Today was a pretty significant day. The concrete foreman, Doug, showed up to check progress and we got a big gravel drop. That makes the mud pit look a little more like the beginning of a garage. The hole has dried out a bit after the buckets of rain we got over the weekend and Doug said his crew would be by tomorrow by noon with forms to start the walls. Yippee.
They started tearing up the girls' bathroom today. Rob said they'd break up the tub to get it out and I mistakenly figured they'd be cutting it into pieces. The process was somewhat more violent and involved Larry, a ten-pound sledgehammer, and porcelain shards raining down through minute cracks in the kitchen ceiling.
The rodent abatement system is installed but is not working exactly as planned. The first couple of days Tommy hid upstairs in the attic room where we deposited him upon entering the house. The night of the second day he meowed to get out of the room and we let him start exploring. He seemed to be getting comfortable but when we turned in for the night he had some trouble settling down. We figured he'd just start investigating the myriad of pests currently residing with us but instead of eradicating them, he's an audible alarm that sounds all night whenever he hears something, which is constantly. We aren't quite sure what the problem is, as we were assured the cat was well behaved and a good hunter. It's entirely possible the cat is suffering from target saturation. We are torn - we dislike the mice, but we are rather fond of sleeping, and while we would like to keep the cat and lose the mice, if we can't correct the situation we'll be keeping the mice and losing the insomnia.
I met with the first of the replacement window guys. (As opposed to the repair/refurbish window guys I met with several weeks ago.) The refurbish bids came in higher than I had hoped. Every window in the house needs work. Some are worse than others, but all need re-glazing, and when I say that I'm not just talking about re-glazing the sash in the frame, rather, the material between the individual glass pieces, (diamonds) and the lead came has deteriorated to the point where the panels are no longer air or water tight. This involves first getting the window out of the oak jamb, removing the panel from the frame, pulling the entire panel apart, cleaning the glass pieces, cutting new came, fitting it back together (with the new glazing between glass and came,) and re-soldering the whole she-bang. Then stripping the frame of 85 years of paint and rust, cutting out the metal that has rusted through and welding new pieces in, painting or sealing the frame, fitting the leaded glass panel back in, re-glazing it and putting it back in the (hopefully) re-milled oak jamb. It's about a $900 process and at the end of it, we'd still have a single glazed window that needs some kind of a storm window custom fitted. Oh, and did I mention that we have 76 leaded sashes? (And 10 additional steel casement windows.)
I've submitted a request to the This Old House television program website. Gosh, I hope they find my witty inquiry worthy of investigation.
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