Scheduling nightmares!

We had a little scheduling excitement this morning.   First a little background:  We had the brick mason,  Tommy, show up from Virginia Beach planning to point up the entire front steps. Unfortunately,  the front steps,  as well as the bottom 3 feet of the house and the stone aggregate patio and sidewalk all are in need of power washing.  I had already signed a contract with Jefftile to do the powerwash and he was waiting for a pleasant weekend.  Tommy couldn't do his work without powerwashing and so Fax told Tommy that Jefftile wouldn't mind and for Tommy to go ahead!  I protested...but I was torn because I really wanted to get the work done! Well,  Jefftile did mind (reached via cellphone,)   but Tommy was already on his way!  So~~Monday found Tommy and 2 cronies outside (42 temp. but sunny) washing away that awful black mold that supposedly was a gift from Mexico.  (Is that how rumors get started?)  Jefftile calmed down and said he would be here on Wednesday with the plumber (Nick) to begin putting back the tile shower.  Tommy was supposed to come back this morning (Tuesday,) to finish the power wash and fix the front steps.  The phone rang early Tuesday morning and it was Nick,  the plumber,  saying he and Jefftile would be coming within the hour instead of Wednesday.  Fax didn't want Tommy and Jefftile to run into eachother (plus there was the logistic problem of the men working inside needing to use the front steps while they were being worked on...) so he made me call Tommy and ask him not to show up today!  Tommy took that pretty well...but sounded confused.  The good news is that Jefftile and Nick were here and are not returning until next week.  Fax called Tommy to apologize for asking him not to make the scene and Tommy and his entourage are coming tomorrow and finishing up this week.  Phew!  First no one shows up and then there is a giant bottleneck at the front door!  And lots of trucks in the driveway!   Speaking of the driveway...the new garage doors are in and they look...new...and now we even have motion sensors so we don't accidentally squash our geriatric cats!

Moving right along,  I completely finished painting all of Mackey's room on Sunday and have only one more coat of trim paint to do in the laundry room.  I think the laundry room looks rather charming.  When it is finished I will post a picture of it.  Oh that reminds me:  the sanded wallpaper paste walls came out great!  I used Benjamin Moore primer and it did feel tacky like there was some paste still adhering to the wall,  but I didn't let the roller lag and it came out flat.  The final coat of Linen White looks fine.   It certainly makes me feel more optimistic about removing the downstairs bathroom wallpaper (and the residue aftermath) later this week!

Well,  so far I am batting 100%!  The brick mason loved the entry hall floor also.  He even reached down to feel it and marveled over it!  He is coming back this week to point up the rather large brick stoop at the front door.  I had never thought of redoing the whole thing but it does make sense....especially since Fax decided he would do it.  (An impossibility.)  It looks like most of the joints need mortar again,  but what an expense!  I feel there isn't much we won't have touched and repaired or painted or whatever in getting this house to market.  

Things seem to finally be coming together.  In fact,  the plumber,  the tiler, the electrician,  garage door installers and installers for 2 other doors and who knows who else are all converging here this week!  My dear, late Father-in-law would have called it a "whole Flotilla!"  Just the thought of it makes me nervous,  but I will be busy painting inside.

It never ceases to amaze me what a difference a fresh coat of paint can make in a room.  I painted my oldest son's room yesterday...basically the same color,  Linen White with Bone trim,  (exciting,  huh?) and it looks so much brighter and warmer.  At least it made me feel like it was worth the effort when I finished and gave myself a (tired) pat on the back.  His room is referred to as the Bonus Room over the garage.  I took one look at where he possibly would be located (near a full bath) and asked the RE Agent if she had a contract with her.  He was such a nightowl that I spent 2 years looking for a house with a bedroom for him far removed from the rest of us!  (It also took that long for our house in No.Va. to sell,  so I saw plenty of houses to help me know what to look for.)  So,  here it is now~practically empty and more tidy than it has been in years....waiting for the next teenager!  I should mention that he is the Lead Programmer for the Computer Game "Call of Duty" and much of the work was done right here at the computer in his room!   He is someone who has followed his dreams since he was 5 years old and hooked on Miss Pacman!

