Before, above;
In-progress, below:
How it works is, they knock the old fences down, which in this case won't take much, since there are places you can poke holes in it with your finger. Then they dig little pits in the dirt for the new posts, this being made safer by having a utility spotter, who showed up here at dawn a few days back and sprayed various colors of paint onto the English Ivy to show the locations of gas, electric, and TV cables entering the property. The pressure-treated four-by-four posts will be set in concrete and allowed to dry overnight. Since there is no rain in the forecast until at least the weekend, that might actually happen. Come Thursday, the fence proper starts going up, and–in theory–by Friday, they are done. Shiny new cedar fence, thinner wallets at the neighbors' and Steve's house, and there you go.
The dogs will hate it, since we won't be able to let them run loose out back until it's done.
The real upheaval comes next week, when the floor and carpet and kitchen counter and plumbing folk descend upon us. We'll have a house full of contractors, all the furniture will have to be shifted hither and yon, it will bedlam; madness, grinding, glue, and the dogs really won't like that.
The contractors will move the big pieces, but we have to unload the book cases and desks and dressers and unhook the computers and TVs and like that, which will be ever so much fun. Maybe paint some walls, too.
The cat will vanish, the dogs will bark, and it is not my favorite thing, either; however, in theory, once they are done, our house will be much improved, the old carpets having been worn threadbare, and the floors gotten scarred and chipped and cracked and bubbled up.
All supposed to be done in another week. Supposed to be. My experiences with house contractors here previously don't lead me to actually believe this, given that the last time we did carpets thirty years ago, plus bathrooms when we refinanced the mortgage twenty years back, neither schedule survived first contact with the hammers and glue guns ...
Ah, well. It's another first-world problem, isn't it?
1 comment:
It's not just a first-world problem... but in other parts of the world, it's a bit interesting.
"in Turkey, unfinished buildings are family savings accounts. Inflation here is ruinous. Any local in need of a hedge against inflation keeps a building under construction. Whenever there's a little extra cash, rather than watch it evaporate in the bank, Ahmed will invest in the next stage of construction."
(source: http://www.ricksteves.com/tvr/eastturkrse110_descr.htm)
Imagine always building an addition, keeping it half-finished, due to the unstable (not-first-world) currency. I couldn't stand it.
Post a Comment