Nothing Happens At Ten

The heat went out last night in the Fallapartment. Just when we thought that we were finished with the heating-system-failure-in-the-dead-of-Winter problem, we found the temperature in the Fallapartment plummeting on Saturday night (this always happens on a weekend). As it went down through 63° – 62° – 61°… we called our heating guy to see if he could get it back for us.

Our heating guy is very good to us. He showed up on his Saturday evening to bail us out, even though this is not an address that he normally services. He had no part in the installation of the travesty that we found in the basement, but he fixed it anyway.

Here’s the back story.

I was concerned last week about the amount of oil in the tank, so I called to ask about it, and we came to the conclusion that all was well until next week, when I would schedule an oil delivery. I have been told that the top of the button on the float gauge is where the level of oil is in the tank. Here is the gauge from last night:

So, is it empty, or not? If you read the oil level at the top of the yellow button, we are good for another week or so. If you read the level at the bottom of the button, we are suckin’ on fumes.

Here’s a spoiler: You read the level at the bottom of the button.

As you can see, this ancient technology (a cork on a stick) is “highly accurate”… or not. I will never trust a dip stick ever again. This makes the fuel gauge in our real house

look like a well-designed, high-tech device.

The way to the heating system in the Fallapartment is down a winding stair that is pretty frightening. It starts out here:

As you turn the corner, you are confronted with this:

Notice the black hole on the far side of the stairway, where there is no wall to keep your foot from plummeting into the abyss. The stairs are slanty and uneven.

There is the hole on the right hand side. You must be sure of foot in this part of the stairs.

Turning the corner, you can see the tops of our stepladder and bicycles down at the bottom of the hole.

If you don’t slip and fall, you finally reach the bottom.

Looking back, here is the mess we just came down.

Cinder blocks; sort of glued together. Take a look at how this thing is constructed.

It is basically a pile of debris cemented together at a precarious angle. The angle that you see is not from a tilted camera. Look at the beam at the top of the photo; it goes straight across. The stairs really do lean like this.

But I digress. On to the oil tank. Here it is.

The smears of oil running down the sides of the tank are just special. Do you think it might be leaking? No wonder the basement stinks.

So, last night we called up our heating guy (who is a saint!) and he came out and rescued us. First he filled the tank with oil, then he had to unclog the fuel line to get us running again. Apparently, it had filled itself with sludge when it sucked the tank dry. Here is the fuel line he discovered:

It goes into the concrete floor, which is now illegal. This line should not have been used when they replaced the boiler last Winter because it violates the safety codes. Here is why.

That is a severely corroded pipe, disappearing into the basement floor. If that rots through, there will be a bad oil spill in the basement. There is nothing to prevent the entire tank of oil from siphoning into the basement. And it looks like it won’t be long now. How do you spell “EPA”?

And if we follow the line across the room to the boiler, we see:

The place where the fuel line comes back out of the floor, which is just about as corroded as it is at the other end.

I’m sure glad I don’t own this place. We are hoping that this inevitable disaster won’t happen until we are out.

Oh, and here is the fuel gauge after the tank was filled.

Yep. Bottom of the button. Who knew?

Speaking of moving out of this dump, they are supposed to start finishing the floors at our real house tomorrow. The appliances go in on Thursday. Can moving day be far behind? Soon! Soon!

Our builder came in today and put the crown molding on the kitchen cabinets. He also installed the hardware on the doors and drawers. Take a look at this!

That is where the stove goes. You can see that the range hood is installed and wired up as well. Our cabinets go all the way to the ceiling now that the fancy molding is installed. This is really gorgeous stuff!Here is a closeup of our handles.

The handles are brushed nickel. Very smooth and sleek.

If we turn around and look at the peninsula…

The upper cabinet will have glass doors. That is where our fancy glassware will go. But the very best is across the room, where the refrigerator will be.

Is that spectacular, or what? But wait! That isn’t all! Let’s look at this from a slightly different angle.

If you look closely, you can see another little surprise detail that our builder has left us. Look up at the very top, left corner. Here is a closer view.

He has added a tiny, little piece of molding, mitered into the top to make it wrap around right to the wall. Here is the piece, up close.



That is the coolest thing ever! This only gets better.

The guys were hard at work today putting in miscellaneous details. For example, they have started putting in the mantel for the fireplace.

They have also been working in the bathrooms. The vanity tops, faucets, and bowls are in.

Well, OK, they aren’t totally in, as you can see that the plumbing parts are still sitting on the top.

And also….. mostly important of all…… (drum roll, please)…..

The toilets that flush!

OK. Premature drum roll. You can see that the toilet isn’t hooked up either. But we can dream. But, while we have them out, here is a peek at the magic inside of them that makes them flush.