Enough reminiscing...what I want to say is that I had a task ahead of me which I dreaded:  scraping wallpaper paste off the walls!   In an earlier life I spent weeks at a time removing hideous flakes of paper off Victorian hogs hair plaster walls with a razor blade.  (And other methods I don't even want to recall.)  But nothing had prepared me for 1980's wallpaper which "pulls off easily leaving a film for the new layer of wallpaper!"  Well,  what if you don't want wallpaper?  What if you want nothing more than a nice,  smooth,  painted wall???  The film does not come off easily.  In various rooms it didn't come off without lots of wallpaper remover and razor blades (again,) and sand paper.  Its a messy,  horrid~~strenuous job and I still had a laundry room and the downstairs bath room to do!  So I said to myself,  "Self...what are you going to do?  You don't have a week to spend on each of these rooms!!!"  Well!  I decided to grab my electric hand sander and have at!  And it worked!  (At least I think it worked!)  In less than an hour the walls in the laundry room were silky smooth.  Now,  I don 't know if I dare wet them to see if any more paste is left to create havoc...I am thinking that tomorrow I will try some primer and see what happens.  But all I can add is "Phew!  That wasn't even very messy!'  Full "steam" ahead!!!

Shower stall demolition and a trip to NC

I have had quite a few house days,  lately.  I started out Friday morning expecting the Tile man (Jefftile) to show up and demolish the master bathroom tile shower.  He said he'd be there by 10 but about 10 he called to say he couldn't make it.  Did I mind?  Now,  I would like to get this show on the road and over with....so,  I guess you could say I did mind.  I had plans to be away and not involved,  but he was making me nervous that I would have to be there and hear it all!  He promised to show up on Sunday at 10 and begin.  Fax was very disappointed.  He wanted to be the extra helper and carry all the rubble out for Jefftile and he promised he wouldn't ruin my floors. (Hand grainpainted about 6 years ago.)  (Everyone who comes in the front door...including Jefftile...exclaims:  These floors are beautiful!) So,  when I left on Friday I was afraid there would be more delays.  But, I went my merry way,  leaving Fax in charge to pay for the replacement Patio Door and exterior utility door that Lowes people are installing.  I also crossed my fingers that Jefftile would show up on Sunday.

I drove down...or across the state towards NC,  actually into NC to check on a friend's house for sale in a very charming town near the Va. border:  Warrenton, NC.  I have looked at her house more than a few times.  It has been for sale awhile.  It is charming,  the neighborhood is quiet, it has covenants on it from PreservationNC.  It has a drop dead gorgeous outbuilding with an early fireplace to absolutely die for.  It has a huge protected oak tree with enough acorns in the fall to feed a mountainload of squirrels and their mothers!!!  And...if having a historic house for sale isn't enough for you,  she also has a huge, fantastic historic shop for sale right on Main Street next to the Court House!!!  I just wish I could make a leap of faith and jump across that stateline!!!  I have wonderful Austro-Swiss 19th century oil paintings that would make a great backdrop in part of her shop if it were a little bistro with blue and white check tablecloths....ah well...I have eaten some very nice meals in Warrenton.  Last fall I treated my friend and the real estate agent to lunch and the entire bill was $17.00!!!  How does that restaurant make enough to pay its bills?  Whoo...I have really gotten off the subject of Jefftile!!! 

I had better make the rest of my weekend another post for another day...  Suffice to say that the weather was beautiful,  despite cold and rainy being called for.  I dug up 5 of the boxwood like hollies I had planted last year at my little house (a shame,  but they had already grown too large for their location,)  and loaded them in the van for the trip back to the 'burg,  where they will replace Fax's blueberry bushes along the patio in the "real" house's back yard.  Next trip I will remove the rest,  if they are needed,  and I think they will be.

