I knew I hadn’t posted in a very long time. Tonight I looked back at my last post. I said I figured by the third week of September I could relax and look out the window.
Didn’t happen.
Tonight is Wednesday, six weeks since my marriage and three weeks since my last post. I guess three weeks is my thing nowadays . . .
What happened? Saturday the 1st we got possession of the house after the tenants left. We had agreed the carpet had to go and had bought some bamboo flooring. It was supposed to be delivered that day. The delivery people were supposed to call me the night before and tell me when I could expect them. Didn’t happen. In the morning I started calling the store. No answer. Are they closed for Labor Day?? Eventually Sepi got through to someone on the corporate help line but they couldn’t get through to the store either.
Meanwhile, I pressed ahead with the removal of the old carpet. About 5 o’clock, a truck pulled up with the flooring. They had had to make a delivery in Sacramento, they said. It was ok as now I had some bare floor for them to put it on.
Well, not really bare as we discovered. Staples from 2 iterations of carpet pad were everywhere. Some of the floor leveling was still there and usable but much more had to be done. At first I was trying to leave the baseboard attached to the wall but eventually I realized I was going to have to have it off to put the floor in.
The next day, Sunday, I could barely move. In fact, beginning that day I’ve been beating my body up almost every day. Knees, back, shoulders, hands. Everything hurts. The days I went to work instead of working on the house I had to run conduit in the Davies attic. More kneeling and clambering over things. The wood had to ‘acclimate’ in the house for a week before I could start laying it.
When I started to lay it out, I immediately discovered that the long wall was not perfectly straight. I got hung up on worrying about some fractions of inches in a couple of spots. I thought maybe I should start on the other side of the room. I laid planks down across the room to see where the came out. I called the guy at the store who had said he would come over and give me some pointers. Now he’s too busy . . . All the videos I had watched showed the planks being cut with a chop saw so I went out and rented one. The rental place didn’t help me get the saw blade on so I broke it turning the mounting bolt the wrong way. No manual was supplied.
I thrashed around like this for two days. Finally, one of Sepi’s friends, a contractor, came by and offered to loan me a small power hand saw. He said to not worry about the accuracy of the cuts as they were going to be under the baseboards. He also told me to not stress over a few gaps. He also said he thought it was a ‘4 or 5 day’ job. I had thought one or two! The next morning, Chris E came over. She reminded me that, ‘Perfect is the enemy of the good,’ and suggested I get going.
So I did.
I got the big room and the front bedroom mostly done by Friday the 14th. I had originally wanted to have the whole thing finished by the 11th or 12th leaving plenty of time to finish packing my apartment and move carefully. Nope. It was another Saturday blitz.
Jack and Julian had already helped with the carpet staples. They were ready for the big move but Julian hurt his shoulder. Jack’s friend Dante came through for the morning along with the the Solano family van. Because the floor wasn’t done, we hadn’t been able to touch Sepi’s stuff in the garage because there was nowhere to put her things. I had to be very creative about where I put my things. We had some – mostly civil – discussions about what memorabilia were appropriate to keep. I promised I would review everything critically but for now I had to move it. People who had said they would come and get my old bed didn’t show up. Sepi and I had both thought we could get done by early afternoon. We closed out the apartment at 9 pm by putting the bed by the dumpster with a free sign on it. I sent messages to everyone who had expressed interest to come and get it. Some things that in other circumstances would have gone to Goodwill went into the dumpster. My car was full and it was dark and I wasn’t going to make another trip.
Sunday we just vegged. We talked at one point about going to a movie but neither of us really wanted to leave the house. Monday I had to go back to work and Monday night was jazz band. Yesterday some things happened at work and I had to stay a couple hours overtime unexpectedly. I collapsed into bed about 9. Tonight, Sepi’s contractor friend agreed to loan me his pin stapler so I could start putting baseboards back on. I got the bedroom about 90% done. I got the bookcase in from the deck and hung the closet doors. The is not as high as the carpet was so the old baseboard shows some of my board ends. I’m not sure now how I will deal with that.
Actually, I decided to let it ride until daylight and write this post. I have some pictures but I can’t remember where I put them. Another time.