The last week and a bit have been quite the nonstop ride.
But the floors are done. It took four days working on the floor to get them that way, but they're done. The palms of my hands, my knees, the tendons next to my knees and my butt aren't speaking to me, but they're done. (sensing a theme here?) and, if I do say so myself, they look beautiful.
Joe came home Thursday and helped do a swipe-clean of the residual sanding dust in the house before the movers arrived Friday. During the cleaning process, he managed to flush a cleaning rag down the toilet while emptying a bucket. The toilet still flushed, so we moved on. (you KNOW there's more to this part of the story. just wait.)
Friday, we packed boxes until the movers arrived to transport the big stuff. (I figured that way my small volunteer team wouldn't be worn out before the first box was moved.) The movers were great; got everything loaded and over to the new place in good time. They started moving stuff in; things screeched to an abrupt halt when it came time to move the box spring for my queen-sized bed upstairs. The mattress had barely made it; they had to squeeze it up. The box spring was just that leetle teensy bit too big to fit up the narrow staircase. They squeezed, they turned, we all cussed just a bit. and it wasn't going to go. I was just about ready to cry, and instead, started to reframe the remodeling plans in my head, figuring out how I could add a second floor balcony and doorway to the design so we could get it up that way.
Then, one of the movers suggested we cut the frame of the spring in half - it would give it just enough bend to make it up the stairs. I cringed at the thought of cutting my beautiful new bed, but neither did I want to sleep in the living room for the duration of my stay in the house, so I went downstairs and got the saw. Joe, with his long reach, did the dirty deed, and they tried it again.
I couldn't watch. What if it wasn't enough? What if I had destroyed my bed for nothing?
But, it worked! (insert huge sigh of relief here) Once it was upstairs, we took a board, screwed the two halves of the frame back together, and it's as good as new. Unless you crawl under the bed to see the patched board. But I don't think I need to worry about too many people doing that.
For the rest of Friday afternoon, Joe and I brought over a load of boxes. which emptied most of the apartment. Saturday, my volunteer crew showed up, and we got the rest of the stuff in the apartment and worked to empty the storage unit. I'll admit; about 2/3 of the way through the boxes in the unit, I started thinking - "I haven't needed this in the last eighteen months. Do I really need it now???" - and left a bunch of the boxes behind for later. (Joe's stuff is still there anyhow, so I didn't NEED to get it ALL last weekend...)
The crew left for home, Joe headed back to Rolla, and I went down the basement for something. There, I found a trail of water on the floor, and a tell-tale bit of TP clinging to the washer drain. Damn. That rag hadn't made it all the way through after all. Hot, tired, sweaty, I cussed a bit and dug out the snake. It didn't work the first few times, so I gave up and called a plumbing service. They couldn't come out until the next afternoon, so I cussed a bit more (my cusser got a good workout this weekend), and decided to give the snake one more try. This time, after a few more tries it worked! Up came that nasty, smelly rag. I treated it like the hazardous waste it was, and got it outside into the trash, then rinsed the floors down with bleach water.
Some showers, the most wonderful showers, are the ones you've REALLY earned. Saturday's shower was one of the best.
