The Scooter Spot

 This is Scooter (sleeping):


In the cat safe room he has

• Two window sills
• Two large cat trees
• Three litter boxes
• One cat carrier (which is a prized spot for the cats since all of them were bottle-babies who were carted back and forth to school in a carrier)
• An empty chest
• A large box with blankets

This room should be cat heaven. It looks so cozy, I want to spend my days in there.

And this is the 12 inch by 6 inch spot where he spends his days (with the closet door closed):

There's really only so much I can do...

Day 5: I Really Can Complain About Anything

So my front door hasn't closed or opened easily for... oh, maybe a year or two, I'm not really sure. I guess at some point it sagged and wasn't lined up with the frame. I got used to lifting up on the knob and throwing my shoulder against it, so all that I really noticed was the shriek of metal on metal if I didn't lift it high enough. And I only noticed that if it was late at night.

It only took the contractors three days before that annoyed them enough that they stopped for a few minutes and fixed it.

And boy is it fixed. It's got a perfectly equal margin all the way along the frame. It closes like a dream, and when I open it there's no resistance so I have a hard time believing it was really closed in the first place.

The only problem, and I really hate to mention it, is that now it closes so easily that it can also be slammed really easily. Not the "I hate you so I'm storming out of the room and you'd better notice!" slam, but the "I just need to go grab some other tool from the truck and I'll let the door close behind me" slam. My house's construction being what it is, walking out the door and letting the door close behind you shakes the entire frame.

Yeah, today was spent: working...[slam]...working...[slam]...[slam]..working...[slam].

They need to stop randomly fixing things.

Day Four: I Can't Think Of A Clever Title

Good news! No more hole in the wall into the other bathroom. Also, no more hole in the floor. This picture is looking from the master bedroom into what will be the master bathroom. The other bathroom is on the other side of that nice new wall.

No more ugly wallpaper. (And the room isn't really any more cluttered than it was when my stuff was in there.)

Of course, now there's a hole in the ceiling.

 The hallway no longer has two doors to bungee together to keep Guido out since one is gone completely.

However, Brandon, the site manager, has taken on the challenge. I'm pretty sure he thinks I'm insane, but he's been figuring out ways to keep the unlockable door closed, like this:

In other news, Scooter spent his third consecutive day in the closet. Unfortunately that's where I put everything that I didn't want him to have access to. So... yeah, my planning was a little off.

It's been a little noisy, but really the only thing that bothered me is when they started playing The Beatles. Next time I need to write some music limits in the contract...

Day 3: Yeah, Sure, Go Ahead

Things are settling into a routine, more or less. It really is amazing how easy it is to concentrate on work despite the noise. At one point there was a band saw going, a compressor driving a nail gun, and then a fire truck passed by so Ginger started howling along. I think I know why my next door neighbors went to Reno for a couple of days.

The great thing about having a house with two bathrooms is that you can remodel one while still having the other available. The old linen closet in the big bathroom is being sacrificed to make a space for the shower in the other bathroom, but they've had the closet doors taped shut for the last few days to keep down the dust.

Today I was working along and the Diet Coke finally made its way through me. They'd had the water off for a while earlier in the day so I asked the guy working in the hallway if it was okay to use the bathroom. "Sure," he said, "go ahead."

So I went into the bathroom and carefully closed the door behind me.

And only then noticed that the linen closet doors had been removed, so I had a great view of the other bathroom and the master bedroom (nicely lighted by work-lamps) through the four foot wide hole in the wall of the bathroom.

Maybe I could move into my neighbors' garage for a while...

Day 2: Obviously We Just Need More Tape

So I told my contractor the story of Guido outsmarting me with the doors, and he laughed. And then he left the hall doors like this today when he was done:

He seems to think that's going to stop Guido. I'm just hoping that the sound of ripping tape will give me enough warning to stop the little bastard before he gets through the hole in the floor on the other side.

