What a day.

Wow. What a day.

Yesterday ended with what I thought was yet another "typical" home renovation story. Our dishwasher was due to be delivered yesterday. At noon, I hadn't heard anything about when it was to be delivered - so I called. I got transferred to the delivery desk, who had no record of my purchase. They said not to worry, there was another company that also does delivery, and they transferred me to the appliances department. They, in turn, gave me the number to the proper delivery company. When I called them, they also had no record of me. So I called Home Depot back. Once again, transferred to appliances, they told me that my dishwasher hadn't arrived at the warehouse yet, and they didn't have a firm delivery date for me. I had, of course, just finished wrestling a beast of a dishwasher out the door, and given it a few good kicks to boot. Sigh.

Fortunately, both my paperwork and dishwasher were located a few hours later. I actually got a delivery scheduled for today! It probably helped that I was understanding and didn't yell and scream. It probably also helped that I was calling from "home" and not "work", and they assumed I had taken the day off work to wait for it. The fact that I wasn't yelling and screaming about being without a dishwasher for a few days also aided my case. I was completely silent on the fact that I needed the dishwasher out for those days anyways to let the flooring guys work...

So my dishwasher arrived today. They even managed to hit the early side of the delivery window - between 6:30 and 8:00 IN THE FREAKIN' MORNING! Needless to say, my day started earlier than normal.

I had just managed to start getting the kids up, when the flooring guys appeared at the door at 8:00. I missed breakfast as I frantically tried to keep ahead of them by moving furniture around as they yanked and pulled up the carpet. Doug was abandoned at the table, as we rushed to get Samantha out the door to school. No leisurely start for me today!

Part of the job was to rip out the K3 board (particle board) under the linolium. In the upstairs bathroom I did earlier, the board chipped out nicely. It was screwed down very dilligently, but had not been glued. The kitchen was a different story. It was screwed and glued like there was no tomorrow. Saws, chisels, undercut saws, and a jackhammer were all used to chip and pry the stupid stuff off. There is a 6 inch layer of dust downstairs from all of the grinding and chipping. The floor guys had budgetted a full day to chip it out. They fell behind quickly.

Meanwhile, Doug had a physiotherapy appointment. He's been walking on his toes a lot over the previous 2 weeks and we wanted to be sure everything was ok. Our downstairs was completely uninhabitable with the noise, dust, and exposed plywood floor with nails. So we retreated upstairs to a tiny open space that was shovelled out from where our downstairs stuff was being stored. I went for a shave to get ready for an important business meeting in the afternoon.

Somewhere in this time, a saw hit a nail, and threw it through our sliding glass door, shattering it into 6 zillion pieces. Great. Just what we need when there is a storm with high wind warnings on it's way. Fortunately, Doug's physio was going nicely, and there's no big concern as of yet.

Then, without warning 11:00am hit. This initiated a sudden rush. You see, today was also flu shot day for us. So we hustled physio out the door, and starting packing up Doug to go pick up Samantha from school to get our shots. I think I managed a short conversation with the floor guys (who really are hating my floor at this time) about replacing the window tomorrow. But I was in "a bit" of a hurry.

Samantha was collected without issue, and we arrived at the doctor's office right on time. We then proceded to wait for about 1/2 hour - in spite of the office reporting not 40 minutes earlier that they were running right on time. Fortunately, my 1:30 meeting (downtown Vancouver) had been bumped to 2:30, and this wasn't making me late - yet.

I hate needles. So does Samantha. This was a very traumatic appointment for both of us. I think I took it better than she did though. Nobody had to physically restrain all 4 of my limbs well the shot was being administered. Poor kid.

By this time, it's already after 12:00, and we need to rush a McLunch into us, so I can get downtown in time. I'm just biting into my burger when I get a call from the floor guys. The floor is getting tougher and tougher, and the ratio of glue to wood is approaching 1:1. They want to know if we can go to plan B and raise the rest of the floor downstairs by sheeting it with plywood instead. If it weren't for the water damaged K3 that needs to come out anyways, I'd be more tempted. They say they'll explore the damage and call me back. Not more than a couple minutes later, I'm talking to Milt about the weather and traffic. Trees are down across the freeway, and power is out all over the place. We need to leave extra time, but we're already at the wire.

And if it feels like this blog is too long, well, imagine how I'm feeling by this point!

We arrive on time for the meeting, and it is a good one. The project sounds exciting. The sort of clean sheet development every software guy likes. Things are looking up - but there is still no word from the flooring guys. We are getting reports that large parts of our neighborhood are without power. I hope they're not chipping by candlelight.

I get home to see much more floor still there than I wanted. They're about 1/2 done. It looks like they are squaring the edges to make way for laying more plywood down. I don't know how much 23 sheets of plywood costs to install these days, but I doubt it's cheap. We put dinner in the oven (Pappa Murphy's Take and Bake gave away free pizza yesterday!) to bake, and I was just about to head upstairs to see the kids when the power went out. Great. The pizza was only 1/2 cooked, and every restaurant in town has a 4 hour line up. This day is not getting better.

Fortunately, we're on the same power grid as a firehall, and seem to get priority treatment. It wasn't more than about 20 minutes before the power came back on. We cranked the oven up high and crossed our fingers. As of now, the pizza is eaten, and the power is still on.

Tomorrow, the flooring guys say they'll be back, and they have resolved to "beat" this floor yet. He feels that he quoted on pulling out the floor, and by golly he's going to do it if it kills him. Hopefully it won't.

So, if any of you out there have a building contractor job you want filled, I've got some real world experience. Please address your job offers to:
dream-on-im-not-doing-this-again@forget-it.com.

I'll update you more later as tomorrow hits, and sees me return to the flooring supply store to check on backordered trim pieces, and return some low quality underlay...