So, yet another massive delay of update as has become unfortunately and unavoidably regular as of late. Damn near a year this time depressingly.

So we did get moved back into the house last year… the weekend before Thanksgiving. Unfortunately that move ended up even more of an ordeal than expected because Bucky had  the edge of a ditch crumble under him at work at the tail end of the summer and tore his ACL and both meniscus (little pads on either side of your knee). That meant surgery in October and physical therapy and drove him crazy by putting him out of commission for helping with moving out of a second floor apartment in November. I of course was up to my ears in an emergency project at work again giving me trouble getting my portion of packing done, but luckily a large chunk of our stuff was prepacked in the storage and Bucky has wonderful, loyal and strong  brothers (both blood and honorary) who helped us move both by actually moving our shit and by helping chase Bucky away from something he wasn’t allowed to help move in his condition. Moving the weekend before Thanksgiving  gave us the Thanksgiving break to dive into unpacking.

Way more additional catchup to be added, but I have an early morning in the morning so it’ll have to wait for another post.

After a week of not much happening (t was raining all week and there was a bit of a problem with scheduling). We mostly have floors. Of course they’ve covered in dust so it’s difficult to see in spots, and it was getting dark so i had to use the flash which seems to have picked up the dust on the floor (and kitchen counter) more than it did the dark floor. I also realized I really need to clean my lens.

They started around 9:30 this morning and were still there working when I stopped by after work to snap pictures. It a quarter to 7 when Bucky and I left again and they were still working. They had laid the living room, dining room and both hallways and all but a strip each of the kitchen, Mak’s room (which is the best view of the grain) and the bedroom and all of it looks absolutely wonderful. And that’s even without lights.

We painted my room, Melissa’s room, the kid’s room and the bedroom all this weekend. We first coated all of them on Saturday and then Melissa and I came back and put the second coat on everything Sunday. Saturday, Bucky started by taping off everyone’s ceilings and trim and as he finished taping a room someone started painting it. Melissa’s room got taped first and she painted it. She’s using two colors for hers. One set of opposite walls is one color and the other two walls are the other color and I think the trim is reversed. I was having trouble getting a picture that showed her colors accurately. They’re somewhere between the two pictures. Bucky taped off my room next. The first coat worried me a little. It didn’t seem to cover at all. But after the second coat on Sunday it was fine. While Melissa and I were putting the first coat on our rooms, Bucky taped off the kid’s room and the bedroom. Four rooms and four people meant the kid got to paint her room by herself while Bucky knocked out the first coat on our bedroom. Well, the kid didn’t exactly exactly paint her room by herself….her friend Ian came over and helped. Those two have some interesting painting techniques. Bucky filled in the gaps for them after he finished our room and then I did the second coat on Sunday while Melissa did the second coat on the bedroom. Actually Melissa did the edging on the kid’s second coat while I did some touchups on the living room and did the base coat on the inside of the linen cabinet.

We’re down to the front entryway (which we have paint for but won’t attack until the front door is replaced) and all the trim, floorboards, door frames and doors. None of that will be done until the floors are in, which are supposed to be installed the first half of this week. We also still have to do the pantry, coat closet, Melissa’s new closet in her room, and finish the linen closet.

It’s insane and bizarre and really bright but it’s awesome and it works. Bucky did get both the dining room and living room painted today. The way the house is laid out, the kitchen and living room come together at the bar and the dining room and living room are on either side of the fireplace and patio door. I absolutely love the way all three colors meet. I admit it’s a little overwhelming right now, but once the baseboards are painted dark and the floor is in, I think it’ll mellow out a little. And the furniture will do that, too.

We got all the ceilings painted with at least one coat on Monday. The continuous ceiling that goes through the kitchen, living room, dining room and hall had 2 coats as did the ceiling in the entryway hall. Everything else just got one coat. Bucky got the second coat on everything but my room Tuesday or Wednesday. The cabinet guy also got all the kitchen counters in place Then yesterday I took the day off and I got the second coat on my office ceiling while bucky started taping, then we painted the kitchen. The construction guys also got the countertops in yesteday afternoon. We also got the hallway painted.

I was going to stay home and paint today, too, but I gotta go to work, so Bucky’s on his own. He’s planning on trying to get the living room and dining room knocked out today. Then we can all work on our bedroom, melissa’s room, my room, and the kid’s room tomorrow.

Oh, and here’s the generic color scheme.

We’re quickly approaching time to paint. No one has really decided completely on colors in their own personal space, but the kitchen, living and dining are pretty decided.

