Cleaning done?

No, not really done, but getting pretty close to cleaning done. When we hit anything with high pressure air now, there is very little dust generated. We're cleaning the downstairs with a Swiffer at this point. Will probably switch to something else for a couple days to let dust settle, then another day cleaning, then work 2 more days, then clean 1 day, etc.

Sincere thanks to Curt for flying out to help for the long holiday weekend - very much appreciated (and to Lisa for letting him). Thanks to Andy for spending the afternoon of his day-off vacuuming and air-washing my house - also very much appreciated. And last but not least, to David, to continuing to hang.

Couple of mile-posts hit this weekend - over 600 hours logged (total). David will pass me in labor hours by mid-week.

Besides cleaning, spent some quality time planning the next phases. We're flying. Tomorrow, cleaning the family room and picking up a whole house fan that Geoff has offered - setting up some real ventilation while other work is being done. If anyone local has a high-velocity fan not in use that I can borrow for a couple weeks, please let me know. Copper stub-outs and necessary tools purchased online - picking up tomorrow, and maybe trying (want plenty of time in case of... disaster).

Here is a preliminary list of "to-do" before sealing the walls back up. We'll be tackling these, and probably a few I forgot, between now and July 1 - in sort of an order of priority...

- Stub out all plumbing
- Inspect power wiring
- Patch drain pipe in kitchen
- Patch drain pipe in laundry room
- Replace PEX couplings
- Replace shower plumbing (copper)
- Replace thermostat wires
- Replace doorbell wiring
- Replace smoke detector wiring
- Further inspect and replace speaker wire if necessary
- Further inspect alarm system wires and replace if necessary
- Frame in-wall safe
- Frame new pantry
- Move refrigerator water line and power
- Install new lighting in family room (need built-in design)
- Move lighting in living room, dining room
- Install new metal wire shields for electrical (if necessary)
- Install speaker mount in master bedroom (existing wires)
- Install speaker mounts in dining room; new cables
- Install ceiling fan mount in Will's room
- New outlet in upstairs foyer
- New outlet in family room for air purifier
- New outlet in master bedroon for air purifier
- Wire surveillance camera
- Frame TV nook
- Install new entertainment system wire hides/wall plates (conduit?)
- Seal windows with expanding foam
- Clean or replace ventilation ducting and A/C Freon tubing
- Remove outlet and switches (cap wire)
- Install insulation

2 Sledgehammers are better than 1...

First, thanks to all the help today: Dave, Curt, Mike, Andy, and Jason. It was great having a busy house - made tons of progress on the cleaning front. Carpets out, padding staples down, downstairs largely de-dusted, master shower out, subfloor out.

Tomorrow, a little more cleaning, setting up some ventilation, and moving on to electrical. Probably a big planning/shopping day; will be a little strange in that regard - feels like we're moving out of the demo phase into a re-construction phase. I'm left feeling a little unprepared, but know it isn't really true.

Wanted to jot down a few ironies that we've observed:

1) The A/C broke down the day we removed the last piece of Chinese Drywall from the house (Thanks Mike/Heather for the window unit - working well)

2) My insulation advertises that it is "Formaldehyde Free"; my drywall is not

3) We went thought great pains to protect the hardwood with plastic and carpet - no damage! But when we removed the plastic, the painter's tape pulled up the finish...

Vacuum, vacuum, vacuum

As Mel Brooks (well, Colonel Sanders) once said: "Commence Operation... Vacu-Suck" (from Spaceballs).

Leaf blower to remove the rest of the blown insulation, then snow shovel onto tarp, then dump. Pulled more nails. Had three shop-vacs going all day, countless trips to the dumpster to empty them. Used high-pressure air (70 psi worked well on the blow gun) to clean out the tight spaces. Thanks to David, Curt, and Mike for the help today. Upstairs is looking pretty good.

The big news of the day isn't the progress, but that the inevitable finally happened. Holiday weekend, of course... AIR CONDITIONER FAILURE. You'd think I'd be used to it by now... but since we have 2 units, we can usually find relief somewhere in the house - but not today. 88 now in the attic, and equally hot and muggy downstairs. Called two servicers for emergency repair, neither could make it - one will be by tomorrow between 9 and noon. We'll try to hold out until then - if it isn't something simple, then I'll buy a window unit to handle this small room for a few months, and we'll just plan to replace the system in the Fall (or next Spring). Shudder. Hopefully, it was some minor damage due to the dust, and not another evaporator; it was an unusual failure - no compressor function. I couldn't find the fuse inside the unit - I know where it is on the downstairs unit...

