Tad-a! I’m back. Oh the fun I have to share with you all! I have a temporary reprieve from home improvement prison. I’ve put myself on a work release program completing only minor projects this week.

These past couple of weeks of my life would make any reality show look like an episode of Happy Days. In the coming days I will share it all, or at least as much as I can remember. As you’re reading this amusing little train wreck keep in mind I’m not making this up. I don’t have the energy to embellish or even bedazzle the truth right now.

Let’s start just where I left off on Day 21 of this adventure with good ol’ Earl the delivery truck driver driving across the country at 5 miles an hour the contents of new kitchen in tow. Earl turned out to be neither good nor old. Eleven hours after his scheduled delivery time, Earl arrived with his attitude, my appliances, and the social skills of the frog I visit in my yard every night. He seemed wholly incapable of completing a sentence except to complain that I wanted the appliances brought all the way into the kitchen, (I appreciate I am demanding as most people make eggs in the living room). He made every attempt to damage the appliances on the way into our house, but I claimed victory in the end. The refrigerator, microwave, stove, and garbage disposal made it safely into the kitchen courtesy of Earl’s awesome partner. Earl made it out safely, barely. The dishwasher remained MIA until Day 24. Bless your heart Earl.

The appliances are all shiny and new and I have no idea how they work. I love it. I am a girl-I do not read manuals. Those tasks are left to my better half. I am convinced I have the ability to launch missiles with the controls on the front of the refrigerator, but getting a cup of water from it takes me ten minutes and a decoder ring. The freezer came with what I call the “home invasion ice maker”. Every time it makes single ice cube and drops it into the bin, it sounds like an intruder is breaking into our house. There are buttons and settings on the oven I am quite sure I will never use. I have come to terms with these realities and comfortable with it now. I keep my gun by my bed just in case that freezer gets out of line.

Day 21 was highly eventful. This was the first coming of the HVAC guys to reroute the ducts in the media room/studio. Note I said the “first coming”. We were introduced to the really nice HVAC company and one of their technicians who we’ll call … hmmm … Mr. Trust Me. Story to follow on Day 23. Everything on Day 21 appeared to be fine.

We previously spent a chunk of change repairing the sprinklers. Just to be difficult on Day 21 they sprang a leak somewhere underground further draining Lake Travis and increasing our water bill. I’m expecting a fruit cake at Christmas from our water company for our contribution to the their bottom line. It wasn’t until about Day 24 or 25 the landscapers showed up for the repairs. The lawn survived the Texas sun.

And then there was the kitchen. I told you about this list of “to do” items to be completed on Day 21. My delusion included:
-reseating the seal in the side of the sink with no disposal to stop a leak
-install the new disposal
-fix plumbing under the sink to stop further leaking
-replace the board in the kitchen cupboard that had absorbed all previous leaks
-finish painting the ceiling and install can lights

Each of these projects should take less than a day and some less than an hour, with the exception of the ceiling. However, my home seems to operate in some sort of black hole where time slows inside our walls and we watch the world outside speed by at an alarming rate. To someone I hire each project includes four or five breaks and additional time to contemplate how to complete a task, resulting in four hours to reseat the seal in the sink. Projects completed on Day 21: none.

We were knee deep into round 4 of the kitchen ceiling drama. The carpenter/contractor, we’ll call him Cool Hand Luke (and you’ll have a to wait a couple days for that explanation), had patched the area where Fixy Not Really removed the horrid box light and put in recessed lights. Though it was estimated to take a couple of hours (ha ha), it took more than 3 days to prepare for painting. We decided that our contractor’s idea to match the existing the texture looked more like someone flung a bunch boogers at it. The answer? An even bigger mess. We had him skim coat the ceiling so it was smooth, which also meant sanding down the texture and covering everything we own in dust. In the timeless words of Paula Abdul, it was “one step forward, two steps back”. We were back to the HAZMAT motif.

I was so frustrated at this point I was contemplating just listing the property, drop cloths and all, and just claiming a fictitious crime scene in the disclosures. Yeah, I would take a hit on the price, but I wouldn’t have to finish this nightmare of a ceiling and I could finally get a cup of coffee without drywall dust in it.