabinet.  Here that faint, brass-like wail in the background.

...listen close...

That's definitely the sound of me tooting.

...my own HORN!  Oof, that was awful, sorry.

Hard to believe but that's really the gist of the rest of Sunday and Monday.  There were some other crucial tasks that were accomplished that can perhaps be puffed up a bit to sound more important.  ...like, how's the fact that the house has HOT WATER NOW?!  Welcome to the penthouse.  Yup, again, my electrical expertise was put to get use diagnosing the problem (breaker = OFF).  Either way, it gets crossed off the list, and I get credit for it.  Also, a wonky cabinet/drawer interface was fixed.

With Monday being a holiday though, it was a free opportunity to catch up.  Of course, it would've been nice to have had a second set of hands working (Ooo, sick burn, huh boss?  (Hi Wife!)), but it was all moot because apparently this house was the hottest place to be in Orlando!  That's right, while diligently working towards the installation of a garbage disposal, the phone was blowing up with people wanting to schedule showings.  Immediately after putting my phone down and getting back under the sink someone knocks on the door wanting to see it.  Dude, follow the directions, notify the homeowner.  We don't need you seeing that kitchen sink isn't plumbed in yet.  After shoo-ing them away (only temporarily) another creeper realtor made a drive by, stopping outside just staring at me.  But, given my current axe-murderer like appearance, they thought better of coming to the door.

After they did their thing, I returned to the house to try and complete the disposal job.  Well, I came pretty darn close (all that lacks is the plumbing part).  Since the electrical line was a little too short, a box needed to be installed in the cabinet and a plug put on the disposal.  But, master electrician I am, BAM:

Figure 8.  It even turns ON and roars!

1. Full bore testing of the system will occur later this week if we're able to plumb it all up.