Up tomorrow - master shower demo, vacuuming downstairs. Ventilation set-up if we get our hands on a fan big enough. Hopefully A/C repair - have been happy with a mild Spring so far, but don't want to push my luck.

Do anything with duct tape

465 pieces of Chinese drywall on the wall, 465 pieces of Chinese drywall, take one down, throw it around, 464 pieces of Chinese drywall on the wall...

All drywall off the wall. Outside possibility that there is still some under the master tub - need to crawl under there tomorrow to verify - but none anywhere else. All ceilings down, all walls, all hard places.

The blown insulation was ridiculous. We had it piled up in the foyer, no joke, 5 feet tall, wall to wall. I created a blower from the foyer into the dumpster with a leaf blower, 20ft of dryer duct, and 1 ton of duct tape. Worked like a champ for a while, but the insulation was full of drywall, nails, PVC pipe, and other hidden treasures, so eventually all of the impeller blades on the leaf blower broke and the system died... We got it "all" in eventually... one snow-shovel full at a time. We are on our third dumpster. Should be plenty.

Curt arrived from Chicago to help for the weekend - great to have three again - seems to be a magic number for dramatic progress in a day. Looking forward to a productive weekend.

Tomorrow is de-dust day. Getting the rest of the blown insulation still up in the rafters, air-washing, and shop-vac-ing. Probably get the carpeting out - we'll see how clean we can get it - if worth the risk to keep through new drywall installation - it is a nice barrier for the hardwood floors.

Big weekend ahead

Second floor ceilings came down today. Master bedroom and hallway ceiling all that remain. Bathtub walls out. Lots of blown insulation everywhere - getting it into the dumpster will be a pain. Picked up the air compressor to enable air washing this weekend.

Tomorrow - finish ceilings, pull out third floor stairwell drywall - all drywall finally out. Picking up Curt at the airport at noon (flying in from Chicago for the weekend). New dumpster coming in the afternoon. Cleaning to begin - hope to get carpet out, stub out plumbing, start on electrical replacement (maybe), frame out new pantry... big plans. We'll see how far we really get.

PS - I have a nasty sinus infection from all this dust; the fact that it is toxic probably is not totally relevant, but not helpful either.

Let it snow...

Sorry I didn't write last night - Jen and I went to a SNAME meeting, and I stayed with Jen and the kids; home late. David worked all night - he's a machine.

Since I last wrote... most of the nails pulled, the remainder of the insulation removed, some small boards (closets, laundry room) in the ceiling on the second floor removed. And yes, the blown insulation snowed down. 12 inches accumulated in my closet... A big thanks to Geoff and Craig who adventured to remove the boards in the second story foyer - David said I didn't pay him enough to do that. The dumpster is about full again - looks like 3 loads as I feared.

We had a small plumbing leak in the kids bathroom the past few days which has turned in to a fairly large leak - resulted in some plumbing shopping I wasn't planning; have some plumbing repair to finish when this post is finished. Also picked out the air compressor I want, but we checked another store for prices, and didn't get back to Sears in time to buy it before they closed. Tomorrow or Friday. We'll need the compressor to do the cleaning this weekend - a high pressure "air wash" was the ServePro plan (that I can't afford) that we'll try to replicate.

Tomorrow, we'll finally finish the ceilings, maybe finish the third floor stairwell, and get into cleaning full bore. Planning to take off work on Friday and get into a big weekend - lots planned - shopping Friday, planning, then plumbing, electrical, cleaning, framing the new pantry, and lots of paperwork.

I updated the schedule (or will in about 5 minutes) - we're about a week ahead of the original schedule. I didn't move the move-in date - but moved up all the work in front of it.

Dude, this place is trashed!

Nails removed most of the morning; dumpster replaced in early afternoon. Remaining (removed) walls thrown into dumpster. Insulation downstairs removed and disposed. About 50% of upstairs insulation.

Ceiling removal started; it does go fast - as advertised. In fact, we finished the downstairs today. It is definitely a 2-man job though, and that may be pushing it. A couple of injuries to report - I lost some skin on my calf to falling ceiling; David stabbed in the stomach by a screw protruding from falling ceiling. Equal blood shed. The ceiling boards numbered from 334 to 375 - I think two were domestic - the rest CD.

