Slowly...

Things are slowly coming together.

The trades work (electrical, plumbing, etc) is slowly getting done. I thought it was supposed to be complete a few weeks ago but there's still evidence of more work being done on it.  I stop by the house frequently just to make sure I see progress somewhere and I'm happy to report that most of the time I do see something done.  The back porch is framed out like an actual back porch and that's awesome.  It's never looked so nice.  The little metal overhang that was an afterthought for covering the grill now is an extension of the roof and actually goes all the way down to the door of the porch so the dogs will have a dry place to stand when they want back in the house.  I'll be able to get wood for the fireplace without getting wet and we'll be able to grill with actual overhead lights instead of me trying to guess in the dark or juggle a flashlight while I flip burgers.  The pantry has windows on the back wall and they look fantastic.  They're actually centered and will bring in a little more light.  I ordered the shelving units and pantry cabinet and we managed to get them into the house this week too.  The front porch has been stripped in preparation for new screen - this reminds me that I need to ask my contractor if I can paint the posts before the new screen goes up.

Did I mention about the septic problems?  I can't remember now and if I've already posted about it then I guess I'm going to post about it twice.  When we had the bulldozer out to move the tree the guy went back just a little too far and broke the lid on the septic tank.  I had the septic guy out this week to pump the tank and he'll be back out Monday or Tuesday to fix the tank and put on a new lid.

I know I didn't mention about the well problem.  The well pump isn't spinning up probably because it has been sitting idle for three months with no power.  They ran a line out to the well house to give it some juice and the motor just hums.  The contractor doesn't want to touch it because it's not part of the original scope and if he touches it and can't get it working then he'd have to replace it.  This means that as soon as we can get real power out there I need Rich to go over and see if he can get the motor spinning again.  If not, it's another well pump and that whole mess probably isn't covered by insurance.

The other big news is that we got the details worked out for the library.  Because the back porch has to be turned back into a porch (we had temporarily closed it in and were using it for storage) we need a place to put Rich's monstrously huge book collection.  We finally decided on a 20' x 24' cement floor building between the house and the well house that we're going to turn into the largest man cave/library ever.  Hopefully we'll be able to put up enough shelving to hold everything he has.  I'm currently, in what little spare time I can find, cataloging all his books to see what he has and what was damaged so it can be replaced.  I think we're both as excited about the library as we are the rest of the house.  Initially we'll use it for storage so we can bring boxes into the house in a rational fashion and unpack at our pace.  This, of course, was not part of the original project so we're covering this separately.

All of this is supposed to be done mid to late October.  It can't happen soon enough. I am so ready to be out of this rental.  We have no space, the water pressure is barely high enough to shower and the a/c went out twice this past week (although the guy we're renting from is fantastic and had someone out to fix the a/c very quickly both times).  Still, I'm ready to go home.