Mess and progress...

Things change here on a daily basis. Yesterday Dave put in the ground level door and windows. Today he frames them. He also puts in the other windows I blogged about yesterday. He is hard at work. I hear sawing and loud noises. He has to take windows up a ladder and over a balcony. And he does it pretty much all alone, amazing as these are not small windows.

But these are the things we find anywhere anything gets torn out. All water damage from previous areas where windows have been updated. The good part is where we are finding rot pretty much everywhere it is all dry. If it was wet it would mean there were still water problems. So areas need to be rebuilt. The continuous questions is always how much does one rebuild. Where do you stop.

The moving in continues but not the putting away since things can't go where construction work needs to be done. So all available surfaces just have stuff, unrelated stuff, lots and lots of stuff.

To better see the water damage under my desk we tried to pull out a file cabinet. That was screwed to a built in desk which had a large piece of glass on it. So we cut the glass piece down and gave it to Ellie next door who has a similar condo layout, then John used Dave's sawzall and cut the desk out. Who knows where we will be at the end of today...

Monday's construction...

If all goes well at the end of the day we will have 3 sets of new windows on the second floor. Then all the windows on the second floor will have been replaced. About 1/3 of the windows have been replaced and we are replacing another third this week. There has been a lot of water damage here because of the old windows. So we are doing the ones that must be done this year.

The upside is a warmer house in Winter and a tax rebate for putting in energy efficient windows.

And we had a surprise yesterday. We finally hooked up the hose and I was going to hose off the deck. I didn't have good water pressure so John went to the basement to shut off the washer and came running out to shut off the hose. Apparently the pipes to the outside faucet leak-- into the finished basement wall somewhere. We could hear water dripping. Long list for the plumber next week... 7 things so far.

Every day this week when John gets off work we will head over to the apartment for another load of little stuff. We are emptying the bathrooms... so much little stuff crammed into every available space.

I am looking forward

to the day I can sit here and relax... next week (fingers crossed) should see 3 different construction guys in here with the professional move on Saturday. This is just the big stuff that has to be wedged into the basement or hoisted over the railing into the second floor. Big week... hoping for good weather and that everyone shows up.

Our yard...

We remember the yard being pretty pitiful last year but that must have been in Summer. It is full of lovely Spring blooms right now. The whole front yard is all flowers. And John likes to dig in the dirt so he is in charge of it all. That makes him happy. I only like the idea of gardening not the actual sweat and dirt of it.

And he has also taken over mowing the small patch of yard in the back....

Mom's table...

We are starting to go through my parent's house. Unfortunately we all have lots of stuff and don't really need anything. But I wanted a piece of furniture of my Mom's and one of my Dad's. This is the piece that reminds me of Mom. Both ends of this table fold down. 4 folding chairs fold and slide into the middle section. When the whole thing is folded down it only takes up 11"x34"x29" inches. Perfect for extra dining in a small space. The interesting thing is that this piece looks completely at home here in the condo. I remember this piece in our house in the 60s... funny how furniture and places that were built at the same time look at home together.

Growing up it was my job to set this table at holidays with the linens and good dishes etc. So it is very nice to have this piece. It would make my Mom happy to know it will live on in our new place.

Progress...

Finally... what seems to be progress. I have emptied one room, the worst room at the apartment. My office was the second bedroom. Small room but if you work from home and do something creative you know you need a lot of paper related stuff. And I had it packed in. So my clothes are now hanging in a newly painted closet at the condo and all my office is torn down and in boxes here also. Unfortunately I can't put that together until 3 different sets of construction people have come and gone. Hopefully all by the end of the month. If not we move anyway...

This last year has really taught me to take it one day at a time and just do the best you can with it. Not an easy lesson for a planner like me.

Ongoing...

This is the view this morning on the outside...

This is the view on the inside. We are sort of camping out here. John and Ryan and a buddy of Ryan's got a mattress up the stairwell. So we have a mattress on the floor and mismatched sheets and a small TV in the bedroom. Feels a lot like college.

Today I continue to work on Flower Doodles, work on setting up the kitchen here and go back to the apartment to take my office apart there. It appears the leasing office has rented our apartment! That is great. Instead of paying rent for somewhere we won't live we can buy a dehumidifier, a microwave etc.

The move continues...

Every day is moving day here is some shape or form. Saturday we went home and got our stuff that was in storage and came back to Madison and unloaded. Lots of help from people on each end. Our condo is smallish... About 650 sq ft on each level. So the basement level or the Man Cave is full of shelving and boxes. Eventually this will be John's work space and a viewing room. I hate basements but am thrilled to have John have so much usable space. As we have looked at new fabulous condos we are always shocked at the general lack of storage space. So for the first time I am really happy to have a nice sized basement.

The square footage of this condo reminds me a lot of the house we built in Cedar Rapids. It was smallish and laid out in the way we lived. This space feels even more efficient, not a lot of rooms but good sized rooms and everything is very open.

Windows and flooring is ordered. Windows are specially made so we wait there. Next things are to get our apartment rented so we can get out of that lease and to get someone in here to take out a small wall. And to keep moving stuff from our apartment to the condo.