Insulation, no thanks

I worked on insulation last night in the basement (or fire stop, which is still insulation, just a fancy type that takes a while to burn), and man, is that stuff ITCHY. You start to sweat and the little bits stick to you, which makes you want to scratch, and scratch, and scratch. The worst part for me was my face. Ugh. I have to finish a bit more of it tonight, and then it will be on to the big fluffy pink stuff once the framing inspection gets approved.

Speaking of inspections, the Langley Township office neglected to tell us that they don't do electrical inspections anymore. So we had to panic and go find out who does. Well, it goes through the province now, and we were lucky that they give out permits on the same day you go in. But it still costs $208. Another $208! *sigh* I can begin to understand why people don't bother to get permits and just do their reno's on the sly. If we were putting in a suite downstairs there would be even more hoops to jump through. At least at the end of the day we will be all registered and on the books for our reno's.

At the end of the day yesterday:

Moving in...gradually

Well, Lulu has started to make herself at home on the round red chair that used to be in the (other) office. She will be my new coworker I think. lol

Here's the update on the basement: We're getting two inspections this week, one for framing and the other for electrical. We were at Home Depot (AGAIN) last night to pick up some fire stop (insulation) and spent the rest of the night getting itchy and sweaty (well, that was Trevor's department) while shoving it in the walls. The fire stop has to be put in --according to Langley building codes-- around the outside tops of the framing, so that in the case of a fire it will provide a bit of a block before the fire spreads to another floor of the house. Essentially, it gives anyone in the house another 10-15 minutes to get out.

And the other big plans in the works: The bedroom that is in the basement has now been upgraded to a media room. Meaning: super duper sound system is going in (insert manly grunt of technology here), and a new tv somewhere down the line as well (purchasing at poorhouse electronics I'm guessing). There's also a PANEL. Yes, a manly PANEL of TECHNOLOGY as well. To the average eye it looks like a box in the wall with a door (almost a glorified locker really), but no, this houses the TECHNOLOGY and all things HIGH TECH. It will hold all of the internet thingies, the phone thingies, the tv thingies and probably other thingies as well. It is the hub of the house now (wait, I thought that was the kitchen). Or it will be.

I can't wait until it's drywall time!!! That's hopefully happening around the 23rd. *Excitement!*

Kermit was in my backyard!

Over the weekend I was watering the garden and I saw this little thing twitch on a pot I was watering! It was a frog! I was very excited (but still thought, if this thing jumps on me I will crap my pants), so I ran inside and grabbed the camera.

Now that I have your attention...

I thought I'd be smart and post a picture of moving boxes, but when I googled it, this came up and won over the boring cardboard type. Apparently it's supposed to look like it's moving...somehow.

Back to the task at hand! Moving is still coming along at a hit and miss pace. Sometimes I get up the energy to blow through 8 boxes, and other times it's like *sigh* boxes. I'll be packing up more today.

The weekend was pretty fun. Well, the end half of it, not so much the beginning. We took Friday off to get more of a head start on some basement stuff (Trevor mostly) and I started a mega spot cleaning through the house, so we could at least live in something that resembles one. Saturday was more of the same, but we had dinner made for us by some friends out in Abbotsford. Sunday started on a crappy note, with me snapping my neck out of alignment and getting a funny crick for the rest of the weekend (and it's still here today). But we had Mike and Cynthia come over and spend the day doing electrical fun things (Mike) and the girls went out shopping (of course!). We had dim sum for lunch (next time, Pink Pearl!...or other!) and Mike and Trevor shared some 'beef tenders' (aka - 'gross slimey things'). The jury is still out on what these are. I've looked them up on google and wikipedia and have come up with nothing. I'll look it up in my dim sum book tonight.

We also went and saw the Bourne movie that's out. Same old, same old. Smash, smash, who am I?, honk, beep, smash, run run run, the end. But we did get to have the extra bonus of seeing the movie at a shady theatre in Guildford (Surrey). And an even better bonus of witnessing Mike's 'rapping' talents to Run DMC. Tricky, tricky, tricky, tricky, ungh!

On Monday we had the Merrimans back again, Mike to tackle electrical stuff again, and Cynthia, to tackle the Ikea with moi. I was a bit disappointed that Ikea didn't have more of their new stuff in yet (especially since I got the new 2008 catalogue on Friday!!!). Oh darn, I guess that's another trip!

And today, well I'd like to press the rewind button and go back to Thursday when I could have avoided having milk leak out of the small office fridge and proceed to harden/get sticky/stink like a cow bum in here this morning. It was nasty and took me an hour of cleaning and scrubbing to get it all under control. And I still have a strawberry candle burning over on a table to try and mask the smell a bit. Yuck. I'm sure I'll find a few more surprises where I've missed and it still stinks.

M Day will soon be upon us...

Well, I've finally been given a breadcrumb trail to figure out when the heck I'm supposed to move this office. FINALLY. I don't think I need to go into my displeasure at how annoying/frustrating/poke-your-eyes-out '----------' (add another negative comment here) this whole situation is. For weeks I've been trying to figure out when I'm being booted out, and as of today I have 17 days (YES, 17 days) to get my collective junk together and go cram a office the size of a small country into my house.

Frantic plans are now going into place, getting phones and contact info all ready to be hooked up and working for August 20th, changing over the name of Old Foundry to the new and fabulous name, getting the word out to everyone, packing boxes, and somehow managing to work and be productive through all of this. Not to mention dealing with space so tight in the house I think the walls might be shaking and heaving every time we bring something new into it.

Our nasty, NASTY dining room set is being given the boot and I get to set up shop in the dining room. I'll have a nice cozy space shared with giant long lengths of moulding jutting under my desk, boxes, bags and general crap. Oh I can't wait to post the photos...you will all get to bask in my disaster of a house.

Fart fans and other things I learned this weekend

The weekend came and went in a bit of a blur. Mike came over and spent most of his weekend slaving away in our basement (thanks again Mike!), with Trevor as his electrical monkey helper. I think. I know there was a lot of noise downstairs but I can't quite tell you what happened down there. There's a lot of wire, a lot of switches, banana boxes (like that name), and a super powered fart fan.

I was sent off to Home Depot 3 TIMES during the weekend, bringing the grand total of visits in 48 hours to 5 (4 too many if you ask me). In some strange way I'm proud to say that I know the Langley Home Depot like the back of my hand. Wiring? Aisle 2. Switches? Aisle 3. Fart fans? Aisle 5 just where the hot tub is mounted (towards the back of the store). Perhaps this is a skill I should put on my résumé? (ps - the ´'s there were just to satisfy Trevor, he hates when people just write 'resume'...like 'resoom')