flowers

I got flowers this evening (as well as a super yummy meal of lamb with a brandied apple and prune sauce). The joke is I got flowers because I had to unpack all of the vases we were storing here at the rental. On Tuesday the rental showed (I will refrain from commenting on the realtor). I got a phone call about 20 minutes later that the unfinished room in the basement where we were storing all of our boxes that we were not unpacking while here was flooded. We had noticed a little bit of water around the base of the toilet in the master bath and Brent called Carl on Monday to report it. No plumber on Monday. Guessing the gasket failed over the weekend while we were gone and leaked into the storage room all weekend. There was about an inch of water standing. I played it cool (yes, quite unlike me) because I was confident that all our real valuable items - pictures, scrapbooks, works of art were stored elsewhere in the house. Well, I started the clean up (and to his credit Carl came over with his shop vac and sucked up all the water - he totally didn't have to do that in my opinion, so it proves he's really a nice man at the core). After several boxes of water damaged pictures (all replaceable I hope -- Audrey we need to talk) -- mostly just the pictures that were on the bottom of the boxes -- I came across a box labeled "med books." I tilted the box in order to pick it up with the dry top now being the bottom, but the box disintegrated and all of Brent's soaked books fell out into the puddle on the floor. Still no real panic on my part - I figured he knew what he needed since he has a job now (haha). I went back over to that spot to get the next box which was not labeled very well. I carried it out of the water and pulled back the soaked bottom. To my horror I saw the bottom of the box in which our wedding album is stored and a box with Em's 1 yr baby pics, her art work, an album with high school pics, and tons of other baby photos (that's before digital, folks). Remarkably none were wet! Brent's books had sacrificed themselves -- those huge books just sat there soaking up the water that would have headed to our valuables.
Lots of our books will never be the same, but, in the scheme of things, no biggie. I can buy another Paul Riser Couplehood book! I'll just have a little more packing to do now when it's time to move back home. (yes, I realize I could go ahead and do it now...)

So, that's been a decent part of my week. The other part is we've made all of our tile selections for the house and it should all be here between today and 3 weeks from now. Savannah's bath and the master bath floor are already in and ready for installation on Monday.
Trim has been going up. It's funny though, typically the trim starts with hanging the doors and then putting up the door trim, then the base and crown mouldings, etc. Well, because of our door issue (you can read the previous post about that if you dare), there are no doors to hang, so the trim carpenters have had to work backwards so to speak. On the doors, everything worked out well. We are having all the new doors custom made to match the existing doors b/c the trim supplier (who is awesome - and not just because he got us a deal) got the upcharge for the custom doors waived. YIPPEE!!!! We've ordered door hardware (and this company will install the knobs since the trim carpenter is not set up to bore doors) to match our existing 1 3/4" inch door hardware. Brent will antique the unlacquered brass so that the new ones match the original ones he's already antiqued. Don't freak out if you read a post in the future that he's been taken for questioning by Homeland Security for purchasing a mess of chemicals online - hahaha.

I know, I know!! I need updated pictures. Will do soon.

Oh, and by the way, on Monday I quit as the liaison with the builder. Brent's personality is so much better suited to dealing with them right now. I'm too easily frustrated in the present circumstance. 9 months was all could take. Hopefully he can get through the next 3 months unscathed and with his sanity still intact - I have faith that he will. No worries, I'm still neck deep in the project, but I just get and give my info through Brent and then he can word everything how he sees fit. Now the builder can't accuse me of sending anymore "tacky" emails. (have you ever... me? emails that avoid beating around the bush or emails that call a spade a spade?)