electricland

Email exchange:

Jen wrote:

I did manage to do one useful thing yesterday, which was to get a possible start time from the floor refinisher - if we think we can get the third and second floors ready this weekend, then they can start on Monday. Otherwise, they'll start Friday. Dad thinks we can do it, so unless you can think of any problems (that we can't overcome), I'll give them a call today and say that Monday is okay. This means that you need to choose a stain colour for the third floor (exciting!).

To which I replied:

You're alive! Hurray! And hurray for being mostly set up! (You have a computer but not an office? How does that work?)

I am a bad cousin -- I should have phoned to see how things were going! But Kath gave me an update. We missed you at book club!

I guess the only major thing is repairing the floor bits. I'm not totally up to date on what's left to do on the second and third floors (I have a list, but I don't know what has and hasn't been done). How much of the following is essential?

- repair floors (essential)
- drywall bathroom ceiling on 3rd floor (hm, actually maybe that's not so essential -- Daddy suggested that I paint the bathroom and laundry floors instead of getting them refinished, which would be fiddly, and I must say the idea has merit)
- build wall behind toilet on 3rd floor (ditto)
- sand and prime everywhere
- box in ducts and pipes in kitchen and front room
- finish the wall in the hall (not sure if this has been done or not, I think we were waiting on the duct guys)
- move the damn heavy corner unit
- take up the floor coverings and clean like demons

...anything else, think you?

And she said:

- Dad says that William has been repairing floor bits in between plastering the walls, and thinks it will be done in time. Dad's going to discuss the doability of the floor repairs with Willim in more detail today, because William is an optimist...
- Dan has suggested removing the 3rd floor toilet in order to make finishing the wall behind it easier - this would presumably make refinishing the floors less fiddly as well. If we can leave the washer and dryer in their cubby and paint the floor underneath later, that would simplify the clearing of the floor problem up there.
- while sanding and priming ahead of the floor refinishers would be lovely, it isn't essential
- I'm not sure what progress has been made in terms of boxing stuff in and finishing. Also not sure if those are essential.
- I have a vague idea that we may be able to stack the corner unit on top of your bathtub...otherwise, I'm not sure what we do with it!!

And I suggested:

I wonder if the corner unit might fit (temporarily) in the pass-through, or if that would just be a bad idea? Hm. Maybe we could get them to do one room at a time and move it back and forth... stupid thing.

Which we did.

See? We HAVE made progress.

- May 24, 2006