David broke the 100 hour mark. The project has logged 438 hours so far.

Now that the insulation is gone - had a good look at the electrical - some discolored wires - some only yellow, but some look scorched. Will cut in later; also plan to have county inspector look at the electrical and give an opinion - figure he's as impartial as they come.

Now that the ceiling is gone, had a good look at the plumbing connections. The connections actually appear to be brass, not pure copper, and the look remarkably... OK. There is a retaining band outside the PEX, and that is copper, and corroded, but the potable water doesn't contact that band... considering using some copper wool and attempting to clean rather than replace. We'll see.

On tap tomorrow during the day: rest of the insulation upstairs, the tub walls (see yesterday's), some stairwell ceilings, and nails; maybe start some cleaning downstairs. No ceilings solo for David - too heavy and dangerous. I have a commitment after work tomorrow, so likely only paperwork for me tomorrow night. I'm encouraging David to take some time to see Robin Hood er something. We'll be pushing it later this week and weekend to get cleaning done, maybe even to electrical and plumbing.

No walls between us

Completed removing the walls - well, at least those planned. The dumpster is full.

The remaining walls are for the 3rd floor stairwell (to act as dust containment), the second floor foyer (need scaffold), and the master bathroom tub. Forgot to mention yesterday, but another surprise. The bathtub has a tile half-wall around it - thought that it was cement board, but it is not. Not only is it drywall, but Chinese drywall, so it has to go. The trouble it that it is behind the tub. So, I think the tub probably has to come out too in order to get at the wall. We decided to procrastinate on that one.

Back to work tomorrow; dumpster to be changed (hopefully, request by voicemail only); nail removal to begin and once dumpster is empty, ceilings on first floor. Both David and I expect that to go fast - the big sheets are much easier to remove than the little ones. By the way, we pulled 333 pieces of drywall - a "piece" ranging from a full 4' x 12' sheet to 4' by 6" door jamb. All were photographed and recorded (thanks Judge Fallon) - so I'll be able to share a percentage by count in the coming days after I get the list put together (probably after the ceilings too - they're CD - we can see the end tape now).

We need a bigger... hammer...

Walls on second floor done ('cept for stairs to 3rd floor - last to go for dust containment, and places we need scaffolding); first floor foyer, living, dining, and half of kitchen are done. Tomorrow, remainder of kitchen, bath, family. Then, de-nail studs. The dumpster will be full tomorrow after walls - will be emptied and replaced on Monday. Then ceilings.

Both David and I got pretty bad headaches today, even with respirators; I also have a very sore throat. Looking forward to ending this phase.

Dumpster Filling Up...

Drywall removal proceeds... all walls upstairs removed except for master bath and the foyer where scaffolding is needed. A little surreal standing at one end of the house and looking across to the other end through all the walls...

Looking forward to a productive, albeit rainy, weekend. With luck, will have all walls off by Sunday night, and beginning on ceilings... we'll see. The schedule has drywall done on June 3 - I think we're going to beat that, but losing Dad back home will slow us a bit - but big thanks to Dad for a solid week - saved me two weeks easy (76.3 hours logged by Dad this week).

I had hoped to get by with only a single dumpster, but it's obvious that isn't going to happen. It's almost full and we have the entire first floor to go - and the carpets are still in the house protecting the hardwood. May need 3 - ugh - we'll see.

Begin Phase 4

Drywall removal begins. Walls are removed from Will's room, Abby's room, the guest room, the upstairs hallway, and half of the laundry room. 26 hours logged.

Tomorrow, piano out (3 days earlier than planned), finish upstairs walls, move to downstairs walls. Dad flies home at 3:00, David is staying.

Key observations:
- We have at least two types of Chinese Drywall
- Have not found any domestic on the second floor yet (no surprise)
- A/C line from outside units to upstairs is in Will's wall, looks like a black coaxial cable rather than a copper pipe.
- Plumbing to kids bathroom (Also in Will's wall) is nasty
- My respirator would fit a 10-year old girl, but not me - or I just have a big nose
- The carpeting protecting the hardwood was a good idea - actually hope it is enough; plastic alone would not have been
- My brother doesn't need a pry-bar to remove CD, just four-letter words
- The federal judge's order to photograph the removed walls to preserve the chain of evidence is painful

This is the weekend for volunteering - drop me a line if you would like to spare some time (and don't mind getting dirty). Bring your own PPE (hard hat, respirator, gloves, sturdy boots, eye protection) or else give me 24 hours notice.