The floors we chose throughout the house (except the tile remains in the bathrooms) are like slate with white wood grain. It’s kind of like old bleached barnwood only with alot more contrast. The kitchen and dining will be lavender and orange respectively. The kitchen cabinets will be a pale ash and the countertops are dark mottled blue/purple/green/slate. The living room will be a hard to describe shade of green that is called “Salted Ash.” The green in the living room and the orange in the dining room tie into the coloring of the paintings that hang in those rooms. Those two colors will meet at the fireplace over the french door.

With the totalling of my car, we’re down a vehicle and although the at fault driver’s insurance paid for a rental for me it was due back on Friday. Not that Allstate could be decent enough to give us any notice of that. The guys at Enterprise were nice enough to call Bucky Friday afternoon and ask us if we knew, but of course it was in Dallas with me and I didn’t get home with it until after they closed. We took it up Saturday morning and the guy at Enterprise said not to worry about it, which was very cool of him, but again left us a car short.

Having talked it over off and on last week we decided I would take over driving the Dodge behemoth and Bucky would get something else because I didn’t want to add another car payment to the family budget and another vehicle otherwise in our pricerange for me would be a piece of shit that would drive me nuts and likely waste money and Bucky’s time on repairs, while it wouldn’t be too hard to find something reliable enough for Bucky to use as a daily driver but cool enough for him to tinker on as a toy.

I should also mention that the day after my wreck Bucky was at work and had the edge of a ditch crumble under him, dropped about a foot and a half and landed with his knee locked and tore a ligament in it, so he’s on workman’s comp, at home and going crazy with boredom and scheduled for arthroscopic surgery on Monday.

Needless to say he was able to find the time to scour Craigslist. He was about to get a project truck when the tree fell but of course with that and everything else since, it never happened. Well he’s got one now, and she’s a doozy (in a good way lol). ‘63 Chevy longbed fleetside. He’s absolutely thrilled and I can’t argue. Not only is she in beautiful shape other than some oxidization on the paint and some minor wear and tear that is more than expected considering that she’s 45 years old. Currently no heater or AC, the driver’s window only rolls down 2 inches, there’s a couple pieces of trim missing and a few other things but nothing important.  Several in fact are just the kind of thing that will give Bucky something to tinker with that keeps him from losing his marbles this week without being overly strenuous on his knee right now. And the guy who had her just put in a brand new engine and transmission so she’s perfect for a daily driver. There’s all of 6000 miles on them. All that and the guy let that truck go for $2900 apparently because his wife was making him. Something I will never understand.

We’ll probably trade in the Dodge on something more fuel efficient for me soon, but I gotta figure out what I’m looking for.

I’m really not happy with the train right now. Monday I got back to my car after work to a warning that I was parked illegally, which I was. Hurst-Bell station doesn’t have enough parking. It never has. Every day there are 10-15 cars parked in not-parking-spaces because there’s no where else to park. The lot is full before 8AM every single day and was long before gas hit $4/gallon and a bunch of new people started riding the train. No one parks in a fire lane or blocks anyone else in, we just all park at the ends of rows next to the curb islands and anywhere else out of the way. The parking lot is landlocked between the tracks, Bell Helicopter, Bell’s parking lot (which has a big sign identifying it for employees and visitors of Bell only) and (what I assume is protected) marshland, so it’s not like they can even expand it to add more parking unless they build a garage.

I drove to work yesterday because I was running late, but I got an earlier start today got my coffee and drove to the train station. As expected there wasn’t a single parking space, so - not wanting to get my car towed or booted - I headed for Centerport which is the next station down the line. Have I mentioned it was pouring down rain this morning? I got about halfway to Centerport on Trinity and got rear-ended and thrown into a telephone pole. I’m fine. My car is not. Trinity is a very bad road to be on in the rain. There were no less than seven wrecks (counting mine)  on that quarter mile of road in the two hours I was out there. There is no such thing as a safe speed on it when it is wet. My wreck was the worst of them, everyone else pretty much checked bumpers, traded insurance and drove off, including (after about an hour or so) the guy who hit me.

I hate 2008.

They ripped the rest of the roof and ceiling out of the kitchen, dining and living rooms on Tuesday. That made all three rooms really surreal. They also managed to rip out all the tile and laminate that are being replaced, which revealed not one but two kinds of really old, really ugly and now water damaged linoleum under the laminate in the bedrooms. I didn’t have time to make it over to the house on Wednesday, but by last night they not only had the whole roof put back together and were there late putting shingles on but had also stripped all the paneling in the living and dining rooms.