Remodel progress this week

[Jenise]

1) The sound guy installed all the speakers in the den/kitchen and in the dining room arch yesterday. We will now be able to have kind of surround-sound music that you can hear well everywhere on the first floor instead of operating a stereo out of a small cabinet like teenagers.

2) Also yesterday, the sheet metal guys brought out the custom backsplash I had made for the stove. It's so cool! Looks like fish scales. They also brought the first piece of the replacement vent hood stack. The stack is a custom job because there are 11 feet of open air space between the top of the hood and the ceiling way above, and another two out the roof where the remote blower is located. Viking would have sold me parts for that for about $2200; I had it made locally for a third of that. Only, the first guy to make it made it in four pieces which didn't quite line up, and one was even dented during installation. He thought that was okay--but it looked like something pieced together in a salvage yard. Other reps from the same company came out and their faces drained in embarrassment--they couldn't believe how awful it was. The new stack is much smaller, 12" wide vs. 18", and made as the first should have been in one long piece. They're going to make a small band of fish scales to trim the transition of the stack to the hood itself. So the stove is 90% done. There's nothing else in the kitchen, but the stove looks hot.

3) We hired a lawyer to force the bad cabinet guy to release the lien he placed on us. He hired a lawyer to fight it, but his lawyer told him he'd end up owing us a ton of money and all our attorney's fees too--SIGN THE RELEASE. He's going to. Now we can go after our money, and file fraud complaints with the state over his license.

I never ever want to remodel again.

Jenise
Our sympathies remain with you!

I won't say "it will be worth it in the end" (I like breathing and walking without the aid of crutches ), but at least it is coming together and when it does, there's no chance of you not liking it, as the prospect of going through THAT again will always paint it in a positive light.

regards

Ian

You won't ever need to remodel again. When this is all done, you're going to have your dream house!

Man. It's been painful but it sounds like you're seeing real progress.

2) Also yesterday, the sheet metal guys brought out the custom backsplash I had made for the stove. It's so cool! Looks like fish scales.

Now THAT sounds neat. I would love to see it. Please post photos if you get a minute.

Sorry about the troubles with the cabinet guys. Doesn't it seem like everything is a hassle these days? This probably needs its own discussion....

Carrie, you got it right...everything is a hassle these days. Seems like nothing we do anymore is easy. Gene ordered a part for a piece of yard equipment, he got a wrong part. Our tow bar on the RV had a broken part, we ordered it only to fnd out they don't make it anymore. So we are going to be out some bucks to have it custom made. Yes, this subject needs it's own board, as I have lots of stories to tell about hassles. Even food related ones, like my tortilla post a few days ago.

Jenise,
What you're doing sounds incredible. I do hope that we'll get to see some pictures at some point.

Mark Lipton

Carrie, you got it right...everything is a hassle these days. Seems like nothing we do anymore is easy. Gene ordered a part for a piece of yard equipment, he got a wrong part. Our tow bar on the RV had a broken part, we ordered it only to fnd out they don't make it anymore. So we are going to be out some bucks to have it custom made. Yes, this subject needs it's own board, as I have lots of stories to tell about hassles. Even food related ones, like my tortilla post a few days ago.

Okay, I started a thread in Friends and Fun titled Everything's a hassle these days.

[Jenise]

So when did I post this, 9:34 a.m. yesterday morning?

Re "the sound man". His name is Dale. I met him through another contractor who mentioned having done something for Dale's newly-acquired house which happens to be here in my neighborhood. His mentioning Dale's profession (high end home sound and theater installations) at the precise moment in time we had open walls in half the house downstairs caused it dawn on me that we should hire someone just like him to rig us up. Because all the work we were doing then was a reaction to bad circumstances and not previously planned construction, we'd never paused to give something like that any thought. So I called him, he came right over to do a consultation, and he re-arranged another client so he could be here pulling wires all day the next day. A week later would have been too late.

He was just the nicest guy! Used to own a chain of audio stores up and down Washington's west coast but got out of that biz when the big box stores made it impossible for independents to compete and went into custom installation instead. Our friendship was instantaneous--the kind where you can't wait to introduce your spouses--and we immediately got him and his fantastic wife Carol involved in our neighborhood wine tastings. The only reason they haven't been to our home for dinner already is our reduced circumstances, but we've chatted over the weeks and months as Dale has dropped by almost weekly looking for the right opportunity for speaker installation (phase 2, he referred to it formally, of four phases). That came Thursday, day before yesterday, and he arrived here around 9 a.m. and left slightly after 6 p.m. The actual time needed for the work he did was probably about five hours. But it took all day because we couldn't stop talking, he and I, the kind of talk one only has with people you find that rare, essential, life-affirming sympatico-ness with, wherein topics like life, love, childhood sorrows, adult dreams and all the highs and lows along the way are hashed over, laughed at and put away again, and you're all the better for it. And by the end of the day we both expressed great regret over having not gotten together since we met, just the two couples, and doing things because we both sensed a deep and lasting friendship. Next week, we agreed, we'd change that, and too we made plans to be crabbing buddies when the season opens in a few weeks. He just bought a boat, and I have the time and the know-how.

Dale died yesterday morning of a massive stroke.

I'm heartbroken. It doesn't seem possible.

That really sucks. His wife is probably in shock over it.

Dale died yesterday morning of a massive stroke.

I'm heartbroken. It doesn't seem possible.

Jenise, I'm so sorry...sounds like he was a terrific person. Every day is a precious gift that no one should take for granted.

[Jenise]

That really sucks. His wife is probably in shock over it.

No doubt. I couldn't believe she could even answer the phone. Her adult daughter and others were there with her and could have handled incoming calls, but I'll bet she was the one taking care of them, not the other way around.

[Jenise]

sounds like he was a terrific person. Every day is a precious gift that no one should take for granted.

Isn't that the truth? Bob and I wanted to drive around the neighborhood last night and tell everybody we love how precious they are. We refrained, but I'll probably be slobbering them all with kisses every time we meet for awhile.

[Jenise]

Jenise,
What you're doing sounds incredible. I do hope that we'll get to see some pictures at some point.

Mark Lipton

Getting myself back on topic, it's almost more about the house than what we've done. It already had great bones. We've just worked to correct the parts that weren't so good, and turn the disadvantages into advantages. The stove is a perfect example: we enlarged the kitchen by removing a wet bar and shrinking an upstairs 'loft', but now half the kitchen has a ceiling height of 9' and half is 22. Putting the stove on the 22' wall makes that a soaring space where it would have been weird/awkward if we'd just ignored it. Lighting the space was sure a challenge, though! (And it remains to be seen if we succeeded.)

Oh Jenise, I'm sorry..

Sorry, what else could I say. I feel for his wife .

[Jenise]

Lou, I do too--she's now living what I fear most. Have to honor my buddy by figuring out how to be a new and better friend to her.

Have to honor my buddy by figuring out how to be a new and better friend to her.

No you don't. Just be your usual kind and wonderful self. She is lucky to have a person such as yourself at times like these.

[Jenise]

Have to honor my buddy by figuring out how to be a new and better friend to her.

No you don't. Just be your usual kind and wonderful self. She is lucky to have a person such as yourself at times like these.

You're so kind, thank you. But because this was a business relationship that turned into friendship, I spent a lot of time with Dale but none alone with Carol--only those two evenings at wine tastings. So what I meant was that now she and I need to forge a personal friendship, and that ball's in my court.