Phase 3 Complete

OK, I may be jumping the gun by a few hours, but essentially Phase 3 (trim and fixture removal) is complete. There is still one ceiling fan, the alarm panels, and doorbell to be removed, but that should be done within a few hours in the morning. Drywall is coming off tomorrow!! We have the dumpster, we have the system to log the drywall (see the Judge's evidence preservation order), and we're ready to go. 26 hours logged today, 159 hours for this phase.

I guess it's worthwhile to discuss the downstairs electrical and plumbing... In our house, the ceiling on the first floor is CD (by XRF analysis), but most of the walls are domestic - except for the coat closet, pantry, TV nook, one board in dining, one board in living, and one board in family rooms. The foyer is two-story and most of the downstairs is also CD. So, actually, it does sound like there's quite a bit, but... mostly domestic... Anyway, here's the deal: most of the exposed ground wire is corroded. The high-voltage is 50-50. The dishwasher, for example, looked perfectly fine - but there's no CD in the kitchen. The ceiling fan in the family room looked like trash... I opened up a motion detector in the foyer - low voltage, CD area - but the little exposed wires inside the detector looked OK to me. The low voltage (twisted, loose insulation) speaker wire in the family room ceiling was trashed. So, difficult to generalize, but I do think I am going to leave the protected 120V wiring, but will replace most of the low voltage as planned. More inspection once the walls are off.

As for the plumbing, I haven't seen anything that's good - to include the kitchen sink. All brass and copper plumbing components look like junk. So... I guess I'm going to learn something about plumbing in the next few weeks. Always wanted to learn to braze...

Estimated One Day to Phase Complete.

Good progress today. All kitchen appliances, counter tops, and cabinets out except one that we have no room for in the garage... Fireplace out, marble hearth, electrical outlets plates, about 50% of the tack strips. POD picked up (that grass is yellow too). About 25 hours logged.

Tomorrow, dumpster delivery - throw away a bunch of carpet, stairs, etc. Finish pulling nails from trim, treads to keep, etc. Re-arrange garage to store last counter. Remove final tack strips. Finish electrical light, ceiling fans, security, and fire fixtures. Re-protect hardwood where cabinets removed, etc.

I honestly expect that we'll begin drywall removal on Thursday - 4 days ahead of schedule. If you're local, and interested in pulling drywall this weekend, call me. I need to get respirators for all participants.

Biggest remaining issue now is the piano - we've been working around it for several days, and I'm concerned about drywall removal with it in the house - but we'll just have to be careful. It will be moved out on Monday.

Lastly, I plan to post a project summary soon, maybe tonight, with the hopes it can help others in our same situation who might find this blog and be considering this same course of action.

Downstairs Demo Progress

First day with actual work and house work - a strange day; ran an errand after work, so I didn't personally log much time at the house. Dad and David worked all day though.

Trim removal is complete. We removed the first cabinet in the kitchen last thing today; just one though. I think we're actually running a little ahead of schedule - can't see how we won't be pulling drywall by the weekend. Left to go tomorrow: kitchen appliances, cabinet, downstairs toilet, fireplace, electrical fixtures. That'll pretty much do it.

If you didn't know, the picture on the blog headline is from my closet from an inspection last September. It was the only one we ever found - the rest of the inspection was done via x-ray. We found the second such stamp "MFG TAIHE CHINA" under the stairwell from the first to second floor - the back of the coat closet. Not tagged by the x-ray inspection, but I think we always suspected that the closet was CD.

One of the PODS was picked up today; the other tomorrow. The lawn didn't make it...

Moving downstairs

Well, one weekend into it and we've pretty effectively destroyed the upstairs. With the exception of a few lights and smoke alarms, all trim/cabinets/carpet/etc are removed and we're ready to pull drywall... upstairs. But before that, moving downstairs. The floors are all protected, and the door frames are removed. We demolished the stairs between first and second floors, but the monster baseboard isn't out yet. Tomorrow, more trim removal downstairs.

Logged 20 hours today between the three of us; spent some time with the kids mid-day.

