Hurrying Up

We are the slowest possible remodelers. Well, there are probably folks who are slower than we are but we are certainly in the lowest portion of the 25th percentile. Partly it is because we “enjoy” doing things ourselves. As The Bearded One says, “I get such a wonderful feeling of satisfaction when we finish.”

Yes, that is true, but when the whole house fan is already 2 years off warranty when it is finally installed – there is something wrong. The first thing that is wrong is that we are busy people who have other things going on in life in addition to home improvement. We occasionally take a vacation, or meet friends, or go shopping, or oddly enough just want to enjoy a day at the beach. The other problem is that we aren’t getting any younger. If we work constantly on the house for long days, we would be permanently crippled. When we were younger we could tote and haul and strain for days on end, now after 4 or 5 or 10 floor tiles, The Bearded One’s back is screaming for mercy and Advil. If I have been sanding and scraping and sanding yet again, my hands and forearms will be completely useless for a day when it comes to things like removing jar lids or holding heavy objects like milk jugs.

But now we have a reason to move ahead swiftly. We have adoptive kitties waiting for the OK to come live at our house. One of Stubble’s friends has a cat that got out of the house before it could be spayed, with predictable results. The family doesn’t want to just drop the kitties off at the Humane Society. They would like to personally approve the adoptive families. We have been a ‘cat free home” for almost 2 years now and it is tough when you are feeling under the weather not to have a purring cat plastered to your back (or head, or feet). We readily agreed to accept two of the kittens. We just needed to get the floors done (old carpet ripped out, subflooring repaired and sealed).

Last weekend we rented a dumpster and Stubble and two of his friends and I removed all of the old carpet. We discovered less damage than we had expected, but need to remove 2 of the stairway landings. The first one was removed last Sunday and when the wood was removed an empty beer bottle dating back to 1971 was discovered – which explains SO MUCH about the things we find in our house as we remodel. Like the subflooring that completely missed a joist (but that is another story).

The family from whom we are adopting has graciously kept “our” kittens until the floor can be sealed but the kittens were ready to come to our house several weeks ago. And the temperatures are getting hotter. And the work we have to do must be done with the windows open. And The Bearded One had the temerity to suggest that maybe we should close up the house and turn on the air conditioning and just forget about paint this weekend….
So I am taking a vacation day tomorrow so that I can begin sealing the floors with Kilz at 6 AM…I can get a couple of coats on before we need to chill the house!