Oooo. Blue and red. I don’t think I have ever owned a toilet that had blue and red guts. The water comes in at the blue, and goes round and round at the red, and then goes out down here:

And that is as graphic as I am going to let this get.

Meanwhile, some of the closet rods are up.

And (another drum roll, please) the range hood is up.

Well, not quite hooked up yet, but that seems to be a theme tonight.

But notice that the under-cabinet lights are hooked up, and they are really nice. There are 5 units, each one individually settable to off/medium/high illumination and controlled together by a wall switch. Stuff to tinker with!

The door to the bulkhead is up.

And last, but not least, the counter top and upper cabinets in the laundry room are in.

That is a 9  1/2 foot counter! Cool.

Tomorrow is a holiday, but more of this work will continue on Friday.

Happy Thanksgiving, Everybody!

The upper cabinets were installed today. Here is the stove end of the kitchen.

The range hood goes between the two upper cabinets.

The refrigerator side.

And the peninsula side.

The cabinet over the peninsula will have glass doors and will hold our wine glasses and other glassware.

The lower cabinets have been installed. We now have the peninsula legs in place.

The top is just a piece of plywood right now, cut to the proper size so we can see what it will look like. When it is done, that will all be Cambria®.

From the dining area it looks like this:

The drawers on the left face the dining area, and will contain flatware, napkins, candle sticks and other stuff we need quick access to.

On the other side of the room, the refrigerator will be boxed in with panels next to the pantry.

So, where are the upper cabinets? In the dining room, of course.

We are planning on replacing that lighting fixture with something a bit more elegant before we move in.

The kitchen cabinets are out of their boxes and sitting in the kitchen. These should be installed by next week, ready for the counter top guys to make a template for the counters. Moving left to right, here are some photos of the cabinets:

The ones in the photo above go under the peninsula. The ones in the next photo go around and under the sink:

Turning to the right again, we have the cabinets that go around the stove.

The stove and the range hood go into the space between the cabinets.

Then, turning all the way around and looking in the other direction, we have the cabinets that go around the refrigerator.

The refrigerator goes in the hole between the pantry (the tall cabinet on the left) and the “command center”, where the telephone and cook books go.

Meanwhile, the stairs and railings are in, both downstairs

And upstairs

We also found this while we were snooping around:

The electric panel was open. I guess they are getting ready to finish the wiring. Look at all that stuff!

Since I did not get any good photos of the house today, I thought I would show you an interesting photo I took in the Fallapartment. The dresser on the right side of the photo we call our “Titanic Dresser”.

Concerning the name “Titanic”, it isn’t the size that matters, but the angle. We figure that the angle it is sitting at approximates the angle it would be at were it on the Titanic as she went down.

Please note the decorative molding, attached to the wall at the top of the picture, under the clock. Note that it goes straight across the picture. Note that the dresser does not go straight across the picture. The dresser is leaning like that because the floors are leaning like that. This is true. We have not tilted the camera to make it lean like that. We have not propped up the dresser to make it lean like that. In fact, I have attempted to prop up the dresser to make it lean a little less than that. I failed.

We all get a little dizzy walking around on these floors. Maybe we should call this a “Mystery House” and charge admission from unsuspecting tourists. We could get some of the rent back.

They put down the loam today and raked it into a real lawn. Here is a photo of our Loam Arranger, hard at work.

When they got done, we had a lawn.

Um. With leaves on it to rake. There isn’t any grass on it yet, but they will do that later.

Oh, and as promised, here is a photo of our front walkway, in broad daylight.

From the front steps, it looks like this:

And a photo of the two granite steps that come up from the driveway.

One last development – the kitchen cabinets are in.

Cool.

They started putting in the walkway from the driveway to the front door today. Here is how they did it. First they dug out the hole for it about 8″ deep.

You can see in the photo above that the first granite step is already in place.They had to put in two steps to make the design work. I wonder what a 5 foot granite step costs? Oh well.

They did some of the digging with the back hoe, and some of it with the Bobcat.

They tamped the dirt down to the level of the first step.

Next, the fine stone dust went in.

Then they placed the second granite step.

They filled the hole with stone until it came up nearly to the top of the second step.

Below is a photo of the walkway up by the front door.

Then the coarse stone went in.

Tamp it down.

Sand went on top of the stone.

Raked and leveled.

Finally, the pavers showed up.

Well, that is all the photos I have. They put the pavers in after lunch, and my photographer got hungry. Anyway, we went back to the house after I got home from work to see the walkway, which was mostly done, but it was really dark by then, and it looked something like this:

OK. That’s an exaggeration. But I didn’t get any good photos of the walkway tonight, so you will just have to come back later to see it.

The other thing that happened today was that they delivered a whole ….uh… truck-load of dirt.

That will go under our new lawn.

For us to mow.

And fertilize.

And rake leaves off of.

I wonder if they can make the patio a little larger.