Another Lifetime to go

27th May 2019

Move out, clean up day 3

So that we didn’t go completely mad by the endless clearing of junk, we worked on a couple of jobs in in new place. Kelli worked on re-fitting the webbing on the couch in the sunroom, whilst I laid the last of the edge tiles in the entryway.

I then felt energised to go over to the old garage and move out an old dresser I had used as a tool cupboard. The plan was to put it out at the side of the road and wait for the stampede. Well that didn’t happen, instead a girl stopped her car and I could see that she was trying to fit it on her back seat. That would never fit, so I went over to offer some help. A few measurements convinced her that wouldn’t work, so the only option was the boot. When she opened boot lid, inside it was full of bits of wood and other things she had collected at other times. I established that it would just about fit with a bit sticking out at the back. We both managed to squeeze it in, and lashed the lid down with a piece of cord.

I dragged out an old armchair from the basement hoping that it would find a new owner, but rain put paid to that for the day.

That gave me the excuse to start the grouting. Oh what fun that was, wiping on, washing off, washing off again, and still more washing. By the end of it I had “granny fingers” pale and wrinkly, and I was only able to do half the floor before the tub of grout ran out, so once again a trip to Menards is on the cards.

Tonight I had the pleasure of fixing Kelli’s tree branch in a prominent place. This piece of dead wood has been around as long as we have known each other. Every house she has occupied has had the tree fixed somewhere. Most wood has a natural lifespan eventually turning to dust, but not this one, it will last forever. I teetered on the ladder holding it up to a proposed position, when drama struck, a twig snapped off. Kelli was horrified, accusing me of doing it deliberately. “ I would have accidentally burnt the bloody thing “ would have been my response if I had the courage to say it. The nail went into the wall holding the curly willow into its position for eternity, or unless the rot that should have set in years ago finally takes hold.

26th May 2019

Move out, clean up day 3

Kelli had her list for clearing the house, and I continued to work through the crap in the garage.

Halfway through the morning Kelli had the brainwave to put stuff at the side of the road, and tell everybody about it on Facebook. When something is free in Holland its like shouting “Gold!” Cars and SUV’s came from nowhere. They blocked the road in their enthusiasm to pick something up for nothing. We couldn’t put things down fast enough, people were taking it from my hands as I was carrying it down the drive.

There were books, toys, old windows? (Yes people keep old windows here) and small items of furniture. I cleaned off the old table that I had been using as a bench, and that went almost immediately. I would look at Kelli with disbelief, and she would smile knowingly.

We certainly got rid of a lot of stuff, even a small tv, so success.

As darkness fell, fireworks exploded around us. Because it was Memorial weekend it has become common to let off loud fireworks. We were sitting by the fire watching the bats fly above. I decided that it would be a good time to burn the model I had made of her parent’s house when we were thinking of adding an extra floor. It seemed, at the time, to be the best option for having a home of our own, but in retrospect what we have now was the best thing that had happened.

The model was destroyed in a matter of minutes, but the sadness of the burning was lightened by a nice glass of red.

25th May 2019

Move out, clean up day 2

Okay I’m bored with this already.

I’m concentrating on the garage, and there is dust and sawdust everywhere. I move a box, big cloud of dust, shift a piece of furniture, big cloud of dust, it is hell on a stick.

We had a lady drive from Wyoming to collect Greer’s old bed frame. This was a massive steel four poster monstrosity.

She turned up in a SUV that was smaller than ours, and as the end frames were nearly seven feet tall by five feet wide. The only option was to tie them to her roof rack. This was a struggle, but we managed it. By the time she drove off her vehicle resembled a space ship. She did let us know the she got home safely.

My goal for the day was to move an old gun cabinet that Kelli’s dad had made. It was buried deep back in the garage, filled with junk, not being utilised very well, but it was a fine piece, and deserved to have a useful purpose in the new garage.

I didn’t want to disturb Kelli, so I decided a plan that wouldn’t entail me being severely disabled. With careful tilting and sliding I managed to get it on to a trolley and wheeled it back along the road. As it came apart in two pieces, the lower part was easier to move.

Getting it back together required the same creative action, but no injury was sustained.

A good shower washed away the filth, and then we sat outside with a fire burning all the old wood. We toasted the evening sky, and watched the glowing embers fade away.

24th May 2019

Move out, clean-up day 1

Although Kelli had moved out most of the essentials, there were still furniture and things that needed to be shifted. The basement is still full of Cameron’s stuff that needs to go, also a piano that somehow has to get carried up the basement stairs. This is the task that is the most difficult.

Kelli concentrated on clearing Greer’s room, as she is still sick in bed.

I ventured into the garage to tackle the piles of pallet wood that I have accumulated. It is time for a clean sweep, so I piled it up in the middle of the garage ready to take it over to the new place so that I could cut it up for firewood.

This has been evening ritual for the past few days, burning off-cuts and carpet sticks. Now I have a serious pile of wood to burn.

There was also five old tv’s and old audio units to dispose of. Over here it is incredibly hard to find anywhere that will take them, and those that do, charge $25 each to take them.

The whole recycling system here is a joke. The rubbish collectors actively take bags of recycling materials but anything else is really hard, so fly tipping is often the only answer.

We finished the day with most of the things ticked off, with another eight days to go, there is no room for slackers.

There is another berm house further up the road, so Kelli decided to go and introduce ourselves to the owners.

The first thing I noticed was they appeared to be sitting on a sofa in their garage. Maybe they didn’t like their home, and have always lived in a garage?

