Groovy!

The tongue and groove eaves on the dormer are up:



My contractor is very proud of this, as well she should be — they got it and some of the fascia up with only one "psyche!" while the intern was using the nail gun.

In other news, my downstairs bathroom looks like a scene from Brazil. Compare:



And contrast:



A slightly cheerier color, but pretty similar, don't you think?

Bust a Cap in Yo Ass

Normally, I love Overstock.com, despite that annoying, porny, orangey-fake-tanned spokeswhore on tv. Good deals on sheets, clothes, DVDs and uniformly great customer service. Sometimes, though, Overstock goes horribly, horribly wrong:



We've all seen lucite toilet seats with fish or other cutesy bathroom-themed objects in them. Kitschy? Sure. But nothing that would make you plotz in a Bloodbath & Beyond. But yes, Virginia, those are bullets in the toilet seat:



In the pantheon of Bad and Wrong, ammo-related accessories are a Zeus-level no-no. The fake bullet hole slicks for the side of your aftermarket exhaust-sporting Yugo were bad enough. Taking a dump on top of "simulated bullets" (at least they're not using live ammo) tops every twisted home decor-related judgement ever made.

My favorite part: "Make a bold statement in any home or office with these hard-wearing Acrylic Toilet Seats..." Home or OFFICE, people. I guess even Herbert Kornfeld needs an appropriate place to pewp over at Midstate Office Supply.

Duh

I forgot to buy hinges. Or a doorknob.

Christ. Is "pathetisad" a word?

Door Prize!

In the interest of giving us back our hallway, the contractor wanted to make sure we had a door. There was much wrangling over who would actually procure said door, as I 1) cannot carry a door myself without injuring parts of my anatomy that I normally prefer to ignore and 2) don't know much about what makes a good used door. Yes, I know, molehills != mountains, but I worry about stuff like that. So I went to Rejuvenation, where people are generally nice and the place is clean and not all crudded-up with cast off crap from people like me and full of spiders.

Lo and behold! The Door:



I know, nothing special, but I only paid $50 and managed to drag in out of the car and prop it up against the side of the house without hernating my o-ring or something, and I think it'll clean up nicely. We'll see.

Since I missed my bus this morning anyway, I decided to take a few photos of the construction project around the corner from me:



The angles are a little weird and clash somewhat with the surrounding traditional bungalows, but I like how I envision the space feeling inside. Maybe I'll skulk around the front yard later and see if I can snap and photos of the inside. Or, maybe not. Bail ain't cheap, yo.

Current status of the dormer:



We're going to leave it fairly open to the elements for the next few days, so the contractor and her peeps get some relief from the heat. I'm crossing my fingers that I'll actually have a full roof when I come home tonight! How sad, that the idea of getting the roof completed seems like an unimaginable treat. I'm really looking forward to seeing what the mound 'o' roofing materials did to the recently-reseeded grass in the front yard. Eh, I did a pretty half-assed job with the grass seed anyway.

More Framing, and I PEED IN THE SINK FOR NO REASON

As you can see, we've gotten more of the dormer framed out:



There are now side walls and some plywood to keep Silent Bob from sneaking out to attend concerts in the middle of the night. Last night I heard another ruckus of the roof, so either my tailless, clawless, toothless old cat is much craftier than I gave her credit for, or morbidly obese squirrels are performing Cirque du Soleil-esque acrobatics directly above my bed.

We can also see how the landing will layout with the New! Wall!:



This excites me more than it reasonably should. I took more photos last night but appletinis + poor lighting = really bad digital photography.

In addition to the appletinis, I also consumed copious amounts of asparagus. Stinky asparagus pee is usually nothing more than a joke, a novelty, something to leave behind in the bathroom to horrify your friends and family; but last night it took on a new dimension of horror.

My contractor had told me that I would be out a toilet last night. I was wary at first, but realized that as long as I had a shower and a sink and dropped the kids off at the pool yesterday at work, I'd be hunky-dory. In fact, I was so addled by the sheer volume of ice cream cake residing in my gut after I got home last night, that I neglected to parse the fact that water in the bowl generally means the toilet is functional. So I peed in the sink for no good reason. Stinky asparagus pee, too, which I had to rinse down with carelessly flung-about water from the sink tap in order to dispel the noxious odor of wet dog slathered in Limberger downwind of a paper mill.

Lesson learned: always return your contractor's phone calls. Always.

In more construction-related news, the new pipes went in for the upstairs toilet:



It's hard to tell, but the valve thingy ends below the ceiling, so they'll have to drop it a foot. No big loss, since it's a 9' ceiling and I was going to tear out the plaster and drywall it eventually anyway.

This afternoon I'll try to take photos of the framing for the windows and skylight. The skylight just tickles me to no end.

I've Been Framed

Framing's almost done, and everything's moving so fast I don't have time to upload the pictures I've taken until they've already made so much progress that the photos I do upload are out of date. I blame it on this stupid job. Bleh.

Here's the exterior as of 7/7:



This is Esther, the carpenter:



She's kinda shy, but wields a mean nail gun.

This is looking into the guest bedroom from what was the landing, but is now primarily Silent Bob's Squirrel Patrol Base Camp (yes, I have been awoken a few times by the sound of a declawed cat tumbling down the roof and thudding into the roofer's left-behind nailers):



Finally, the view across the street to Sour Sue's house:



I was chased out of the bathroom this morning by sledgehammer-wielding women, so I'll probably have some, uh, "deconstructed" views of my existing bathroom soon, along with the more fully framed-out dormer.

IT BEGINS!

I'd never thought I'd be so happy to have a damned hole in my roof. But when Michael emailed me to tell me that the contractor was bringing in lumber, I started bouncing in my office chair and clapping my hands like a toddler who's just figured out how to steal food from the dog.

It's hard to get a good idea of what's going on under the tarp, but here's the view from the front of the house:



And from the side yard:




Here's Michael proudly posing in front of the Tarp of Doom (that's the bedroom door behind him):




And here's what I got when I stuck the camera around the side of the tarp to see where my Shiny! New! Bathroom! will be:



Yay! Now we just have to chase the gremlins out of the wiring and get the fan working again in the fetid swamp downstairs bathroom.