Primed real estate

Paul and his team are still painting their little hearts out. They have primed the living room. It's looking very pure. Now they are prepping it for the trim spray. I can't wait to see the wall color. It's the color I was least confident about when I chose it. I guess I'll have to wait a few more days.

The front powder room came out great. The dark red with the dark wood is very nice. Bill thinks it looks like an English pub. We are considering adding a dart board and small bar in there. It'll fit. Actually, I'm just hoping the toilet and sink will be ok in there.

The hallways are almost done. Peter thought the downstairs might be a bit too drab, but I like it. Also, we've decided that unless we hate something, we are going to stick with the colors we've chosen. It is really hard to see just the walls and try to imagine the room filled with furniture, artwork, window treatments, floor coverings. That's alot of distraction for the eye that we don't have now. So far we have a couple of questions marks but we don't walk into any room and say ick.

Bill has finished the cabinet in the dining room except for the leaded glass. It looks like it's always been there, which was the plan. And it is so much nicer than what actually was there. And, thank you Peter for suggesting the pull out shelves on the bottom. It will be much easier for access and to keep things neat. When he's right, he's right.

Then:

Now:

Katelyn is just about done with the staining on the third floor. She's been very meticulous and it shows.

Barry is moving along with the staining on the lower floors. He's been doing the new drawer fronts in the master alcove to match the built-ins in my dressing room. Good eye.

He's also just about done in the pantry and Peter's study so those rooms can be painted.

Brian came on Wednesday to do the templating for all the stone counter tops. Hopefully that'll be ready to be installed in a couple of weeks.

And, the rest of the indoor heating equipment is in. Mike and Chris were here on Monday and Joe has been here every day installing the heat pumps.

And the well guys even showed up again to test the pump and check out the electrical hook-ups. So from the well side, we are good to go

Before I end this entry, I just want to add another candidate for the "the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing" award. Last summer and fall I had many frustrating calls with the gas company asking them to stop sending me $400+ bills since we were under construction and not using gas. Finally they agreed to just send me minimum bills unless I wanted to stop gas completely and have them put a lock on the pipe. I was nervous about doing that since I didn't know what it would take to reactivate, so I agreed to minimum bills. Then they started escalating again and they told me I had to lock out the service and the pipe. I agreed, set a date and they never showed. I called, they claim they showed up but no one was at the house - not likely. They sent someone else, a woman who actually had a brain. She went to lock out the pipe and found that it already was locked. Apparently they had done it when we got the new meterlast spring! She sorted everything out and Keyspan actually gave me a credit on my bill. Then they sent me a note that they would give me a $50 credit on my next bill (which won't happen for a while), because they missed the appointment. Then they sent me a check for $46 - I don't know why. So Keyspan is candidate number1

Candidate number 2 is Verizon. About a month ago I called to set an appointment for them to come run underground wire from the pole to the house. I had a lovely talk with Coralee who even gave me her direct number if I needed anything. We set up the appointment for March 24. On March 21 I got a recorded message confirming the appointment at Heath Street. I called to say our address is actually Heath Hill. The person who answered assured me they had the right address but the recorder lady can't say Heath Hill. Fine. Then I got nervous that they wouldn't come with the right equipment (cables) so I called Coralee. But her number was constantly busy. So I called customer service. This time the lady who answered said there was no indication that this was to be an underground cable and that I had better tell them how many feet of cable and I should provide the string pull to pull the cable through. So I called Lee who told me how many feet and that Brian was set to do the pull string. I called back Verizon, got another lady who said she had never heard of needing to know how many feet; they always have plenty of cable on the truck.

It's a good thing we have cell phones.