Too Many Minor Fiascos for One Evening

Here is a list of things that happened tonight.
- Mr.LL broke a glass in the sink (an omen of things to come)
- The tenants turned on the heat for the first time. About 20 minutes later there was a mini waterfall coming through one of our recessed kitchen light fixtures. It was one of those delayed-reaction moments, something like:
"what's that noise, do you hear that?"
"huh? It's nothing, its just the radiators hissing"
"Wait, no.. that sounds like dripping.."
"what the---"
"OH my.. &@$!!&$#@!!!!!!!!"

We dashed upstairs to find the leak... it was leaking profusely from the radiator side of the connection between the radiator and the steam valve stem. I sprinted downstairs for a towel and pipe wrenches to find that the dogs had gotten into the dogfood cabinet and were gorging from the bag of spilled dogfood on the floor.
- Back upstairs, in the process of attempting to tighten the leaking connection, we sheared off the radiator threads, breaking the connection completely. luckily by this time most of the (additional) leaking water had drained out and been caught into the bath towel. We were able to shut off the steam valve and call the plumber for a visit tomorrow.
- Nevertheless, the kitchen ceiling has surely sustained some water damage. the only saving grace may be that the water mostly ran out through the light instead of collecting in the ceiling. Time will tell. I've got a fan blowing on the wet spot and hoping for the best. I don't want to jinx it by saying it could have been a lot....but, you know.
- After recovering from that incident and settling down to a glass of wine, the SNL primetime special and a nail-filling/trim painting session, I proceeded to knock the cable box, along with my glass of wine (white- a minor blessing) onto the floor. Not breaking the glass, mind you, but in fact breaking the cable box.

- yes, thanks I'll take yet another glass of wine.. this one in a sippy cup please.

Ole! The Dining Room is (pretty much) dine-able!

Look there, is that the dining room floor? And-hey, theres actually a frame..around the door way..and check out my new FABULOUS SCONCES that I'm in LOVE with (Thanks Rejuvenation.com) ..no matter that they dont have lightbulb power yet, candle tealights will do for now..

yes we were able to have a cooking party in our kitchen and dining room last Saturday. It was a fantastic time with great friends, amazing food cooked by everyone, and a cozy new space taking shape. The added bonus was that the Sox won to force a game 7 with TampaBay. Hey-they didn't make it to the series this year, but at least they made us proud trying their best to get there.

Another good thing about the party was that it forced us to bust our butts to get all the baseboard and door frame trim in place and to clean up the space for the party.

LOTS more detail work to do (filling nail holes, caulking gaps in our less than pro trim handiwork) and painting trim. Oh yeah, and those windows.

Breaking Point

I've cracked


This broken window pretty much represented my mental state last night.

I @#!$*# hate windows. There are so many bloody components. Sashes, sills, balances, casing, glass, glazing, stops, trim. And when all of these components are either broken, rotted, cracked, missing, falling out, and/or all covered with lead paint... you think MAYBE its time so dig into that bank account and say goodbye??

Why on earth did we not just plan long ago on buying new windows for this project? Well, for one, I got it in my head years ago (bolstered by our experience with vinyl replacement windows in our last apartment) that somehow replacement windows were useless expensive hunks of earth-destroying junk. And in fact i'd still say that about cheap crappy vinyl replacements. And secondly, new windows are so damn expensive if you want good ones. So I set out on an excruciating crusade to restore the old wood windows. And after 6 years, I have restored exactly 3 of the 26 windows in the house. Even at that I paid the building co-op to reglaze them, because for some reason I just know I don't posses the patience to learn how. Notably, those three windows are in the living room. So there are two remaining nasty ones.

So I procrastinated and procrastinated all summer on getting to these.. but now as the nights dip into the lower 40s, there is no time to waste. Mr.LL and I set forth with conviction last night to mount an all out assault towards the restoration of the remaining two. As the true scope of the mess unfolded, my brain began to become paralyzed and I spent 15 minutes staring at the rotted glazing wondering what the hell was I thinking.

I snapped myself out of it, commenced with the paint removing heat gun, and was just breathing that first sweet whiff of lead fumes and... crackle.. the broken pane.. followed by a meltdown of disproportionate size to the issue at hand.

Words Cannot Express...

How happy we are to have walls again...but beautiful, smooth, flat walls this time..So I'll just let today's photos speak for us:

They did a beautiful job. Now all we need to do is pick out a paint color. Fortunately Chippy has an impeccable sense of style....

But picking out color swatches is taxing and requires much rest. Sleep on it, Chip and let us know your decision tomorrow. (For some reason he has such a bias towards the oranges and butterscotch tones...)