So,  back at the 'burg I wondered if Jefftile made the scene...The floors looked OK...nothing looked amiss,  Fax didn't look anymore bedraggled than usual.  Yes,  he said that he was feeling extremely bedraggled.  Jefftile had arrived that morning and the shower was demolished!!!  Fax got to be his right hand man and the rubble was carried out from upstairs bucket by bucketful and deposited in Jefftile's special Trashed Van.  Jefftile's work was very tidy!  I was impressed.  There were only a few,  easy to repair gouges in the drywall on the ceiling and it looked as though he didn't really have to tear up the floor outside the shower at all,  except that I know he wants to.   The leakage area was not that large and there was no rotten or soft wood.  It is such a shame (and expense,) that so much had to be demolished to make it look and work OK once again.  Oh well!  One step down,  more to follow!

You can teach an old cat new tricks

This is about the oldest cat at my house: Piggy, almost 20 years old. He was one of 3 kittens born at Easter, 1989, in my oldest son's closet...and according to an old video of his kittenhood: he was the first to purr! I showed his mother the closet a few days before she gave birth and I always thought it sweet that she took my advice and produced 2 boys and a girl~just like I did!!!

Somehow we ended up keeping all three kittens and even added one more (Coati, who is about to be 19,) but this is a story of Piggy in his dotage. (I'll get to that part in a moment~)

Piggy was a handsome boy, sleek and black. When he was born he had a fat, round nose like a snout--thus his name. I always said it made him easy to call because I could just yell, "Piggy! Here Pig! Here Pig! Pig!!! Soouu EEEE!!!"

He didn't care for it AT ALL when we had him altered.  He was furious! I guess it was why he punished us there after by whizzing "Maleness" all over the house.  He was always being admonished and thrown outside.  He loved us anyway...and we loved him.  He also loved visiting neighbors.  I was at a wedding once when a woman I didn't know was telling about a black cat who suddenly appeared in her kitchen while she was on the phone and scared her to death by rubbing against her leg.  I didn't have to ask, "Where do you live?"  I knew.   When we moved a few blocks away the new owner called me up to say our big black cat was trying to get in his new house.  He held the phone down to him and said, "Piggy, your mother wants to talk to you.  She says come back home!!!"

He also had a thing about cars: Our contractor once drove a few miles only to discover Piggy sitting in his back seat.  Sometimes he took his mother with him.  No one left their car windows open in our yard for long!!!   I attended an evening funeral during Halloween week with a friend who really dislikes cats~(Now, how could she be my friend?)  She nearly drove off the road when she realized she had an unwelcome passenger~~and a black cat at that!  Her van came screeching around the corner:  Open door!  Exit Cat!!!

Its a shame that pets get old,  too.  He might have aged pretty well if it weren't for the fact that when he was about 17 he accidentally got run over in the driveway. (Still hanging around cars~but not to his advantage.)  Luckily, it was a pretty light car~ but it did squish his hips together and make him more than slightly crooked when he walks.  I don't know how he ever recovered at all, but I guess it was the morphine.   The main problem was that it made him even more incontinent.  We really couldn't let him run roughshod around the house anymore.

So, in order to allow him to come in, Fax turned a plastic storage tub on its side so that Piggy could stay in it and have supervised visits.  Except that he didn't want to stay in it.  And we'd forget he was there and he'd jump down, fall over...and have an "accident."  It was depressing that we couldn't get him to stay in the tub, but he really didn't care for it.  Plus, if you picked him up and held him...and he started purring...that often made a whole lot of trouble to clean up all across the floor or even on your clothes!!!  It was becoming a big catsize disaster!!!  What to do???

This winter, though, he seemed to catch on.  Maybe because it was a very cold winter he decided to cooperate.  He has an electric heating pad to sleep on in the garage, and a heater, but he still wanted to be inside...and we like to see him, so he began to not give us any trouble about staying in the tub.  Fax usually will say,  "Piggy is coming in. He knows the rules...he has to stay in the tub." I shake my head and say, "He doesn't seem to know the rules." Fax replies, "Piggy knows the rules." (We have deep conversations like this all the time.)  The other morning Fax brought in the tub, put it in a chair with a view and then brought in Piggy.  Just as they got to the chair Piggy jumped from his arms and settled into the tub!  I was surprised..and impressed that Piggy could even jump anymore...and into the tub of all things!!! A little while later I took the dogs out to walk and get the morning paper. I suddenly remembered that Piggy was alone in the house!! Oh Drat!!! I rushed back in but~ too late!   There was Piggy already in the middle of the kitchen floor!  But how about this:  As soon as he laid eyes on me he reversed face and did something that resembled a crab scurrying sideways.  He managed to hurry right across the room and jump back into the storage tub on the chair all on his own!!!  Proving~~ that he not only knew the rules,  but also~ that you can teach a very old cat new tricks!!!

