Well, travel day today. I'm at my local airport, waiting to board my plane.
It's been busy. So busy in fact, odds are I'll actually be slowing down by heading back to work.
I got to fly out of JFK airport in NY 2 weeks ago, on the peak day of delays at the TSA gates during the shutdown. I picked up a flu as a result of being packed in an 80+ degree ayrium with 6,000 or so people packed butts-to-nuts for several hours.
I got a cold AND 2 flus this winter. I really gotta stop that shit.
My first week, visiting friends and family, even if I couldn't see everyone on account of being sick, was a great time but it was still good to arrive home for my 2nd week.
The house was a disaster. Dirty, dusty and projects half-done with construction. What was supposed to be 5 days to replace my kitchen,dining room and sunroom floors and countertops turned into 6 weeks of chaos. They finished while we were in Boston.
... for values of finished, anyhow. A miscommunication resulted in me needing to replace and resize 2 cabinet doors under the new kitchen sink, and a poorly-timed stagger by one of the guys who was moving the countertops in, led to my silverwave drawer front face being stove in. I was able to match the styles and order replacements, which required hunting down matches for 25 year old cabinets and getting them milled. They'll arrive in a few weeks and I'll have to spray them and drill out the recesses for hinges, etc.
So that and trimming out the baseboards and cove bases kept me and my chop saw busy, and in between I sanded and sprayed a guest bathroom vanity, remounted the sink and swapped out the faucets, showerhead, mixing valve and lights, touching up paint elsewhere.
The dust and grime was just retarded. It was absolutely everywhere on both floors in every room, despite our best efforts.
While we were in Boston my wife resigned from one of her work commitments, as she's self-employed, which had become a 7-days a week grind and was making her (and me, as a result) miserable. So while I was tackling the labor she went to work with cleaning the house, moving the furniture, rugs, and throwing away a mountain of shit.
Easter dinner was a quiet affair, just us and one of my brothers, but I got a hold of a prime rib and got my chance to break in the new kitchen.
I lament that my cul-de-sac does not have piped in gas. One of my only beefs with where I live. I have to cook with electric, like a savage. My new oven has a damn touchscreen menu. It's a pain but it did do a good cook.
And oh man, the new floors are like shuffling across silk. A far cry from the cupped and cracked hardwood. South FL is no place for hardwood floors.
Doing 50/50 DIY and contracted labor was probably a mistake in terms of lost time and stress, and all the little things that were left to do to tie it all together, but I figure I saved about $20,000 in doing so. I am not a tile guy and the 24×48" floor tiles were enormously unforgiving, and even with the tile guys the backsplash in the kitchen was apparently a giant pain in the balls...and it's not like I could do a stone countertop myself. So I guess it's for the best. My kid will be painting while I'm at work and he's got a punch list to peck away at while I'm getting vaped out of my trees by fine hydrocarbons.
Time to fly. I got an empty seat next to me, so I'm pretty happy with that.
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