New Frustrations/Elations

1) After three coats, the squiggles on the wall where adhesive used to be are still visible through the navy blue paint. It doesn't matter how much you sand, this is still the case. The white walls look quite a bit better - perhaps because they're flat instead of satin finish? Perhaps because it's paint and primer in one?

2) After three days and lots of yucky dish water in the face, we did finally manage to de-install the ancient, broken dishwasher. Tomorrow we pick up the new one and then get to figure out how to install that. Sears would have delivered it and hauled the old one away for 80$. Seems worth it at this point. We'll know next time. Oh, and the old water-in pipe is leaking into the basement a little.

3) As we were removing more paneling in the dining room today, we discovered a small patch of mold near the top. I'm very nervous about this! We bleached the wall and got the panels out of the house ASAP. It's a very small patch, but I do not like this. I also googled the fabled black mold, and it looks nothing like the kind in the house, but I'm still going to check every hour or so for the next dozen years.

4) Inexplicably, the wall below a window in the dining room is wet. Outside there is no visible problem with the window well and no cracks in the mortar. The caulk is old and cracked and it has been raining a little the last two days. Only thing we can think to do is to re-caulk and hope for the best. If that doesn't work, we'll hire a professional. This does make me grateful that I have plaster walls that can hold up to this kind of crap, though. And the warm days should help.

5) We found the perfect used compost bin at construction junction but didn't want to haul it around with us on a cart. By the time we came back 10 minutes later, someone had taken it.

6) I can't remember if I mentioned this last time or not, but the outside spicket leaks into the basement, so we need to get that fixed too. This renders my sweet soaker hose system unusable.

BUT:

1) All kinds of peas and lettuces and root veggies are budding in the garden.

2) The asparagus patch was planted just before the aforementioned 40 hour rain, which means we should be seeing stalks very soon.

3) The colors in the living room (minus the fancy squiggle effect) are gorgeous and I love what the room will look like when we're done for real.

4) We've ordered some gorgeous wall flats for the dining room from inhabit so we don't have to scrape and patch and paint one whole wall in there.

5) We'll have a dishwasher tomorrow.

6) The chicken coop arrives on tuesday.

7) We found the perfect sleeper couch for a very popular price, which should arrive in a little less than a month. More on that later.

We're breaking even, I suppose. Doesn't quite feel that way, though. I'm really looking forward to the semester being over so I can devote all my time and attention to getting the house squared away. Living in a construction zone makes me a little crabby.