a productive day

We made a lot of progress today! I got the supplies ordered to do our concrete countertop samples from www.concreteexchange.com. I ended up ordering the instructional books and dvd from Amazon to save shipping.

The plumber was here today, and the heater is ready to go except for the thermostat. They also installed the bathtub drain for the third time - hope it works for more than three baths this time! The drain we have got broken or was defective the first time it was installed. After the second time, I called Kohler and the sent a kit out with everything that could possibly be wrong free of charge. So far, the drain seems to be working fine, and it is really nice not having to stop up the drain with a dish towel! We still cannot shower because the tile has not been sealed.


The washer and dryer is in at the dealer, but we can't have it installed yet because the contractor needs to move a cabinet. The W/D is bigger than we thought (and the appliance salesperson didn't bother to check when he suggested an alternate brand that was "the same" as the one we wanted), so the cabinet over the W/D needs to be moved up. I did some general straightening and picking up. You wouldn't believe how many loose, odd things end up all over the place. I was reluctant to spend any time straightening up because it would just become a mess again, but a little bit of time every day makes a big difference in our quality of life.

I dragged out the hose and watered the ficus trees we recently had trimmed. The trees are really greening up quickly, especially with the regular watering. My brand new hose is already leaking though (after less than 10 uses), so I am going to try to return it to Home Depot. I also spent some time finishing the windows, the project that never seems to get any closer to being done. It's very tedious and progress is slow, so I've learned to work on this a little bit every day rather than try to tackle big chunks.

One of our more annoying problem is dog and cat poop! Yes, really, I'm serious. We have a lot of dogs in our neighborhood, and it seems that many of the dog owners have decided that our front yard is the best place for doggie to go because they don't have to pick it up! Isn't that nice for them! Seriously, it is really gross. In one two-day period, 4 separate piles were left, and one was in the middle of the front lawn - not even near the edge. We get it worse than some people because our yard looks bad. But these slobs leave their dog poop all over. Our neighbor (with a nicely landscaped front yard) even put up a sign saying "PLEASE, my baby plays here! Pick up after your dog" and they left the piles there anyway. I really can't believe some people! We've decided to put a fence around our front yard and pave the median strip between the sidewalk and street in response to this. How sad to have to design your landscaping around inconsiderate people. (BTW - we love dogs and hope to have our own soon, but we hate inconsiderate dog owners!)

There are also three outdoor cats in the neighborhood who have decided that our backyard makes a perfect litter box for them! It smells gross - like a zoo. We regularly check the yard and chase them off, and I even sprayed one with water and orange oil (they supposedly hate orange scents) and they still come back. In addition to the gross factor, this is a health issue. The father of a friend of ours spent two weeks in the hospital after laying a brick driveway near cat poop. It carries a disease that is harmful to humans. We're hoping to get a cat-hating dog very soon!

I installed the second piece of plywood in the master bedroom, and managed to move the stack to a more convenient location (although it's not so convenient when I have to get to my dresser, on which the sheets are leaning). It is surprisingly strenuous - after moving all the stuff out of the way and moving the plywood into place, you have to wiggle it around to get it just right. It isn't easy to move a 4' x8' piece of wood a fraction of an inch, so I usually end up moving it a bunch of times. Then it has to be screwed in on the joists, every foot or so. For each screw, I have to get on top of the drill and really press down. It's a lot of work, but the results are immediate which is great for my morale!


One thing that made a surprisingly big impact was installing the grills in the ceiling opening for the heating system. It made the place look a lot more like a home and less like a construction zone. Visible at the top of the picture is the attic hatch, which now has a cover and wood trim. We may eventually paint this the ceiling color to make it more invisible. We relocated the attic access to the hallway - it was in the bathroom before, which seems like an inconvenient place for it. In the old layout, it was right over the toilet. Had we left it in place, it would have been right over the sink.