Jackpot!

We are very close to being done with the first part of the remodeling. The ceiling is up in the bedroom and the parlor. The good Mr. Dr. and I, with the help of some friends, will paint the bedroom over the next couple of weekends. We've decided to be bold with the bedroom. We're going with dark blue walls and a tannish/yellow ceiling. For the moment we're keeping the white trim until we make the time to strip it and go back to the natural wood finish. With any luck, we'll be able to move back into our bedroom by the end of February.

But, the big story is the floors in the parlor. We originally thought that the plyboard in the parlor was the subfloor. But our contractor discovered that there was a floor underneath that. So, we asked him to pull up a piece. Lo and behold, there was the original wide plank floor.


Our contractor thinks that it is either fir or yellow pine. Soft woods, which means lots of polyurethane will be needed to protect it. But, the good news is:

1. We can keep the original floors, and
   
2. We don't have to buy new floors.
   

This meets our twin objectives to save as much of the original house as possible and do it within budget. Even better, we'll have some money have the contractor finish the parlor so that we don't have to. Woo-hoo!

So the next step is to have the doors and the moulding stripped and stained, and then finally to paint the room. The contractor will begin on that next week.

In the mean time, the city is having their guy come to check out the roof on Wednesday and hopefully we can get started on that sooner rather than later.

In other news, we continue to work on our books. Simba seems to be doing fine even though she hasn't had any medicine for over a week. We're hoping that she's spontaneously healed herself of her hyperthyroidism.

That's all from this side. We hope you all had a good week.

Today we got a new president

I just watched the whole inauguration, minus 10 minutes to talk with the contractor about tomorrow's work and give him a check. It was great! I cried. Simba sat in my lap - for 45 seconds. I loved the poem.

And now, it is time to do what President Obama said we must do: get to work.

Tomorrow we get a new president

Tomorrow, I will tear up several times because:

1. We get a new president, and hopefully a new direction for our country.

2. My littlest nieces and nephews, and grand-nephews and maybe grand-nieces, will grow up in a country in which a person of color was finally judged by the content of his character.

3. It will be only one more week before my mother finally gets her citizenship.

Yes. It will be a day for tears of joy. And lots of good wine.

And tomorrow, we (meaning me, Mr. Dr., and Simba) might even get a new ceiling.

Quick update

The electrician came and fixed our wiring problem. He also put in two new outlets in the bedroom, one wired specifically for air conditioners. I really like our electrician. He's an Irish guy from Galway who just loves our house. Everytime he leaves he pleads with us to not ruin the building. It's nice to know that there are other people who appreciate houses like this.

The contractors have been steadily working on the bedroom and parlor. The insulation is up in the bedroom. They haven't yet put up the ceiling, but it is amazing what a little bit of insulation will do. They had to take out the plastic insulation we put up around the windows when they were doing the demolition. But even with the leaky windows and no ceiling, the bedroom is much warmer than before.

They started to put up the soffit in the parlor which looks like it should be pretty cool. The goal is to have it finished by the end of next week. We've asked them to insulate the whole ceiling in the parlor now that we have seen the benefits of it. It increases the cost of the job but given the gas bill we just received, it can only be worth it.

Other than that, I'm making progress on the dissertation. Marcos is making progress on his book. Simba is the same. I sliced my thumb pretty good last night rinsing out a can. You don't appreciate your thumb until you've sliced a large gash in it. Thumbs: they are important in so many ways.

Airlines to avoid

The good Mr. Dr. went to Atlanta this past Wednesday for a conference. He got his ticket through Orbitz. He didn't notice that the return leg of his trip was on United Airlines, which we generally avoid because we have always (literally) had a bad experience with them. I am not kidding when I say that every single flight we have ever taken on United Airlines has involved delayed flights, flights missed because of their delays, bad attitudes, delayed luggage, etc. We can now add "canceled flights" and "lack of accommodation" to that list.

One leg of his return flight was cancelled almost 36 hours before the flight because of weather. Granted, we knew that there was going to be snow coming from the west that would blanket Boston, starting AFTER this flight was supposed to arrive in Boston. But that's just a meteorological technicality. The bigger problem was their solution: fly him to Dulles and then put him on a flight home the next morning. Except that he would be forced to spend the night at the airport because they would not guarantee him a hotel voucher. After a frustrating conversation with an unhelpful person, I got involved.

Well, that's when the adventure started. I was able to get a better "re-accommodation" routing through Chicago, which for some bizarre reason, still had flights coming and going despite being the recipient of worse weather than Boston would have received. Nevertheless, confirming the ticket required that I call the reissuing airline: Delta. I had no idea that it had gotten so complicated that one airline issues tickets for another airline. But I call because that's what it would take to make this happen. Then Delta tells me that they can't reissue the ticket because they needed the confirmation number and flight details. Or, actually they needed to receive that information from Orbitz. Never mind that I had that information. When I asked if they had a specific number for Orbitz to get directly to the people who he needed to speak with, he said no. And we wonder why Delta is going bankrupt.

So I call Orbitz. I am thoroughly impressed with Orbitz now. The young lady spent over 2.5 hours on the phone with me, United Airlines, and Delta to re-accommodate Mr. Dr. The reason that it took so long was because both United Airlines and Delta kept her on hold for ridiculous amounts of time. At one point she and I were waiting for someone at United for almost 40 minutes. Thank goodness that my cell phone has a speakerphone on it. But she made it happen and for that we are grateful. I still have to call Orbitz back on Monday so that Delta can finish processing the refund they owe us on the canceled leg of his itinerary.

