I figured I should maybe start emailing myself blogs, as I never seem to
post anymore. I have a lot to bring people up on as far as the trans doings
of the past weeks.
First off We got our house. Its great, we worked on it all weekend
two weekends ago. We put in crown molding in the living room and dinning
room, quarter round on the floor to give it an elegant look, painted the
living room and dinning room a nice yellow color with the help of the Roes
and the in laws. We painted the kitchen red which looks cool, the master and
bathroom are green now and we also shored up the stairs in the basement
which were falling apart. This was all in the first weekend with the help of
the inlaws we really busted things up, it was great.
The people who sold the house compensated us for the carpet, we had
asked them to stretch it, but it was so old and dingy that it could not be
stretched. So we were a little bummed by the crappy carpet, but my parents
most generously gave us some moolah to have hard floors put in. Well, what
started off as something small and easy has turned into the biggest ordeal
of our lives. Last week wifey began pricing the local wood men around town.
We wanted someone who would bring in the wood, install it, and be out in a
few days. We wanted prefinished as it doesn't take as log to install and has
more coats of varnish than unfinished. (We were informed that unfinished
wood can hold only 4 coats of finish whereas factory made finished has 7
coats of finish). We were shocked to see that the average price for wood men
was 4,500, which was way out of the budget. And unfortunately most wood men
only deal in unfinished, basically my theory is they figure they can charge
more for labor with unfinished cause they'll do all the finishing. So we
went to South Eastern Salvage on Lee Highway and were happy to see there
wood was cheaper than any other wood in town. Problem was they don't
deliver, don't install, and don't let you open the box of wood before you
buy it, its basically a gamble. But unable to afford anything else we went
that route and saved probably a 1000 bucks on the wood. We got 630 square
feet for about 2000 bucks. Then we found a floor guy that said he could get
it all installed for a 1000 bucks, Rocky Sanders is his name, and flooring
appears to be his game.
So we went with Rocky, mostly because i like his name. Rocky
Sanders.... its really fun to say. Well I pulled up all the carpet in the
rooms and found that in the living room there was the remains of a lamanent
flooring. And for those of you who don't know, a lot of lamanent flooring in
the olden days had asesbetos in it, and asesbetos is a big cancer agent,
that the fibers get in your lung, you lung can't get it out and then it
turns to cancer, and you die. SO its pretty dangerous stuff. I call rocky
and ask him if it needs to come up, he said, "Nah, should be fine." A few
days later rocky rolls up wednesday morning and first thing he says, "Oh,
thats gotta come up..." Well thanks rocko that info could have been helpful
yesterday. Fearing the price he'd charge to pull it up, we dismissed him and
the crew for the day and i took a halfday and set to work scrapping the
crapola up. I called in the Mac Crockett, Stromo's, and Future Mrs. Lutz to
help and we spent all night scrapping this stuff.... till 11PM!!! We only
got half done too.... it was very defeating... now i know how the alamo
people felt.
So rocky and his crew show up today... they tell us, "We'll pull up
the rest and charge 50 bucks for the first two hours and 15 bucks for every
hour afterward..." Thinking that it wouldn't be hard.... five minutes later
they tell us, "Yeah it can't be done...." So they ask me if i care if they
just lay the wood on top, I say, "As long as it poses no health risk...."
They say.... "Better ask Rocky..." Rocky says it will so he suggests laying
down a whole new floor... ply wood and then putting the hard wood on top of
that.... so thats where we are now. My wife is currently driving to lowes
with Rocky and his crew to buy the ply wood and hopefully by days end we'll
finally be well on our way to a floor....
OY VE! If you want to know how I feel, watch Tom Hanks in the Money
Pitt.... tahts pretty much me right now. All I need now is to fall through a
floor and get stuck.
Other news needs to be brought to the blogging community about our
lives.... my wife's employment... but that will be next blog.