How Very Unexpected

Imagine my surprise when I carted a box up our new cedar step in our new garage, came around the corner and saw counters installed in the kitchen. Now imagine Lynn’s surprise — you have to imagine 10 times my surprise to get close.

We thought these might — might, mind you — get put in place by the end of next week. The universe continues to align, so someone is living right, or you all are doing your part. Whatever it is, we’ll take it, although it’s a bit surreal (okay, a lot surreal) to think that one week from today we have three men coming to move everything from the old house to the new house. One week!

It’s still not clear if all of that will go into heaps in garages and bedrooms, or if we will have a certificate of occupancy. Probably much of this depends on Ben the plumber. Dusty said he’s returning tomorrow, but I don’t know if that means “returning to Gunnison; will start work at his leisure next week” or “returning to work on your house on Wednesday.”

Either way, work awaits him. He can hook up the kitchen sink and the boiler, which turns out to be gas (so Dusty and I both guessed wrong) and is at long last on-site.

Lynn’s bathroom sink and counter are also ready for installation, since they got that stone cut while they took care of our kitchen cabinets. I must say, that was extremely nice of Steve and Jennifer Coleman at Custom Home Accents to get on this so quickly.

So I probably should have just ordered my bathroom vanity from them, but I didn’t, opting for one that’s half the price from True Value. If it gets here. If it doesn’t, then I have to either buy a placeholder vanity or have Dusty construct a plywood cabinet.

Here’s what I don’t get: we had our plumber neighbor (who seems like he would have been more reliable for our house project than Ben, whose life seems to be exploding in a dozen different directions) tell us that we could get a temporary certificate of occupancy with one functional bathroom. But Dusty said he asked Ben, who said no, we have to have a working sink in my bathroom as well. One of them has to be wrong.

I guess it doesn’t matter, because the guy we’re using says we have to have both bathrooms operational.

I have to say, of all the rooms in the house, my bathroom has been an endless series of problems. Let’s recap:

I wanted a round window. The window line we got doesn’t come in round, so I got an octagon.

Jered, who did our framing, fortunately stopped before he even started on the north bathroom wall, because somehow in the blueprints the room didn’t have it wide enough So he moved the wall north, and then I had Dusty move it another foot north because it still seemed too narrow.

I picked a shower that appears to be getting good reviews from users, but which drew the ire and consternation of Dusty’s employees, Ben and Shawn the electrician. The warranty on it was for three months; I believe it arrived in March, so we’d all better hope it works. Or at least, I’d better hope it works.

The solar tube had to be extended I think five times, because the only place to put the outside dome was on the south plane of the roof. The inside plate cracked during installation, and no one has yet made an attempt to replace it.

The cabinet that I wanted to be wide and shallow ended up narrow and deep. But Matt solved that problem for me: he recommended, and I purchased, an Elfa drawer unit from the Container Store (a store that Lynn didn’t even know existed).

The on-line planner indicated less room than there really is, so I’ll probably send off for another basket or two, and black wasn’t a color choice, but this should work out qute nicely, I think, even though it means I’m indebted to Matt, darn it.

Now, notice the switch plate next to the unit, where I’ll never remember to look for it. Right now the first switch turns on both lights in the bathroom and the second activates nothing. Oh, I wonder if that’s supposed to be for the bathroom fan. Either way, what I remember about our conversations with Shawn and what Dusty remembers are two different things. Dusty has intimated that this is the first time this has happened — apparently I’m more of a problem customer than I’d like to think.

I do know I’m turning out to be a problem packer. In days of yore, I used to help a lot of people move, and it just drove me nuts how the majority of time was spent standing around, trying to decide which thing to move next or what might be best put in the truck next — it was such wasted time that could have been productive.

Well, now I’m packing, and it’s such wasted time that ought to be productive. On Sunday, while packing packing packing and getting nowhere, I decided there were about eight areas that I needed to attack, meaning one would need to be completed each day. But the toy room didn’t get done Sunday; yesterday I left work at lunchtime and only got seven-eighths of one file cabinet into boxes.

So my family is riding to the rescue on Friday, while I keep taking small steps forward. Just like the new step from our garage into the laundry/mud room. Isn’t is nice?

One small step for Lynn, a giant leap for TL . . . moving in one week. Gah!