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...

Puppy Post!

The little dog and I went next door to play with the cute puppy this evening.

First I'd like to say that I don't have any pictures of the cute puppy, because I didn't bring my camera. Or my phone. I'm old. I just don't get the whole photograph-everything-and-share-it-with-the-world mentality. (Yes, I realize that one could make a snide comment about making such a statement on a public blog.)

So instead of a picture of the cute puppy, here's a picture of my little dog instead. It's not a particularly recent picture because 1) see above, and 2) every time I try to take a picture of her, she acts like I'm about to beat her, so I have about twenty pictures of an abused-looking dog, and then this one:

Anyhow, here's what the cute puppy did while we were there:

• Tried really, really hard to get Ginger to play with him. Ginger mostly ignored him, although she did get into play mode twice for about two seconds.
• Played fetch with me using a lemon (because he didn't have any toys for me to throw and the lemon was on the ground).
• Dug in the dirt.
• Dug in the compost pile.
• Dug in the gravel pile.
• Climbed into the chicken's (full) water bucket.
• Tried to get me to play fetch using a big piece of something he pulled from the compost pile. I declined. I wasn't born yesterday, puppy.
• Ate feathers blowing around the yard from the molting chicken.
• Ate chunks of the big piece of something he pulled from the compost pile.
• Tried to get Ginger to play with him some more.

A fun time was had by all, except possibly Ginger who was sitting at the gate waiting to go home.

October Begins

It has come to my attention that I've been neglecting my blog. Or to be more accurate, somebody noticed that I've been neglecting the blog. (I already knew.)

As everyone knows, the only way to make up for neglect is go overboard and spend all of your time with the neglected person/object. So I'm going to make an effort to blog daily all through October. That will help me prepare for NaNoWriMo next month. Building the writing muscle and all that.

Also, the fall television offerings have been a complete loss so far, so I should have extra time.

The good news is that I should have all kinds of things to blog about this month because the master bathroom remodel is scheduled to start on Monday and then it will be four weeks of surprises and disasters as my house is torn apart and put back together.

For example, I found out yesterday during the scheduled-but-nobody-told-me-about-it pre-construction meeting that they will be laying down a strip of heavy paper from the front door, through the living room, down the hall, and into the master bedroom in order to protect the hardwood floor. That would be great except for this:

Yes, that's Scooter. He's adorable. He also has a fetish for peeing on paper and plastic. So in his view they're about to put down a twenty-foot litterbox for him to use.

October ought to be just awesome.