Nothing Happens At Ten

I have spent too much time lately ranting about the Fallapartment. Hopefully that is all behind us now, and I can stop doing that and get back to the house.

Well, OK I lied. The wheel on the sliding door of the closet fell off and dropped the door onto the floor.

OK. Enough about that. Back to the house.

The reason that I have not blogged about the house recently is that I have not been over there since Tuesday. They were putting down the urethane varnish on the floor, and the fumes were stifling. It is dry now, and here are some photos:

Living room.

Kitchen.

Stairs.

It’s all shiny and new. There are two coats of urethane on the floors now. After the painters and plumbers are done they are going to put a third coat on. Then, the floors will be done.

In other developments, the toilets are completely installed.

And to answer that most important question… yes… they do flush..  yay…

But….

They have not been given the ultimate, final test yet because…. well there aren’t any doors on the bathrooms. Soon.

The faucets and drains are connected in the vanities.

And they actually work as well.

On Monday the kitchen counters arrive. Stay tuned.

Today’s adventure gives new meaning to the term, “Fallapartment“. When my wife came home this afternoon, this thing was waiting for her in the driveway.

It evidently had fallen off of the house in the wind, because there are no other buildings near the driveway, so it must have come from the Fallapartment.

So the Fallapartment, is quite literally, falling apart.

Hey! Got nails?

The result of driving over the unseen board was predictable.

Yep. A flat tire. And here is the little bugger that did it.

The rumor is we get to keep the nail as a special souvenir of the Fallapartment. Perhaps we can have it framed as a reminder not to ever do this ever again.

I tried turning the tire over and running it on the round side, but that didn’t work. So I had to swap it out for the spare…. in the dark…. in the rain…. uphill both ways…. no …. wait… that’s a different story. Anyway, I’m too old for this sh….. stuff.

Of course, the spare tire was flat…. and the jack was seized up. But we persevered and pumped up the spare and oiled the jack and got it done. The car is sitting nicely on its donut spare. Tomorrow we have an appointment at the shop to get the real tire fixed.

And now I have two questions.

1. How much is this going to cost us?
2. Can we get away with deducting it from the next rent check?

The heat went out last night in the Fallapartment. Just when we thought that we were finished with the heating-system-failure-in-the-dead-of-Winter problem, we found the temperature in the Fallapartment plummeting on Saturday night (this always happens on a weekend). As it went down through 63° – 62° – 61°… we called our heating guy to see if he could get it back for us.

Our heating guy is very good to us. He showed up on his Saturday evening to bail us out, even though this is not an address that he normally services. He had no part in the installation of the travesty that we found in the basement, but he fixed it anyway.

Here’s the back story.

I was concerned last week about the amount of oil in the tank, so I called to ask about it, and we came to the conclusion that all was well until next week, when I would schedule an oil delivery. I have been told that the top of the button on the float gauge is where the level of oil is in the tank. Here is the gauge from last night:

So, is it empty, or not? If you read the oil level at the top of the yellow button, we are good for another week or so. If you read the level at the bottom of the button, we are suckin’ on fumes.

Here’s a spoiler: You read the level at the bottom of the button.

As you can see, this ancient technology (a cork on a stick) is “highly accurate”… or not. I will never trust a dip stick ever again. This makes the fuel gauge in our real house

look like a well-designed, high-tech device.

The way to the heating system in the Fallapartment is down a winding stair that is pretty frightening. It starts out here:

As you turn the corner, you are confronted with this:

Notice the black hole on the far side of the stairway, where there is no wall to keep your foot from plummeting into the abyss. The stairs are slanty and uneven.

There is the hole on the right hand side. You must be sure of foot in this part of the stairs.

Turning the corner, you can see the tops of our stepladder and bicycles down at the bottom of the hole.

If you don’t slip and fall, you finally reach the bottom.

Looking back, here is the mess we just came down.

Cinder blocks; sort of glued together. Take a look at how this thing is constructed.

It is basically a pile of debris cemented together at a precarious angle. The angle that you see is not from a tilted camera. Look at the beam at the top of the photo; it goes straight across. The stairs really do lean like this.

But I digress. On to the oil tank. Here it is.

The smears of oil running down the sides of the tank are just special. Do you think it might be leaking? No wonder the basement stinks.

So, last night we called up our heating guy (who is a saint!) and he came out and rescued us. First he filled the tank with oil, then he had to unclog the fuel line to get us running again. Apparently, it had filled itself with sludge when it sucked the tank dry. Here is the fuel line he discovered:

It goes into the concrete floor, which is now illegal. This line should not have been used when they replaced the boiler last Winter because it violates the safety codes. Here is why.