In other news that should shock nobody given everything else that has gone on with the house, it turns out that when the house was built there was no hot mopping done to protect the floor beams under the shower from water. Hence the new hole in the floor.

Also, Scooter managed to get stuck in the closet in the cat safe room today. I don't know about that cat...

Bathroom Remodel, Day 1: It Begins

Have you ever had that dream where you suddenly realize that there's an extra door in your house, and you explore that other part of your home that you never noticed in five years of living there? Yes? Well don't tell me about it. Nobody wants to hear anybody else's dreams. Even your therapist makes you write them down in a journal so they don't have to listen to it.

Anyhow, I locked up the cats and the dog before I left for work, and when I came home my bedroom was missing a wall and was suddenly 25% bigger. Very surreal.

As you know, I've spent a lot of time trying to keep the furry denizens of the home safe and sane during this remodel. Below you can see the thick cardboard (held down by blue tape) that the contractor put down to protect the hardwood floors. And halfway up the picture, just behind Ripley's butt, you can see the roll of heavy plastic that I've put down to protect the thick cardboard that is protecting the hardwood floors. Because Scooter...

Here is what has gone on since I've been home:

• Before letting the cats out of their panic room, I went to change the door knob on the master bedroom because Guido can open the lever knobs, so I was going to swap it out for a round knob to keep him out of the construction area. Then I realized that the new knob included the little strip of metal that fits into the outside of the door so you can unlock it after your two year old locks itself in the bedroom. I didn't need to change the door knob -- I could just lock the existing knob from the outside and shazam, I was done!
• I let the cats out.
• Ripley immediately started trying to eat the duct tape I had used to secure the protective plastic floor covering. Nothing deters him. He's obsessed.
• Scooter nonchalantly wandered the hallway looking for a good spot. So far he hasn't done anything, but the night is still young.
• It took Guido about two minutes to realize that the bedroom door might be locked, but the hallway closet door (which doesn't have a lock) now goes into the bedroom. I had access to the construction plans and looked at the bedroom and this never occurred to me. If he had opposable thumbs Guido would take over the world.
• Crow is now my favorite cat.
• Ginger is tired, by which I infer that she spent the whole day barking and throwing herself at the door. But maybe I'm wrong. (I'm not wrong.)
• I've blocked the formerly-known-as-a-closet door in the hallway for the night, but tomorrow I guess I get to replace a door knob after all. *shakes fist* Damn you, Guido!

Now I just need to make sure everyone is back in their safe places by 7am...

Did You Miss Me?

Wow, I was really on a roll there for a whole two days. Still, that's one day longer than 99% of the blogs on blogger. Go ahead, do a random search.  Most of them end with a post that says something like "Gosh, I've been neglecting the blog lately. I'm going to make it a point to do regular updates from now on!" And then there is nothing more.

I've spent the last two days emptying out closets. During the bathroom remodel the gigantic linen closet in the bathroom is going to become part of the shower in the other bathroom, and the hall closet and what was the furnace closet are going to be re-purposed. My original plan was just to take the stuff within those three and chuck it all in the closet in the master bedroom. But I decided to have them install a light and re-paint the bedroom (since the ceiling and wall will be torn up anyhow), so then I had to also empty out the master bedroom closet.

A lot of the stuff just got shoved into the garage, but I did go through some boxes in the hall closet. Here's what I learned:

• Damn, I'm a terrible photographer. I had roll after roll of poorly lighted blurry pictures of things that aren't completely in the frame. Seriously. It's embarrassing. And why was I even keeping all of those?
• I have a one pound note from the Bank of Scotland.
• I need to stop buying Christmas lights just because they're on sale. I don't even decorate for Christmas. What is my problem?

I solved the storage problem by throwing most of it out. (I kept the one pound note and the Christmas lights though, just in case.)

Anyhow, tomorrow starts the adventure of trying to round up four cats into one room. It's like managing programmers or something...