Tomorrow will start the first week of work while demolition is ongoing. I will be interested to see how I feel tomorrow night...

Stairway to.. the attic

Another successful demo day. Didn't finish the second floor completely, but mainly due to a surprise - the first of several I'm sure...

SURPRISE: The "baseboard" along the stairs from the second floor to the attic turned out to be a 12 ft by 1 ft piece of MDF, of which only about 6 inches showed, but all of which was between the side of stairs and the CD. It needed to be removed to get to the CD on that wall, and couldn't be without removing the stairs. So we did. That slowed us down a bit, but we removed the entire staircase, pulled the two gigantic baseboards and then rebuilt the staircase in a temporary fashion (narrower) so the CD can be removed and new drywall installed. Looking back at original construction, I seem to remember a roughed-in staircase present for months, now I know why.

KEY PROGRESS: Other than that, key progress included removal of the rest of the trim in the kids' bathroom, removal of all bedroom carpeting, and installation of 75% of that carpeting on the first floor hardwood flooring as a protective measure - in addition to a dust-barrier of plastic. It doesn't slip at all - a big concern - so I'm very pleased with that. The master bedroom carpeting is still rolled up; waiting for the piano to be moved. We haven't taken up the hallway carpeting yet, but will tomorrow. We also removed the two upstairs toilets, and the master sink and vanity. The kids vanity and sink will have to wait for tomorrow. No damage to any of those components.

OTHER: Other key work - Jen reserved a 10x10 storage facility for the piano and balance of stuff not moved; the PODS were scheduled for pick up on Monday and Tuesday (one each day - Monday's pick-up schedule was full after one). The dumpster will be delivered after, but not yet scheduled. The piano will be moved Monday week - and for less than their original estimate (see old blogs for background here). Shrug. If we ask them a fourth time, I'm sure the price will change again... It will be tough to work around it for a week, but it will go the day we're scheduled to begin actually pulling drywall, so I guess the timing is OK.

SUMMARY: We logged 31 hours today - less than yesterday mostly due to the late start. The weather was beautiful today, so we were able to open the windows and not roast. The vents downstairs are now covered, so the downstairs AC is no longer a factor.

TOMORROW: On tap for tomorrow - 2nd floor hallway carpet, kids vanity and sink, 2nd floor lights, fans, vents, electrical cover plates - finish 1st floor hardwood protection, and start downstairs baseboards and trim. The kids and Jen may stop by after church. I didn't see the kids today - will make time for them tomorrow.

Long blog tonight - guess we ended too early... :-)

Demolition begins...

What did we learn today:
- There may have been a drywall shortage, but there was definitely not a painter's caulk shortage
- Pulling nails through the back of baseboard does leave a clean face without damage (good tip Uncle Bill!), but it's really freaking hard to do 500 times in a day
- Air-powered nails should be more expensive

Great day of progress. We removed all of the baseboard, door frames, and window frames in the four upstairs bedrooms, upstairs hallway, master bath, and laundry room. The only room upstairs not done is the kids bathroom - but it's started, we just ran out of steam. We pulled the nails out of the trim we pulled, and saved about 95% of the linear footage from any type of damage. The recovered material is moved into the garage, and the rooms are cleaned up. The closet systems are also removed and saved from damage.

Tomorrow, we'll finish the kids bath, then lay plastic on the first floor, pull the carpet from the second and use it to further protect the hardwood. Also, will pull the two upstairs bathroom vanities. The time allotted for all of the demo was to run through and including next weekend - I think we're at least on schedule so far.

We logged 37 hours of work today between the three of us (Dad, Dave, and me).

Check back tomorrow!

P

Back Home

Back at it tonight. Did the shopping that I wanted to do last weekend, had dinner with Jen and the kids, and met with Dad and David who drove in from Ohio. We went over the work ahead of us tomorrow and the near term - which will be removal of baseboards, cabinets, etc.

The next phase is scheduled to end on May 23 - 10 days from now. At that point there will be nothing on the walls and ceilings except dryall - ready for the major destruction. Check back tomorrow night to check progress!

Discoveries...

Lagging a day still - sorry, been busy. Couple things I want to get down so I can use this as a notebook as well as a way to pass along info...

