Week Update Including a Cute Opossum

I've been sick since last Thursday, but the work hasn't stopped. This week we put in the bathroom floor heating coils (in orange here), then realized we really should have had more plastic lath for the other parts of the bathroom. So we improvised with some mesh tape. Then Wednesday I manned the mixing drill while Seppi poured the self-leveling concrete over the floor.



A half an hour later and voila! This stuff sets up quickly, so while Seppi was pouring out a bucket, I measured out the water for the next bucket in the hallway and then stirred with the paddle mixer. There was only one near calamity when I apparently measured out only 4 1/2 quarts instead of 6 and the mixture was getting too thick to stir. The drill started smoking, but luckily it pulled through and we were able to pour that bucket. Just for good measure the third (and final) bucket was maybe a tad too wet. But the floor at least looks good and is ready to tile!



And yesterday was Mr. Burli's worst day yet (according to him). In an attempt to save time and stress, he hired the mud/stucco guy's helpers to install the drywall (greenboard). However, when I got home with the kids, Mr. Burli was ready to rip his hair out. Well, what he has left of it. They did not do a good  job at all - poor spacing of the screws, cut-outs measured and cut incorrectly, gaps around, screws pushing through the paper, and they used too long of screws at the pocket door - putting scratches in Mr. Burli's painstakingly customized door. I am pretty sure he will now never consent to letting others work for us, since they cannot do a good job. Acceptable, possibly. But something he would be proud of? No way.

(I won't post the pictures he took of all their mistakes. He spent several hours fixing things.

So, anyways, remember the office that looked like this in November?



Well, yesterday evening it looked like this, with a layer of dust everywhere. Mr. Burli took his anger out on the closet doors and did not first wait to clean out the room.

So this morning it looks a little better:

 

But where did the stuff go? Here are the sewing, etc. things that were in the top of the closet:

Then most everything went outside. (Luckily the weather here is nice, so even though we live in a very small house - maybe 1300 square feet on a good day - we can just throw some things on the deck until the dust settles.

And now without an office, I will have to take over the kitchen nook. Here is the first arrangement.

So tomorrow the mud guy will have to cover over the drywallers' mistakes, then he will come back Tuesday or so and add texture to the bathroom walls and ceiling and then add texture to the office, too. (First Mr. Burli has to finish framing the closet and remove the old baseboards. He also wants to wire for another outlet. Luckily it is in place behind the wall where he removed a door - he had the foresight to prepare it ahead of time.) Then after I figure out a wall color and paint the room, the shelves and JT's currently blue desk, the boys will move into the former blue-master-office-room and the baby and the futon will go into the boys' old room.
And speaking of moving...this guy apparently moved in to the nesting box and spent the night there last night. I had to dump him (her?) out. (No chickens were harmed, luckily, but I do think the opossum must have already been in the nesting box when I closed the coop last night. I was a bit late and the neighbor had been cleaning up his landscaping, and I heard the opossum out there, but when I looked in the coop (including checking all three chickens on their roosting bar) I didn't see it. Oops. S/he is currently cowering under the edge of the deck...