Finally it all got settled, we got Mr. Dr. on United Airways which would get him back home at exactly the same time that the original flight would have. And then the fun began. The shuttle from the "hotel" near Emory University (separate note: avoid the Emory Inn) only comes once an hour and of course it had already left by the time he got out of the conference. By the way, taxis in Atlanta are really expensive.

He gets on the plane and then waits. The flight ended up being delayed by an hour and a half because of runway issues. No problem. Still enough time to make the connecting flight. Now here's the funny part: I was watching the flights from three different flight and airport tracking websites, as well as United Airways' own website. The airline reported that the flight was canceled. Apparently, the flight was canceled when it was already in the air. Someone must have forgotten to tell the pilot. And we are thankful for that.

He catches his connecting flight and makes it home. We lost our parking spot in front of the house because I just don't believe in saving parking spots and of course someone came and took it. That's o.k. I found a spot one block away. And Mr. Dr. was able to reclaim it this morning.

To recap our lessons learned:
1. Avoid United Airlines at all cost.
2. Avoid Delta if possible and know that they do not re-accommodate anyone on their own planes.
3. Orbitz's emergency customer care people are ABSOLUTELY fabulous. At least the young lady that I got.
4. Do not believe anything on US Airways flight tracker.

The demolition has begun - Now with pictures

On Thursday, our contractor has started demolishing the ceiling in the parlor. It is a royal, holy mess. As I've described, we have the original horsehair plaster ceilings. Taking them down results in a gray, smoky dust. All of the doors were closed and the contractor had drop cloths covering the doors but it is still everywhere. Literally.

From Remodeling

(Click on the picture to go to the album)

We have the HEPA filter running so that I don't aggravate the asthma. On the plus side, we now have a reason to buy a Shop-Vac. Lowe's, here I come with my 15% off coupon. Woo-hoo!

Today, they demolished the bedroom ceiling. We did manage to get everything out of the room, which was a good thing considering the mess. They did some test holes yesterday and it turns out there is a hard wire mesh over the gypsum plaster. It does boggle the mind. We have no idea why they would fortify the ceiling in the bedroom and do such a shoddy job on the ceiling in the parlor.The good thing is it isn't horsehair plaster, so the mess was more or less confined to the bedroom and the immediate area.

For those interested, we have not yet made a decision on what colors to paint the parlor. And we haven't yet figured out how to get the paint off the existing jams without damaging them. We have decided to take up the current subfloor to see what is under it. We have a sneaking suspicion that there might be good wood underneath it. But all in due time. We also had them open up the plaster around the chimney just to see if there is anything there worth salvaging. There wasn't. But now we know.

That's all for now. Have a good weekend everyone.

Learn physics by living in an old house

The other day I was standing at the sink getting the dishes organized to wash as my good father taught me, and I felt heat. My first thought was, hot flash? No. Fire in the ceiling? No. I looked around for what could possibly be the source of heat. There are no heat pipes in that part of the kitchen. I then realized that the radiator on the other side of the room was on and cranking away. But the sink is next to the window clear across the room. I mean we're talking a good 10-12 feet.

Heat, as you know, is the motion of molecules. The higher the temperature, the more movement. Generally, when we think of heat rising we think vertically but in reality, gases, like air, will move depending on the pressure. When temperature increases, it also increases pressure from all of those molecules moving faster. Air generally moves from areas of high pressure (warm part of the room) to areas of lower pressure (cooler next to the window). Pretty neat, heh?

That ends today's lessons in physics.

And the New Year has begun

As usual, my university starts the long spring semester early. On Monday the 5th to be exact. No sooner have we all recovered from New Years celebrations than we all have to have syllabi and classroom preparation ready. At least the good Mr. Dr. gets a few more weeks to work on his book before his semester begins.

The construction of our parlor and bedroom ceilings will commence this week. Today we had a pre-construction cocktail with a few friends so that a few people will be able to see the difference once it is complete. We still haven't figured out what colors to paint either room but there was much volunteering of assistance once we are ready to make holes in the walls, sand, primer, etc. That may have been the wine talking though. :) Nonetheless, we are hoping to soon have that room put together, at least as much as it can be until we can afford really good furniture.

In order to prepare for the bedroom demolition and rebuild, we will have to move as much as we can out of the bedroom. We're pretty sure that the bed will probably have to stay. Possibly even the dressers. We are expecting to have to sleep in the guest bed downstairs for a night or two while that is happening. We'll see how well this all goes. With any luck, it will just be a straightforward process. We must count ourselves lucky that these are the only problems we've really encountered. One of our friends today recounted the story of sewer backups into their house. Yes, it was that gross.

We are still trying to decide on a roofer. We've had 3 quotes so far and one is wildly different, but he's teasing us with copper flashing. He must have known that Mr. Dr.'s eyes light up when he hears those words. We also still have to apply with the city, which I will do on Tuesday.

Other than that, I'm trying to work on the dissertation as much as possible. I've passed a major milestone and am now in the process of writing up the final draft. It will take a good month, but I am sure I can get it done. Hopefully.

Oh, and we made our first mortgage payment. So, this is what is what it feels like to be a grown up.

And finally, congratulations to my mom for passing her citizenship test. Now we are just waiting for the date for the oath ceremony. You go mom!