Wilde Family 1st Quarter "Vacation" Part 1

I have to burn through a lot of vacation this year. About a week a quarter. This is harder than it seems because I hate taking time off work when I am not actually going anywhere. Plus, I am whiny and ungrateful.

Anywho, this quarter instead of going somewhere (boo) we are working on the basement (woo and boo). 'Woo' because it needs to be done and 'boo' because, you know, working on the basement sucks and not going somewhere double-sucks.

My mom was kind enough to make the trek down from the Wyoming to watch the kid (the basement is not exactly Hazel-friendly so we are hoping to make a bunch of progress. I am going to document what we do, (a) so I can look back and see what I did on my Q1 vacation and (b) because I would be documenting a real vacation.

Yesterday (Saturday) Geoff worked on the ceiling demo and then we took a load to the sanitary landfill*. I didn't get to help for a good part of the day because I went to lunch with my friend. (hee hee hee). After the sanitary landfill, Jenni was kind enough to feed us. Hooray!

This was an in-progress shot from yesterday: Notice the random light fixture hanging down, the boards running east-west (left-right) and other assorted stuff.
A better shot of boards running east-west (they held the drop ceiling**) and remaining lathe-and-plaster to remove.

Ummm.... This is like the same shot but from this morning. Apparently the air was cleaner.

Yesterday we also made a lovely guest room upstairs for my mom. And if I was not exhausted after only two days of manual labor I would go take a picture of it. We also put up a shelving unit and organized some stuff upstairs.

Today we pulled the carpet off the stairs to upstairs and then removed approximately 60,000 nails. Some were regular size (like an inch) but some were like 3 inches. I thought it was over kill. And it over-killed my back. Ack! My back! But, look how lovely it looks without the disgusting carpet. Which was mostly just cat hair and dirt.

More demolition and lots of cleaning up today. This room actually looks great in real life. But it is hard to get a picture of it.

A view from the opposite direction, see how lovely the ceiling is? All free of east-west boards and no more lathe-and-plaster over the wall/door and the floor is mostly clean, also Geoff pulled a duct down (it is leaning against the door). Trust me. This is progress. And I cleaned the storage/utility room. And it looks fan-freaking-tastic. I am very proud of this. I filled half the trailer and a good portion of the truck with crap from this room.***

I have no Before pictures of this, so trust me. It was gross.

Also, we have a lot of hoses. And they are now in the utility sink...

So, there are the first two days of Q1V**** If I am still able to move tomorrow, I will update with the progress. Hopefully, we will get wiring done tomorrow.

One more side note, which would be an asterix except I am at the bottom: A lot of what we are doing this weeking (wiring, ductwork, insulation, etc) is not really visible or impressive(?) to anyone but us. But, trust me, it needs to be done and it will be better for us in the long run. Hooray for electricity!

*Because we would NEVER go to the dump.

** Who puts a drop-ceiling in the basement!! Morons.

***Jenni: we will make another sanitary landfill truck tomorrow or Tuesday so you can still borrow the truck. But, I really need to clean the stupid basement. Especially because it was something I could actually accomplish.

****Quarter 1 vacation is so much to type, plus I need a slogan for the week. Or something. Man, I am beat.