The Remodeling – So Far...

Well... so much for having the office finished and being moved in by this weekend. New goal – by next weekend. Progress is happening though, in spite of the ever-present effects of Murphy's Law. Anything that can go wrong... yep, it usually will. For instance, the other day I unplugged my computer, as I always do before I leave the house, and the entire socket pulled out of the wall.

This is an old house, and there is nothing normal about it. There's not a single square corner anywhere. So remodeling and repairs become major expeditions into the vast wilds of patience. Replacing the electrical outlet, for instance. People who know (supposedly) gave me advice about how to cut out the sheetrock and how the outlet box would be nailed to the stud in the wall. Well... I cut the sheetrock, and the outlet box is not nailed to a stud. There's not even a stud near it. There are two parallel pieces of wood running horizontally, and the outlet box was screwed in between these pieces of wood. Cris had picked up two different boxes at Lowe's for me, while I was at work, and – as Mr. Murphy's venerable principle would have it – neither fit. A return trip to Lowe's yielded a box that would work, with some tweaking, and I got the new outlet wired up and into the new box and the box snugly attached to the boards. But... (and there's always one of those) the sheetrock didn't go back on the same way it came off. For some reason, it wasn't flush with the wall – it was sunken in about a quarter of an inch, or so. Soooo... I had to build (actually, am still building) it back up with sheetrock mud. That means that wall will be about three days behind the others – and final clean up and the reuniting of my books, papers, and notes and reference materials for various writing projects will not take place for several more days yet.

This has been a learning experience, though. I have learned that I absolutely hate working with sheetrock, deplore painting, and find replacing electrical circuitry a pain in the backside! I've learned that being surrounded by books rather than drop cloths and paint buckets is more my cup of tea. But it doesn't look like it's going to be tea time for several more days. Cold scones, anyone?

[Pictures of the same corner – the first is from yesterday morning and the second from this evening. See... some progress is being made.]