Daytripping to Smithfield

Today was cold...freezing...but sunny! Just the day to slip in a trip to Smithfield before the warm weather arrives this week end. (I hope it comes as promised!)

I can't resist looking for my next project and the Internet Real Estate sections certainly feed that habit! Last Friday, on my way from here to there, I decided to swing through Smithfield and check out whether I really liked the house I had made an offer on a bit ago. The couple who own it had verbally countered, but I don't know...and driving by I felt I had made the right decision to forget about it. As I was driving off I noticed that an Antique shop I frequent on Main Street had a For Sale sign out front! It turned out I was the first to spy it! The owner, a retired Marine showed me around. He and his wife have owned it 12 years and it is named after his wife and their small (old) black lab.

The house is a turn of the century frame Victorian Duplex and chock a block full of you name it! I took a picture or two but I have to learn how to use this new camera so I can post pictures....Drat!!! While I was there I bought an Imari plate, a Chandelier, a pillow, some treen...all for resale. The price is reasonable, the house is 3000 sq. ft. If it weren't a shop, though, it would be a dump...I don't know why I wanted to go in it again, but I wanted Fax to see it. The weather is supposed to turn nice this weekend for awhile and I knew I would want to concentrate on working on the house here. So off we went! With the 2 dogs...Kujo, a Pomeranian (9) and Bonzai, a Bark-a-minute-Papillon, (10). Plus Fax's cat: Pungo,1...in his crate. Pungo is a very good Crate Cat!

The drive to Smithfield is along the Colonial Parkway...always a beautiful 45 mph highway...unless a hurricane has just passed through! Then you hook up with the ferry to Surry County at Jamestown. We hit the ferry departure just right...I told Fax he was lucky because I would have ranted (and blamed him!) for 20 minutes if we hadn't! The downside of the ferry is that the car engine has to be turned off and it can get right cold on a day like today! At least we got the sunny side of the ferry this time!!! I had my hat and gloves on though!

There are many birds to see while riding the ferry... seagulls, of course, but also hundreds of cormorants and quite a few brown pelicans, which weren't local at all 25 years ago! Soon there will be Osprey arriving to build nests on the pilings. We dozed in the sunshine, but I woke up just in time to see a bald eagle sitting right at eye level on a guide buoy or piling! I see bald eagles all of the time these days (even had a twitterpated couple checking out my pine trees for a nesting site last week,) but it is the first time I have seen one sitting...not doing anything...just sitting there~looking around~with the ferry going by.

In Smithfield I gave Fax a little tour of the houses for sale and their prices..(his second visit and now he can tell I go for the lower end of the spectrum)... and then we stopped by the shop. I like it, but I don't think it will work out. I am too much of a perfectionist to put up with the sloping floors and the spaces feel tight. Many little rooms all filled to the brim with things for sale and NOT for sale...old lamp shades everywhere, empty boxes...there are shelves built over the tubs and toilets and sinks and some of the rooms are not used at all. It has potential...but maybe for someone else to realize! I tell Fax that I still prefer Warrenton, NC. Since that town is 150 miles away he is quick to point some of Smithfield's charms...waterfront and a mere 32 miles with a 20 minute ferry ride in the middle! (Just enough time to pluck my eyebrows!) I'm not sure I want to have a shop again at this time in my life: I like restoring houses. I figure I can be a captive audience again someday when I am in my eighties. That way I'll never be lonely, but for now....hmmm...well! We'll see!

There is a nice footnote: Smithfield pretty much restored its Main Street area about 10 years ago. It was fun driving down the street at dusk and seeing the shop keepers closing up for the night. I pulled up in front of a beautiful shop and pointed out a display piece that I had sold from my booth in the antique mall. All of the houses seemed to sparkle and spring to life and we could even see in the windows! Now that is something you don't get every day in Suburbia!