On Saturday, when we moved and unplugged the washer, we noticed that the outlet showed scorch marks, and the plug was burned. When I have time, I'll take the outlet apart and see what is up. There are a couple concerns - the washer may be malfunctioning, or the outlet. The washer will disappear with the PODS - I think I'm going to let it. I'll cut into the outlet, and see if it is corroded. If so, that may be some important indication of CD possibly contributing to a fire. If it isn't, and the issue is the washer, we'll have to understand what the problem is. Just old, or corroded due to CD... If the outlet is OK, Jen will get a new washing machine anyway... :-)

I discovered the other issue on Sunday. This one may settle the household argument on electrical... I cut some speaker wire to move to the third floor. The insulation is transparent. The wire is corroded along the entire length of the wire - easily seen through the jacket. Not good news. Some of the court documents indicate that the low-voltage wires are a problem because the gas can penetrate the jacket - evidence that this it true. So, should all wire should be replaced? Based on what I've seen, I am planning to replace all low-voltage (speaker, thermostat, door-bell, etc), and inspect the rest - hopefully, it won't be a total electrical disaster.

Just another day in the life of a Chinese Drywall home! Later! Will write again on Thursday.

First Milestone

The move yesterday went great. Two PODS were enough after all - only the kitchen chairs didn't make it; and they could have if we pushed it. Thanks to all who helped - John, Brett, Rob, Jason, and also to Suzy for watching the kids. Jen and I are very grateful. It was a beautiful summer Saturday, I'm sure you are all as sore as I am - thanks for sacrificing the time and strength for us. Also, thanks again to Grammy (aka, Mom), who flew home this morning - for a great week of packing and prep for us while we were at work. Wouldn't have gone so well without you!

As far as Phase 2 (Packing) goes, we clocked the whole thing in only 137 hours start of packing to PODS locked. There are still some odds and ends to finish, but overall I'm pretty pleased everything went so efficiently - way less than 2x what I think a pro-company could have pulled off (5 packers x 2 days, + 3 movers one day = 104 hours).

I'm starting Phase 3 (Phase 1 = planning, btw) today by doing a little material shopping at Lowes - pull-bars, cats-feet, hammers, safety gear (hats and knee pads) - and probably some protection for the hardwood and draping material for a clean space.

This is technically yesterday's blog - too tired last night - I'll write one more time tonight, but then not again until Thursday.

Thanks again, and stay tuned!

Move Part 1 Complete

Budget-Rent-a-Truck rented us a truck from an Independent Auto Dealer who just happened to have gone out of business last week. Needless to say, the truck wasn't there when I went to pick it up... a bad start to an otherwise good day. I eventually did get a truck - about 90 minutes later...

We have Jen and the kids moved into Mimi's house. It is a pretty comfortable setup. Thanks to Geoff and Craig for their help with the heavy stuff today.

The PODS arrived without incident - they are waiting on the front lawn, and while everyone was waiting for me to arrive with the truck (late), we started loading some things into the PODS. Surprised how big they are - maybe they will be large enough...

Looking forward to tomorrow - will be a major milestone in this project: move-out complete. I'm sure there will still be a lot in the house on Sunday, but hopefully no furniture. Going to bed now - long day tomorrow.


PS - you may have read that CD causes fire alarms to go off unexpectedly. This is true. I just about jumped out of my skin just now - but not not to worry, the house isn't on fire... Funny how that little quick only seems to happen at night...

...and pack some more!

The house is full of boxes. Well, the dining room anyway. My closet is finally empty.

There is no way 2 PODS will be enough - but we've figured that problem out. A synergy of plans was needed when the piano plan fell apart...

If you don't know our piano, it's a concert grand, over one hundred years old - inherited from Jennifer's grandmother - a precious heirloom to us. It's big. The company that moved it before doubled their prices from 4 years ago with exorbitant storage fees - so we picked another company, but they do not have climate controlled storage. They would move it inexpensively (relatively) and store it, but when we asked them to move it to another, climate controlled facility, their moving prices went up, and they refused to rent us the piano board which would allow us to leave it on its side for a few months. Ugh.

The solution to both problems is a larger storage shed. The boxes that won't fit into the PODS will go into the big shed with the piano - which will be set up - and that will allow us to not need the piano board, not need another POD, and only cost a little more than the original smaller shed we'd need for the piano - and much less than a 3rd POD. Drama.

