Chaos city

No new pics this time around, just crazy stories. :-) So, when we had our framing inspection done, the inspector wouldn't sign off on it because we didn't have homeowner plumbing and electrical permits. John and I didn't have a clue that we were supposed to have these permits (we thought our contractor had pulled everything we needed). When we went down to LEIP on Fri 5/11, we were told that we weren't homesteaded, and therefore we couldn't pull the permits. On Mon 5/15, John went down and confirmed that we were homesteaded (although not technically until 2007 because I did it after Dec 1, 2005), and then tried to pull permits. Again, he couldn't because his liscence didn't have his current address on it. After going to work, he went back down to LEIP again and talked to a different person who let him pull the permits.

Meanwhile, on Sat 5/13, I went to Saturn to get our car's oil changed. And they found $400 of necessary (the car will end up in a ditch if you drive to Madison) kind of repairs, and they couldn't be done until Monday. I had been looking forward to getting out of town and seeing my brother graduate, and so I was quite upset. We went on the mad hunt to borrow a car from our parents, but both of his were up in Little Falls, and I didn't have a key to the car that my parents left behind. Frustration levels elevated, and we were lucky enough to have John's parents agree to rent a car for us (thank you, thank you, thank you again!!). So, we headed out to Madison, found a hotel about 20 mins out, crashed, woke up, bought cheese, went to breakfast with my family, watched Jeff graduate, met his girlfriend's (Emily) family, and then headed out of town again. I am very lucky to have people that are so good to me. It was the stress relief that I needed.

On Tuesday we found out that we had corrections to make on both the plumbing and electrical, and so that is going to get done today. Hopefully. Maybe we'll get sheetrocked walls by Memorial Day!!

Stuff

There have been many changes in the last few days... There was a mad rush on Sat. 5/6 to get John and I moved from the upstairs to the downstairs. On Friday night John and I were up late moving our bedroom stuff down... and it took a lot more out of us than we were expecting. John et al hauled the living room/office down, and I moved the kitchen. Of course, we don't have a functioning kitchen downstairs, so the strange hutch type thing that was used as basically the only countertop in the original downstairs kitchen became our dishes storage area in the dining room.
Every closet/storage space that we have is filled to the brim, and we have boxes stacked everywhere. I can't wait until we have kitchen cabinets again and a nice sized pantry. In the meantime, we do have a fully functional bathroom, which makes John and I feel so small. The bathroom upstairs has a very low ceiling above the shower itself, and this has nothing until the 8'4" mark. Overall, we're surviving. The roof of the addition was fully shingled on 5/10, and so we should be completely water tight. Our new washer/dryer is AWESOME. The framing inspection was initially done on Wednesday, but then we got word that we need to pull a couple of permits before the inspector will sign off on our contractor's job. Fun fun.

In things other than house life.... I got my first PT student this week and I'll get to work with him for a total of 6 weeks. He's doing well so far. (Thank goodness.) John interviewed for a full time teaching job in another school in Anoka, but didn't get it. :( There are many more postings now, however, and so hopefully he'll end up getting something good for next year. And my little bro is graduating from U of W Madison this weekend! Hurray!

FINALLY

It happened today... we are now fully enclosed. The contractor (for some unknown reason) has been holding out on enclosing the west wall of the kitchen... and so we've had a blue-tarp skylight for a while. Well, for 16 weeks. Crazy. Yesterday I took the day "off" to prep the 1st floor for the big move downstairs... and am very thankful that I only had one day of work left this week. It's going to be a long weekend between moving, cleaning, paining upstairs, and going to my CE course.

Another piece of good news, John was contacted to be 1 of 3 interviewees for a full time teaching position in Anoka next year (new school)!!! Hurray!!!

It's electric!

First, a cartoon from the New Yorker:"My contractor told me Rome would only take a day."

We made more progress this weekend... our hands are all nicked up and bruised to attest to it. On Saturday, our contractor came over and directed us in properly finishing all of the wiring for the addition (bath/kitchen/laundry). All of the wires are tacked down, the outlets and switches that aren't blocked by our 32 sheets of sheetrock are in. Pat is a wonder boy of plumbing and has everything but the tub workable in the bathroom, and just needs to tweak the water feed pipes for the laundry. (I can't tell you how happy I will be to be able to do laundry in our house again.) The bathroom is primed and first coat painted, the light and fan are working. We're to a point where we're planning on living downstairs starting May 6th - our friend Eric is moving in upstairs on May 7th... it's going to be an insane week. Hopefully I can get a day off to focus, since I'm at a CE course all weekend, and John is working both days. Ikes!