Works Progress. Roof Rears Ugly Head.

That's it, February is over, bam, just like that.  Well, ok, so it was long and cold and snowy but with March entering like a lion, I still have wide-eyed fantasies of green and flowers and sunshine-y days ahead.  Please, Spring!

Projects are makin' headway about the house though.  Very exciting stuff.  The headboard is one step ahead, two steps back but it's coming along.  Back to Menards I need to go first though, again, and then maybe it'll wrap up.  I hope.  Cross dem' fingers.

I had a great time using my swanky miter saw chopping lots of wood.  I made a monstrous mess.  Heh.

Pardon the bad photo.  And mess-a-rific to-be-trashed pile in the background.

That's not even half the sawdust I generated either.  Being a neatnik, I do try to tidy as I go on every project.  Anyway, that was fun.

Project Stair has begun in tandem as well.  Because ya know, working on just one project at a time, ya know, heh, please.  No, but while one is drying I can work on the other.  Efficient usage of time, a-yup.

Here's the thing with the stair project though.  The stripes, they have to go.  I know, I know -- I worked hard on them, they were cool, and I said I'd never paint over them.  But guess what.  I painted over them.

When I told Mike that the stripes would be no more, he was actually noticeably upset.  And I was thrown off as I thought he wasn't into them.  But huh, turns out he liked them.

So when he came home from work the other night and a coat of wimpy crappy white primer-ish stuff was over them, he paused, shot me a look, made a melancholy sighing comment like "oh.  You painted over the stripes," and looked sad.  Heh, kinda broke my heart a little!

Honestly I thought he never liked them.  Color me surprised!

Well, color the wall with crappy white primer-ish stuff actually.

Ghosting stripes.

I reassured him that the new plan would be even more fantabulously excellent.  He looked at me with puppy eyes.  Ouch.

Today I managed to tear out the carpet off the top two stairs as well.  And get a blister from it.  And ouchie fingers again.  I think it took an hour just to get the two stairs bare and 95% staple-free.  Whoever put in this damn carpet everywhere must be a staple company stock holder.  Holy staples.

It's about what I expected.  Some gaps are larger than I anticipated.  Well wait.  What I should say is amazingly they're not the sinkholes that they could have been.  At least there's some wood here.  But in general overall though, not much different than when I ripped the carpet out the back stairs.  (A pre-blog project.) (Which needs revisiting.) (The back stairs I mean.)

Anywhooooo.  So yeah.  Because I found what I expected, it's fine and fits into the plan a-ok.

The other day though.  Oh yes.  The other day.  That was spent mopping up leaks.  Drying towels.  Leaks.  Drying towels.  Leaks.  Ugh, sigh, leaks.

I mentioned to you guys that preceding closing on one of our multitudes of final walk-throughs, we discovered a roof leak in the master bathroom.  Long story short, flipper and Mike agreed to split the cost of a new roof, payable at closing with work to be completed prior.

Ok.  Not necessarily the deal I would have struck because I'm, well, me, Iiii can be a bitch about stuff like that, but so it was.  Kudos to Mike for handling it and getting something when we foresaw nothing.

Now supposedly the roof was put on.  We have a flat roof and no access so we had to take their word for it.

A few months later I get a misdated copy of a receipt and the roof is still leaking.  Ok.  I'm annoyed.  The guy who did the roof said he'd come fix it because he warranties his work for three years, then no-showed several times, then stopped answering my calls altogether.

Now I'm frustrated.  And pissed.

Fast forward to the other day and I hear this weird noise.  What is that?  It sounds like dripping.  Is it dripping?  Where is that coming from?

Coursing through the house at top speed I discover a river traveling out of Mike's office and water dripping in like mad from the window frame.  OH was I upset.  I texted Mike.  He was upset.  Between towel change-overs, which was mighty frequent mind you, I managed to get outside and look up.

On my way out, I tried to rationalize....maybe it's just simply the window, maybe not the roof.

But ahhh-nope.  The water was coming from within and springing forth out of the frame with reckless abandon indoors and out.    Ok cool, this sucks.

Surely the sole gutter/singular downspout/rain barrel disaster zone plays some role in this but I have no idea by how much.  Can't get up there to find out.  Ugh.  Ok.

Came back inside.  Change the towels yet again.  Now it's coming in the dining window directly below.  Ok great.  I'm so excited.

Pace pace pace.  Change towels.  Pace pace.  Pull hair.  Pace pace pace.  Towels.

I decide to email the seller, Master Flipper himself.  We paid him for this, it's his turn to hear from me.  Thankfully I hadn't ripped his head off at closing despite every temptation, so I felt it ok to send a civil message making it crystal crystal clear that not only have I been diligent in following up on the issue, but that we paid him, it's his turn to resolve this.

Yeah, don't piss me off.

Totally thought his email would bounce.  Totally thought I wouldn't hear from him if it didn't bounce.  Was formulating plan B.

Shockingly, and I mean every letter of that word, he wrote back within ten minutes.  And even more shocking, I got a phone call from some guy several hours later who said the seller asked him to call me.  Whoa.  Ok.  I'm suspect, I don't say out loud, but please go on.  He said he'd call their roofer (a different one no doubt) and set something up for next week.

As it stands now, that's the plan.  Their roofer will be here early in the week.  We'll play this out and see where it goes.  We obviously don't have much faith in a guy who seemingly prides himself on shoddy work, but we'll ride it out and hope for the best.

We shall see.  C'mon Spring.