The news just keeps getting worse.
Yesterday the contractor ripped out the den walls and ceiling and found additional and extensive rot and live carpenter ant larvae indicating that the entire roof over that section of the house (underneath an upstairs deck) must come down. Blessed with sun today and tomorrow, my contractor rounded up extra help and they're up there removing all right now. I was up there just a few minutes ago, and I just want to cry.
On a brighter note, over the weekend we moved into the master bedroom: Bob's "big ass TV", the temporary kitchen--it's all up there, that's where we live now. And other than the fact that it's strange getting out of bed and not going anywhere, we're getting along fine as this shot of Bob, the herd and the new "pantry" indicates.
Meanwhile the windows (14 new ones) were all delivered and I'm totally not happy with them--the beads look like hell, like they were cut and installed by monkeys. To assuage me the manufacturer sent not the sales rep but some doofus repair guy out who showed me how these are all hand-cut and that's why they look so bad! I explained that miter boxes had been invented a long time ago to prevent such problems, and he said yahbut this company doesn't use them and neither to his knowledge does any other (he's worked for three)--it's all hand-done, and to his eye they passed the "ten foot rule", which he further explained meant that any problem not visible from ten feet away is okay. NO IT'S NOT OKAY, I said, before ordering him out of here and making livid phone calls to both the dealer I purchased these through and the window manufacturer itself who, amazingly, pretty much backed up the service guy. Yup, they do hand cut, no one knows why, yeah the rule applies, and she had no idea how they passed QA. I do--there IS no QA! I told them they're about to get all their windows back which they relayed to the local dealer who is going to come out today and do the inspection he should have done when they were delivered to him.
On a happier note, over the weekend I was at a friend's home for the Super Bowl and when I saw the folding door she has over her appliances, I realized I was about to get the same thing over my appliance bar and did not want it--it's nice looking but too conventional for this home. While laying awake later that night, I thought of the perfect thing to do instead: chain mail, a chain curtain. So I got on the phone yesterday and was able to locate a fireplace store in town that can get the kind of stainless steel material we need and custom fab the hanging/closure system.
