Parental OVERHAUL!

The new toilet is installed! Cheers to toilets. Jason and I maneuvered it into position just in time for my parents to arrive and want to stay in the house. I figured that making my parents crawl through the back window to pee was not really an option. A bucket behind the back shed was an option... but also not a good one. So this is us, the night before the parents got in, toasting the new john.
The parents have been here this week, and launched themselves into various projects with great gusto and energy. It has been a virtual whirlwind of cleaning, fixing, tearing out, putting up, painting, papering, and planning. My father had the pleasure of tackling Moldy Wall, and before I'd even woken up one morning, had already ripped out much of the old sheet rock. I wandered bleary-eyed around the corner of the house to see mounds of yucky moldy insulation coming flying out the laundry room window. After Moldy Wall turned into Moldy Wall(s) and Moldy Ceiling, Dad sent Jason and I to Home Depot with a shopping list that only Jason could de-code. There were lots of numbers on it that translated to lumber and insulation and some caps and screws and things. We also got a Circular Saw! At first Jason was reluctant to be the recipient of this Saw, but I told him either it would belong to him, or it would belong to me but only he would be able to operate it, so the Saw will have a good home in his van. My dad and Jason spent a long time happily comparing saws and picking A Good One. Now, there are three saws in the back yard and lots of hammering. Dad declared the laundry room construction Buggered Up. "This is all buggered up!" he said. I agreed. For one, it is all crooked. They also put the studs in sideways, so that the lower half of the wall came in farther than the upper half of the wall. Three, it's all crooked. There were lots of other things wrong-headed about it, but Buggered Up pretty much sums it up.

Even though the mold issue has been fixed and Cloroxed to death in the walls and there shouldn't be any more water leaking in from the roof, I bought the Mold Tough sheet rock, so that even if there are any lingering little molds, they won't be able to grow in my wall. I also discovered that sheet rock is very heavy. Five large pieces of it in Jason's van were added to the list of Very Heavy Things we've loaded and unloaded.
While all this was going on, Mom cleaned, painted and laid contact paper in the bottom of all my kitchen cabinets. I had an adventure in installing roman blinds. The first one said Install in Fifteen Minutes! but it took more like an hour. The second one actually installed in fifteen minutes. Curious... they were the exact same blind. :) The second time, I installed the thing before the sun came through the window and made my knees so sweaty that when I tried to use the electric drill on the wall, I pushed myself right off the counter top. [ This is Jason's Duct Tape Shoe. It is time for a new shoe. This is also Jason fixing my Moldy Wall. He's a good man, and gets around pretty well in that Duct Tape Shoe!]
After my new (New!) refrigerator arrived, the kitchen actually looked like somebody might want to spend some time in it at some point. We still hadn't found the plates and were eating our sandwiches off of tea saucers, but I had found my can-opener and some silverware, so we were living large.

At the same time, work continues with the bedroom: I made a final decision on the colors of the walls -- Corn Silk and New Brick -- and we have continued the assault on the floor. The linoleum goo is all gone, but we're still scraping, scrubbing, and wiping up the weird green paint that was under everything on one point in the floor. I think this bedroom used to be an outside porch at some point, and this green paint is probably from 1922. We're scraping it off with stripper and lots of gooey chemicals so that Jason won't sand it off and breathe in lead dust and poison his brain. I like his brain very much un-poisoned, so there has been lots of gas-masked scraping.

Here are some other photos from this week. Good times. Soon, I'll even start unpacking boxes! A very exciting stage is happening this evening: DICKENS is coming to stay at the house! He has been enjoying a sojourn at Casa d'Wall (Johnny's house) and will be a little miffed to downgrade to Stinky Room, Formerly Moldy Room, and Room Full of Boxes, but I'm sure he'll get over it. Besides, there are so many things to sniff, and the new house needs a coat of cat hair all over everything to make it feel like home.