During these miserable days of kitchen remodeling that you are forced to endure, I hope the spirit of Nellie Olson keeps you strong. Practice these faces, use where appropriate, and don’t let the contractors get you down.

Here’s a little song I thought you’d like today: 

Some of you may remember back in the early days of my blog when I actually wrote posts somewhat frequently. The first several months documented the kitchen we were remodeling. It ended with a bit of disappointment as the contractor just disappeared after putting up crown molding that didn’t match which we wanted replaced. This was just before finding out that his assistants had washed the excess grout from tiling the floor down the drain in the backyard which then hardened and totally blocked up the pipe. Something we felt the contractor should pay for.

Out of the blue, the great disappearing contractor emailed me today asking if we’d like him to come over and replace the molding. Hell yes, of course we want this fixed, better late than never. I replied to the email and told him that would be great. He got back to me saying he could come over tomorrow and would only charge us a half day rate of $300.

Now we’re unsure how to proceed with this. We really want the crown replaced but the drain cost us $275 and we don’t know if we should press him on the issue. Firstly, he is NOT good with confrontation and it could cause another episode of his Houdini act leaving us in the same place we started.

So, do we just suck it down and pay or gamble on what’s behind door #2?

We could hire someone else but we know he’s an excellent craftsman and the job would most likely look very good. Based on the fact we hired someone else to install the door to the basement and it looks like crap, I don’t know if I want to trust crown molding to just any old carpenter.

Oh what to do, what to do.

I thought it was a good time to provide some updates on the various topics I’ve discussed over the last few months.

Kitchen remodeling:
We are still waiting for the contractor to finish the job. He needs to replace the crown molding, install the basement door and a few other minor fixes here and there. The jerk keeps making appointments to come over here and then never shows up. We would just find someone else to do it, however, it turned out that when he tiled the floor, one of his assistants washed all the grout down the drain in the back yard which then hardened and blocked up the pipe. It cost $200 to have the pipe cleared and we want the contractor to pay for this, which I think is only fair.

Adoption:
The latest estimate we’ve been given is that we are 2-3 months away from completion. We are at step 11 on the adoption process checklist.

Art:
I have actually managed to start a painting which I have been working on for about a month and a half now. It is making me so happy to be up in the studio playing with my paints again.

This painting is for bluberd’s big fat 40th birthday and it is taking so long to paint I don’t know if I’ll have it done in time. Here’s a little snippet to whet your appetite:

Insomnia:
I still don’t have the ability to fall asleep on my own. I read somewhere that you are considered to have insomnia if it takes you a half hour to fall asleep. Ha! That’s a laugh. If it took me a half hour to fall asleep I’d think I had narcolepsy.

I continued taking the Lunesta all month even though it still takes me an hour or so to fall asleep and the taste is disgusting. It’s better than staring at the ceiling all night. I just refilled the prescription and this new batch seems like it is a lot stronger. I took the first one Monday night and within 15 minutes I was in such a drug haze that I couldn’t walk right. The next morning I woke to find that I went to bed in what I had been wearing all day, luckily I was lucid enough to take off my hiking shoes first. (and no, I wasn’t drinking)

Thanksgiving flood:
We received the check from our home insurance and now have to find the time to get yet another contractor over here to quote for repairing the damage. I am not looking forward to this.

I guess the only thing this post is missing is a song.
Here’s the latest mp3 I’ve been torturing your painting with bluberd:

I totally forgot to put the latest kitchen update here last week. We finally got a plumber to come to the house thanks to our wonderful neighbor who works for the water department.

The sink, faucet and dishwasher were installed last Tuesday. Oddly, it started leaking over the weekend and the garbage disposal wouldn’t work. I poked around and tightened everything I could and it still leaked. So I tightened some more. The plumber came back this morning to fix it and of course there was no leak and the disposal is working fine.

Poor little Jazz fell in the sink hole today and sat in the empty cabinet for God knows how long.

I heard her hootin’ and hollerin’ but frankly the old gal is a tad daffy these days so I thought nothing of it. She’s always having boisterous conversations with herself (or the faeries) so I ignored it. Oops.

It seems that some giant wheel chock has been placed in the path of the completion of our kitchen. Why, I don’t know. How hard is it to just finish a job for Christ’s sake?

Assuming that the contractor’s plumber will never actually materialize, I threw in the towel and decided to call some plumbers myself. Has one of these boobs called me back? Of course not.

Am I going to end up having to figure out how to do this myself?

In the immortal words of Ronnie Cammareri…

I still haven’t heard a peep about a plumber showing up. He sure is late considering he was supposed to be here last Thursday, boy the traffic must be a bear!

I spent the whole weekend sanding, painting and cleaning. The place is still a dump but it is better, we can actually walk around the dining room now, how exciting.

My associate is out of town all week which always sucks scissors. I’ll be continuing to paint and clean in all my spare time. What lovely project awaits me tonight you ask? Priming the dreaded French door to the basement, I shudder. I’ve suddenly realized that French doors are like clawfoot tubs, quaint and lovely to look at but annoying and horrible to maintain and use. Just cleaning the glass on one of these doors takes a half hour I can’t imagine priming the bastard and then having to paint it tomorrow. Maybe we should have just hung a curtain in the doorway and called it a day.

It would be just my luck that the idiot contractor will show up tomorrow to hang this jackass door before I finish painting it.

I thought the day would never come when we’d finally have a countertop, but it has happened, the granite has been installed and I’m happy as a clam.

Happy happy joy joy! I have just received the best phone call ever, well at least the best phone call since August 10th. The granite company will be installing the countertop next Tuesday. I could just cry, I’m so happy. This is more exciting than when I got a Play Station for Christmas a few years ago. If you could see me now I’d be dancing a jig.

In honor of this fabulous news I give you “Happy Feet” by 8 1/2 Souvenirs.