Day Twenty

This morning got off to a hectic start for Tammy as she had just gotten out of the shower and was trying to get coffee on while a neighbor was phoning, concerned that there was a truck with a load of sheetrock outside our house. Tammy figured she should back her car out of the garage in case the guys wanted to offload through there. She went to back her car out of the garage to make room for them to offload the sheetrock but in the process she forgot to close her car door and it caught on the side of the garage and pushed her car door out of whack. She phoned me at work to see if I knew how to reach Dan and to tell me about the car. I could tell she was feeling stressed but I was just going into the sector and she would have to wait until I was on break in an hour or so. I gave her Dan's celphone but she wasn't able to reach him. When I got on break I phoned her and found that the house alarm was now going off and it couldn't be silenced. I took the rest of the day off to see if I could help calm the waters at home.

I got home a little before 10:00 and checked out the car. You could see where the top of the door was bowed out and it no longer seated flush. I met Tammy inside and I could tell right away that she was in need of a hug. She had a few tears and she was very embarrassed. I told her about a friend at work who did a very similar thing except he caught his door on a tree. Dan sent me to Apple Valley Collision where they had me in and out in 10 minutes. They had a few guys in back push the bowed part back into place and unless you look closely it's pretty hard to tell. I tried to pay them but they said not to bother. I made sure they knew that Dan sent me and I headed home to try and relieve Tammy's worries. There's a bit of an air leak now and you have to use a bit more force when closing the door but other than that it's okay.

It's time for some humor before I go any further. Turn up your speakers and click here.

I arrived home to find a crew of guys offloading sheetrock through the front door and into the basement. Dan uses two different thickness of sheetrock. He uses the normal thickness in the walls but beefs up the ceilings by using 5/8 so it helps reduce noise between the upper and lower levels. Dan and John finished insulating the ceiling and then worked on hooking up the cable tv wires and the new 8 way amplified splitter I bought. Toby and Allie watched. They got it all hooked up only to find that the reception was a bit sucky. We figured it was the damp air and a bad splice at the cable box outside. I've got Charter Cable coming out tomorrow to redo the splice with one which is meant for the outdoors as the one that's in there now isn't.

Dan mentioned to Tammy that he's got a rip in the upholstery of his truck and wondered if she has any experience fixing something like that. We went out to take a look at it and decided what the heck...let's give it a go. I think we can fix that...with stress being put on the word 'think'. No guarantees here. We went out and got one of those leather/vinyl repair kits and brought the seat cover downstairs to put some light on it. As of this writing we've completed 4 of 9 steps and we should know in a couple hours if the project was a success of a bitter failure.

I scanned some photos of the laminate samples we picked out last weekend. Here's a sample of the counter tops we'll be using in the kitchenette, bar and the bar top on the half wall. Keith didn't have an extra sample of the laminate we picked out for the bathroom but it's kinda cool...it's got a very subtle fallen leaf pattern on it. We found this sample in Keith's laminate selection which very closely resembles the hardwood floors which will be going in Rachel's dance room.

We're still waiting while the electrical inspector lords his power over us. We need him back for a quick 2 minute inspection but he's still apparently upset that we missed our initial appointment with him yesterday and we are going to pay and pay and pay...sir, yes sir! We were hoping to begin rocking the project tomorrow but now it won't be till sometime Thursday at the earliest..after the re-inspection. I suppose the lull gives Dan and John time to do some putzy stuff such as the central vac hookup which they've got planned for tomorrow...and a bit more time to play with the pups.