inside the cotton gin

[the_siobhan]

It's been raining a lot this past month, and the "raining inside the house" problem that we've been dealing with in the kitchen has escalated to "bringing chunks of wet plaster down with it". So that's been fun.

Progress that has been made so far:
1. An energy audit - There is a small federal grant for doing work that lowers your carbon footprint, and since we'll be adding tons of insulation, we'll definitely qualify. This requires somebody to come in and measure the heat loss before and after the work.
2. A meeting with the contractor where he gave us a starting quote and it was ENTIRELY REASONABLE holy shit.

The contractor also hooked us up with a guy to do the survey - who actually returned my calls and took my money, something I've been trying to make happen for six fucking months. Step 3. is he does his thing, then 4. the engineer that works with the contractor finishes the drawing and sends them to the city, then 5. the city issues the permits. So maaaaybe mid-November for shovels in the ground.

In the meantime we've been pulling the kitchen apart and trying to clean out the cupboards. All the food items are being turned as much as possible into freezer meals so we can just slap food into the microwave for dinner, but even so. The new battle cry of the Gin Palace has become, "Why the fuck do we have three of these?"

We're also moving a ton of the furniture around to make room so we can set up stuff like the coffee maker, microwave and maybe a hot plate in the living room. Our couch has been decimated by the cats, so out it goes... as soon as we can catch a day when it's not raining.

So that's this week's excuse as to why I'm not posting much.

Comments

[runcible]

There is nothing that quite reveals the fallibility of the human mind like cleaning out the pantry. "I don't see it" quickly becomes "we don't have any" which is how you end up with three jars of yellow mustard well past the use-by date, and other fun discoveries.

I'm throwing mojo your way over this stage. Kitchen reno's are a special, special tightrope of keeping your eyes on the prize while eating out of the microwave section of the store. Glad it sounds like you've got good contractor energy going! Hope it stays that way!

[greylock]

which is how you end up with three jars of yellow mustard well past the use-by date, and other fun discoveries

I cannot stress how good a thing this is to discover. Because discovering expired mustard with one's mouth is "sub-optimal". I discovered this the hard way.

[the_siobhan]

I have had a few of those discoveries. Do not like, 0 stars, would not recommend.

[greylock]

Sometimes, when I think about it, I can still taste it.

[the_siobhan]

Axel and I merged households, and then Darrell moved in, and we each one of us had mugs, coffee makers, can openers, swords...

The list goes on.

[greylock]

Tradies... who return calls, and deliver reasonable quotes?

What dark magic is this?

I think I've seen the kind of heat loss surveys you're talking about in Grand Designs. It's keen.

[the_siobhan]

Getting recommends from neighbours is how we got to this point. Nothing beats word of mouth.

[lil_m_moses]

Wishing you patience and and continued good contractor luck!

[the_siobhan]

Thanks!

I should really take before and after pics.

[lil_m_moses]

I had the inspection on the new house today, and *knocks on all the wood* it might actually not be a money pit like the last one!!!

[armiphlage]

What kind of insulation?

[the_siobhan]

We have rock wool in the rest of the house, and I'd like to use that in the kitchen as well because it's a great fire retardant. Supplies are low right now though, because it's mined and a lot of the mines were shut down until recently so we'll have to see if we can get it.

[armiphlage]

I want to use rock wool too - I'll be interested to hear your experiences with retrofitting with it.

[the_siobhan]

The rest of our house has already been re-done with rock wool, and I can highly recommend it.

Easier on the contractors too, it doesn't leave fibres in the skin the way fibreglass does.

[elusis]

Kitchen drawers are were doohickeys go to breed. I'm sure of it.

We can't get calls back even when we go through online services, Angie's List, personal referrals, nothing. Which is good as we didn't start a multi-tens-of-thousands reno on our kitchen which, looking at our finances today, is probably best put off a couple of years, but is frustrating when all we want is, like, some electrical fixtures changed out.

We're going to a couple of live shows in upcoming weeks that I figure you'd likely enjoy. Nation of Language tomorrow night and IDLES in a couple of weeks.

[the_siobhan]

Live shows! I remember those!

[elusis]

Me too! Sort of. We've been to a few outdoors but this will be our first indoor shows since probably the Peter Murphy residency in SF. (Ironically I dug out that shirt last night to wear to hear NoL do a DJ set at a bar/restaurant, without really thinking of the connection.)

I'm nervous. But I have my booster, so we're gonna give it a shot and hope people are good with mask discipline.

[beaq]

passing ♥, hope it goes well.