That is a severely corroded pipe, disappearing into the basement floor. If that rots through, there will be a bad oil spill in the basement. There is nothing to prevent the entire tank of oil from siphoning into the basement. And it looks like it won’t be long now. How do you spell “EPA”?

And if we follow the line across the room to the boiler, we see:

The place where the fuel line comes back out of the floor, which is just about as corroded as it is at the other end.

I’m sure glad I don’t own this place. We are hoping that this inevitable disaster won’t happen until we are out.

Oh, and here is the fuel gauge after the tank was filled.

Yep. Bottom of the button. Who knew?

Speaking of moving out of this dump, they are supposed to start finishing the floors at our real house tomorrow. The appliances go in on Thursday. Can moving day be far behind? Soon! Soon!

Our builder came in today and put the crown molding on the kitchen cabinets. He also installed the hardware on the doors and drawers. Take a look at this!

That is where the stove goes. You can see that the range hood is installed and wired up as well. Our cabinets go all the way to the ceiling now that the fancy molding is installed. This is really gorgeous stuff!Here is a closeup of our handles.

The handles are brushed nickel. Very smooth and sleek.

If we turn around and look at the peninsula…

The upper cabinet will have glass doors. That is where our fancy glassware will go. But the very best is across the room, where the refrigerator will be.

Is that spectacular, or what? But wait! That isn’t all! Let’s look at this from a slightly different angle.

If you look closely, you can see another little surprise detail that our builder has left us. Look up at the very top, left corner. Here is a closer view.

He has added a tiny, little piece of molding, mitered into the top to make it wrap around right to the wall. Here is the piece, up close.



That is the coolest thing ever! This only gets better.

The guys were hard at work today putting in miscellaneous details. For example, they have started putting in the mantel for the fireplace.

They have also been working in the bathrooms. The vanity tops, faucets, and bowls are in.

Well, OK, they aren’t totally in, as you can see that the plumbing parts are still sitting on the top.

And also….. mostly important of all…… (drum roll, please)…..

The toilets that flush!

OK. Premature drum roll. You can see that the toilet isn’t hooked up either. But we can dream. But, while we have them out, here is a peek at the magic inside of them that makes them flush.

Oooo. Blue and red. I don’t think I have ever owned a toilet that had blue and red guts. The water comes in at the blue, and goes round and round at the red, and then goes out down here:

And that is as graphic as I am going to let this get.

Meanwhile, some of the closet rods are up.

And (another drum roll, please) the range hood is up.

Well, not quite hooked up yet, but that seems to be a theme tonight.

But notice that the under-cabinet lights are hooked up, and they are really nice. There are 5 units, each one individually settable to off/medium/high illumination and controlled together by a wall switch. Stuff to tinker with!

The door to the bulkhead is up.

And last, but not least, the counter top and upper cabinets in the laundry room are in.

That is a 9  1/2 foot counter! Cool.

Tomorrow is a holiday, but more of this work will continue on Friday.

Happy Thanksgiving, Everybody!

The upper cabinets were installed today. Here is the stove end of the kitchen.

The range hood goes between the two upper cabinets.

The refrigerator side.

And the peninsula side.

The cabinet over the peninsula will have glass doors and will hold our wine glasses and other glassware.

The lower cabinets have been installed. We now have the peninsula legs in place.

The top is just a piece of plywood right now, cut to the proper size so we can see what it will look like. When it is done, that will all be Cambria®.

From the dining area it looks like this:

The drawers on the left face the dining area, and will contain flatware, napkins, candle sticks and other stuff we need quick access to.

On the other side of the room, the refrigerator will be boxed in with panels next to the pantry.

So, where are the upper cabinets? In the dining room, of course.

We are planning on replacing that lighting fixture with something a bit more elegant before we move in.

The kitchen cabinets are out of their boxes and sitting in the kitchen. These should be installed by next week, ready for the counter top guys to make a template for the counters. Moving left to right, here are some photos of the cabinets:

The ones in the photo above go under the peninsula. The ones in the next photo go around and under the sink:

Turning to the right again, we have the cabinets that go around the stove.

The stove and the range hood go into the space between the cabinets.

Then, turning all the way around and looking in the other direction, we have the cabinets that go around the refrigerator.

The refrigerator goes in the hole between the pantry (the tall cabinet on the left) and the “command center”, where the telephone and cook books go.

Meanwhile, the stairs and railings are in, both downstairs

And upstairs

We also found this while we were snooping around:

The electric panel was open. I guess they are getting ready to finish the wiring. Look at all that stuff!