a barrel of this: house

Welcome to DC

Posted by K Tue, 04 Jul 2006 15:46:00 GMT

After a very stressful last week wherein the movers (Movex: avoid them since they are brokers, not movers, and just as problematic as that might entail and everything you might read at the movingscam.com forums could indeed happen to you) told us they didn’t have a truck for us on the day they promised and there was scrambling and rescheduling and then the truck got dropped off the morning we were supposed to get it, anyway. We got the truck loaded and even though I don’t actually know where it is or have any tracking or anything, we are “promised” by Movex that it will show up here on July 7. I am not sure how much I believe that promise, but in the meantime I sit here in our friends’ house listening to the endless and annoying fireworks the people outside are setting off. And watching bad movies. I finally got more than 4 hours of sleep last night and am coming around to east coast time a little bit.

Let’s see, the days went like this:

Thursday: Movers showed up at 8, which was fine but made things a little hectic since I had to fly out at 2.20. I had to run out in the morning to get blankets/padding for the furniture and then spent most of the morning trying to calm down the cat and doing various little things that needed to be done (ie finishing packing all those random little things that you never realize are there until you are all packed). Got on the plane fine, and got the first class upgrade I’d asked for since I was worried about flying with the cat. Seymour was very good the whole flight… once we went through security (you have to remove your cat from the carrier and carry him through the metal detector) he didn’t make a sound. First class is awesome and filled with real glasses and china, lots of free booze, and hot fudge sundaes. Got to Petworth at about midnight and then had some wine and went to bed at something like four AM local time.

Friday: Had to get up at 8 since Comcast was going to be at the house sometime between 9 and noon. They never showed until 3.30. Anyway, saw the house for the first time. I was sad to see that the living room floor was still not in yet, and the floor guy said that there wasn’t enough wood. Given that the guy who got us the wood kind of freaked out at us last weekend, I didn’t want to deal with him again and was hoping for the best. They started scraping the stairs. There is a lot of finish work to be done and random pieces and parts, but most of the actual stairs are scraped and just need some finish work which I guess will wait until nobody needs to use the stairs. I somehow found and assembled the wacky lights I bought, which is a miracle since the instructions for the puzzle-like lamp were vague and I had about four hours of sleep.

Saturday: Went to IKEA and got a bunch of stuff we will need at some point (litterbox rug, toilet brush, curtains of some sort to hold us over until we order real blinds, etc). Was frustrated by my inability to find a screwdriver anywhere.

Sunday: Went to IKEA again since I got something in the wrong size and had also forgotten to check out the bathroom cabinet/mirrors. Also went to Home Depot to look at sinks and toilet paper holders. Ended up getting some paint scrapers and stupidly didn’t get a screwdriver which frustrated me once I started doing stuff at the house that night. Attempted to scrape the front transom but found out that 475 layers of paint are really hard to scrape. After a half hour I gave up (all that scraping in 90 degree weather only got me a chunk about the size of my palm cleared and a lot of sweat). Instead I started scraping the living room window which was, for some reason, covered in paint. Paint that, now that I think about it, was the result of someone going nuts with spray primer. I also tested all the transoms in the house and was happy to discover that they only FEEL like wood when you tap them because they have so much paint on them. The back doors both need to be replaced (one is broken and one might be wood but is probably a wood/glass combo since it is most likely broken) but all the others are glass and hopefully will be uncracked when we clear them off. I am hoping Peel Away or something will work on them because I can’t imagine scraping them without wanting to shoot myself.

Monday: Went to Target to finally get the damn screwdriver and also picked up a bucket and a broom and various cleaning supplies. I want to scrub everything that hasn’t been replaced in the house… the layer of grime and dust and general nastiness on it all makes me want to Peelaway every piece of trim I can touch because that will certainly take care of the gross, right? Once I had the screwdriver I removed the broken front screen door, removed all the window hardware and various crap screwed into the trim on the first floor, and took off everything I could reach on the second floor without resorting to the use of a ladder since I didn’t feel like dragging it up the stairs. I wish I had saved the fittings instead of throwing them into the pile of junk in the backyard since it would have been an impressive pile. Some of the windows had not one, not two, but THREE sets of window hardware on them. Even the open doorways in/out of the living room had curtain finials screwed into the sides. Some doors had two locks, and one had screws from a mirror unwisely placed against its back.

Right now I am in the get everything we don’t want out of the house since it will be hauled away phase. I am going to have to figure out what to do about the basement… right now there are no lights down there, really, probably because of the rework. I can’t wait to talk to the electrician since I have a lot of questions for him and he needs to mark the panel for us.