They explained their experiences of flooding and cockroaches. That put the shits up me for a start. Our surveyor had noted how dry our crawl space was, and we live closer to the lake, so hopefully the roaches had invaded someone else’s homestead.

23rd May 2019

Kelli had to take Greer back to the hospital as her medication did not appear to work.

I laid some of the border tiles but ran out of adhesive half way through. I then worked to get the back gate to open. The ground outside was higher than the bottom of the gate, so it wouldn’t open. I dug away, clearing the grass, finally allowing the gate free movement, it didn’t look too good as raw dirt, it may need paving to make it look respectable.

The task of moving is so daunting, over the years Kelli has lived in the old house, stuff has been building up, I know myself. When I left the rented house that I had for four years I was surprised at the “extra” belongings I had accumulated. We have got the date that we hand the keys back, so now it’s all hands to the deck to get the shit out.

In recent days Kelli had been approached about a new venture that would give us a new outlet for our furniture. We met up with a number of already known sellers to discuss the new proposal. The place would be in Holland, so more convenient.

There was a positive response, and an ambitious start up date, but with the house, and all the decorating taking most of our time, we need to get the furniture going again.

22nd May 2019

Finally completed the skirting and the replacement plinths in the kitchen, which left me time the work on some furniture projects. Kelli was at the old place sorting through all the stuff that she could post on Marketplace.

I wheeled some of the old furniture pieces from the old garage to the new, sweeping off the thick layers of dust that had accumulated.

With all the rain lately, the grass had grown so I attacked it with the strimmer, or as the Americans call it “ Weed whacker”. As I was in the gardening mood I tackled the bushes at the front. Not used to trimming hedges I took a cautious approach, cutting off the stragglers.

The clearing of the cuttings took ages, but also there were lots of dead leaves hidden under the undergrowth. The previous owner was not interested in the garden so it was not surprising that there were piles of leaves all over the garden.

I had anchored the slim cabinet to the wall to allow Kelli to store her candles and incense sticks.

21st May 2019

I was determined to have a more productive day than I had yesterday. I bought more adhesive to fix the rest of the skirting boards.

The buyer for the dresser turned up with her husband who had a trailer attached to their truck.

The trailer was in a advanced state of decay.

The floor was so rotten that I thought I was going to fall through it. We positioned the dresser somewhere in the middle of the trailer, and they drove off. We assumed they made it back as we didn’t hear anything.

We had Comcast over to upgrade the cable system. I thought the guy would need to go down into the crawl space to access the original cabling. When he arrived he was quite a big guy, I had visions of him jammed for the rest of his life under the house, but I guessed he sussed that, and convinced us to go to a wireless system. So no new holes in the floor, and no more spaghetti under the house.

20th May 2019

This was moving stuff day. Kelli wanted to move all her clothes, this was not a small task.

I have seen less garments hanging in Marks and Spencer. Every time I looked up from what I was doing, another armful of clothes entered the house. After some considerable time everything was hanging in her closet. We also moved over a cedar chest that contained all out of season clothing. That was incredibly heavy even with the artic woollens taken out.

They say that every person carries around a lot of baggage, well I know, I met and married that person.

I had to finish repairing the drawers for a dresser we hope to sell.

19th May 2019

House renovation day 21

The moving of the contents of one house to another continued. With the help of Cameron, Kelli’s son, we moved the couch and a love seat. I have no idea why they call it a love seat because it’s two people squeezed into one chair seated side by side, just like economy on America Airlines.

Gradually it was coming together, I now have somewhere to sit to drink my coffee.

I had to rush to get the skirting fixed in the second bedroom, because Greer didn’t want to spend another night alone in the old place, which was odd as she is alway holed up in her room even if we were there. Anyway I had to find some heavy items to hold the skirting to the wall whilst the adhesive cures. In the beginning I used boxes of flooring, then as they were used up I graduated to boxes of floor tiles, now I had to raid the tool cupboard. So Greer has to spend the night with the planer wedged up against one piece of skirting, and a skill-saw on another.

As well as doing things in the house I was working on a piece of furniture for a sale on Tuesday. Two drawer boxes were covered in thick epoxy resin, that someone had used to stick the floor panel to the sides. It looked like it was poured in and just left to cure.

I spent many hours chipping away this hard vile material.

All this and manual labour as well, but this was the official end of the restoration, although there is still a long list of snagging to do.

18th May 2019

House renovation day 20

There was an early start to get to the tool rental to pick up the wet saw for cutting the tiles for the entry porch. I had four hours to pick up the equipment, get back to the house, and do the job, so the pressure was on. I had used one before, so I wasn’t a complete novice.

The saw had a fence that wasn’t the easiest to adjust and clamp, but I got over that by making a size template and setting the fence from that. Within a couple of hours I had completed the cutting, but now I had the job of cleaning the machine. This took nearly as long as the cutting, but we returned it in plenty of time. We went back to Menards to return the unused tiles. I was pleased that I had zero wastage, but there was always something to spend the refund on.

Kelli decided she wanted to move the bed over. Trying to move a king size mattress was like carrying a jelly. Thank goodness we only had a short distance to struggle with this unruly object. Once that was done, then it was the box springs, and then the metal base. I learned more about American beds in a few hours than I had in my entire life, so far.

The desire to officially move from the rental meant loads of trips to bring over the furniture that remained. Kelli decided that by driving over she could cram more things than walking over. Although it must have kept the neighbours amused.

I had planned that the move would start from next Monday, but that was too far off for her. So this will be the first night in our new home.