All this means we won't be 100% moved out on Saturday. We need to wait for the piano to get moved, next week, then move all that won't fit into the PODS after it. Happily, the storage site we selected provides a moving truck for free, and I will move only boxes that I can handle myself - we'll focus on getting furniture into the PODS. Plus, that gives us the added benefit of accessing boxes easily - think kids toys and winter clothes when this project hits Fall... kidding! Gulp.

PODS arrive tomorrow between 7 and 10am; picking up moving truck at 9am - moving Jen and the kids to Mimi's by noon... Into the PODS on Saturday at 9am... so it begins.

Pack, pack, pack

More progress. Grammy tackled the kitchen today, and did a great job. Dinner on Styrofoam plates tonight (fajitas - happy cinco-de-Mayo). I moved my clothes upstairs and emptied my closet. I have a lot of clothes, especially the kind I never wear...

On track to be fully packed by Saturday. Convinced that two PODS will not be enough, well, mostly convinced...

No news from the County or Senator Warner's office - expecting something from both this week. That's all I can think of. I'll write again tomorrow.

Packing Status...

Well, those mis-believers who don't think we'll be all packed on Saturday should be happy to know much progress was made today (mostly by Grammy, aka Mom). :-)

The 3rd floor is done 'cept for toys to Mimi's on Friday; there isn't a picture hanging in the house. The guest room is all boxed, as is Will's room and about 50% of the master bedroom and 75% of Abby's room. The china in the dining room is packed and off to Nana's and Pop-Pop's. Four more boxes of boxes arrived from UsedCardboardBoxes.com (a cool site).

Tomorrow the kitchen, rest of dining, and living rooms; master bedroom closets. Thursday, the family room, and random things we missed. Friday, day off work and moving furniture to Mimi's; Pod delivery; moving of remaining items to 3rd floor. Saturday the big move...

Overall, I think we're on track for the big move. I am having some misgivings that two Pods will be enough, but we'll deal with that when we need to.

Look for another packing status tomorrow... until then!

Slow Toxic Drywall Day

Not much new today... made some more arrangements for piano moving, but nothing finalized (other than I'm not moving it). Worked on some selections with a local design firm - will lead to pricing and planning, so it's important. May lead to some additional framing work in the kitchen - a new pantry - along with moving the electrical for the fridge. (if you know our house, the fridge moves right 3.5 ft, replaces the little useless counter there, and a new additional pantry where the fridge is now). Might as well take advantage of the demolition for some new space right? That work will have to be inserted between ventilation and drywall... probably only a day or two though. Guess that's all. Sorry for the boring blog tonight...

P

Careful with that!

So, I took apart the exercise bike to make room on the third floor for a chest of drawers... Grammy takes the bike seat down to the garage - I ask: "Mom, have you got that OK?" - she says "It's not heavy, but so awkward I'm afraid I might mar the walls"...

ba-dum-bum.

Answers

The boss said 20 minutes, not 10, and No.

T-minus one week and counting

Last Saturday in the house with it intact for a while... So, what's new since the last message...

1) Went to store for lawn fertilizer (decided not to let the lawn go entirely) - on way, noticed the external temperature was 90-degrees F. Shudder. One hour later, noticed I was sun-burned. Ugh. Has the look of a hot summer...

2) Had garage sale - relatively successful. Made more than twice (almost 3x) as much as last year; delivered 4 boxes to Goodwill afterward. Less to move. $ to buy beer for David (well, a dent at least).

3) Virginia Delegate Glenn Oder called us last night to discuss House Bill 46. Nice since it was 9PM and he's not even my delegate; he's the bill's sponsor. He clarified that the bill is signed by the Governor (yay), that it is intended as a grant not a loan (yay yay), and that it is unfunded (booooo). He also said that it would not cover reimbursements to people performing self-remediation (me) as written (boo boo), but said he would introduce an amendment to the bill to fix that oversight. I should have suggested that it be called "the Patrick amendment", but didn't think of it in time. We'll watch for the amendment, and hope the federal government funds the account. I'll post a link to the bill status on the blog.

4) Found a cigar store on this side of the water - about 10 minutes from house. Serendipitous find. Closes at 8pm though, so didn't get inside for a look. A good find for winding down after 20 hours of drywall removal on the weekends... I bet we still can't smoke in the house even though we're removing the walls... We'll have to check with the boss on that one.

Will drop a line again tomorrow. A big pack-planning day planned (say that 3 times fast). Grammy arriving.

- P