Construction With Cookies – Day Who Cares?

I don’t know about you but I’m beginning to get confused about what day I should be describing and which “cookie” goes with that day.  I think I should be telling you about yesterday but I’m pretty sure I already posted a picture of yesterday’s “cookie.”  Maybe I was telling you about the day BEFORE yesterday and the “cookie” from the day after.   It’s all a muddle in my head.  Next thing you know I might get really confused and start baking TWO cookies in one day or NO cookies.  No cookies!?  Can you imagine the butterfly effect that might have?   I don’t even want to think about it. 

Yesterday my head bee, John, stopped by with a mason.  Not the jar, the guy who works with bricks and stones and mortar.  We have a rock wall in the basement which used to be behind a woodstove.  And we think there was a hearth in front because there is about a five-inch gap between the cement floor and the last rock of the wall.  

Dean had told me he would just fill in that gap with cement or concrete or mortar (or whatever the correct substance really is) but I said, “no!  The final touch to this room will be the floor which I (as in I hope Ryan will help me) am going to put in and I can’t do that until the rocks are mortared into the rock wall and I’d really like that to be finished before the end of the next millennium.”  Really?  You think I’d say that to Dean?  Of course not.  I thoughtfully considered what he proposed.  It would save me some money …. it seemed like a simple job … it shouldn’t take him longer than a couple of months …. Finally I said, “umm, thanks but I’m going to ask John if he knows a mason.”  Dang good thing I listened to my gut because mason bee said just filling the space with concrete would not have held the wall and the cement would have begun crumbling.  As I handed him a big fat slice of banana bread he said he would be back at 9:00 a.m. the next day. 

As well as mason bee, my head bee also brought along a painter yesterday. “Dry-wall bee’s bid for the painting is too high,” he said.  “I wouldn’t pay that much and I don’t want you to pay that much.  I brought you another painter to have a look.  She’s a professional and she’ll do a good job but she’s much more reasonable.”  I said thanks! and handed them both a big slab of banana bread.

Right after I hit “publish” on yesterday’s blog post I headed over to Leslie and Ryan’s because Emerson was still home sick.  She thought she would go to school.  She got up to get ready to go to school, but her throbbing head sent her back to bed.  You know a kid is really sick when she chooses to stay in bed rather than go to Doughnuts In The Cafeteria With Dad.  Later, when I got home and checked out the progress of the basement, it looked the same.  Well, not exactly the same, there was another coat of mud on everywhere there had already been mud, but really nothing to take a picture of.  So since there’s really not much to share with you about yesterday, I’m going to tie up everything that’s happened today and be done with it…………til next week.  

Dry-wall bee got right to work this morning slapping on more mud.  Really?  MORE mud?  Dust!  I want dust!  Lots and lots of fine dust!  I don’t care if it filters into my food and my hair.  I won’t even care if there are little tiny white cat prints on every surface in the house.   Start sanding my bee!  Sand!  Sand!  Sand!  Because then you can texture, texture, texture and then paint bee can paint, paint, paint.  I want … oh, gosh … I want to see the light at the end of the tunnel!  No!  I want to be out of the tunnel and done! Done! Done!  Done!  Sorry….got a little carried away….

Anyway…… today’s construction “cookie” – Jewish Coffee Cake – was baking in the oven before dry-wall bee arrived around 8:30.  No, I don’t know why it’s called Jewish and yes, I know, I can’t really pass this off as a cookie (even if you can hold it in your hand) but it was easy and it’s good and I’m running out of cookie ideas.  I might have to break into my Christmas cookie recipes pretty soon. 

 After I’d taken the cake out of the oven to cool I looked up at the clock to see if it was nearing the time for mason bee to arrive and noticed a huge streak of brownish-yellowish liquid oozing across the family room ceiling. 

I had a momentary panic thinking the skylight had sprung a leak but after Dean came running, he told me it was just condensation dripping down.  There is a lot of moisture in the house from the drywall mud and it was minus 14 when I got up this morning so the skylight had frosted over because, according to Dean, we (meaning me) keep the house too cold at night.  When the heat came on and the sun started shining onto the skylight, the frost melted and dripped down the side and onto the ceiling.  All I had to do, he told me, was climb up on a ladder and wipe off the streak from the ceiling.  And then wipe off any remaining wetness from the skylight itself. 

So catastrophe was averted, but I'm pretty sure that means Dean’s not going to let me drop the heat to 58 degrees at night until all this dry-walling moisture is gone or it’s warmer at night.  He’s probably going to make me keep it at something crazy like 62 or 63.

Mason bee and his helper got here just as I was reaching for a knife to cut the coffee cake/cookie

and in less than two hours they had mortared in the rocks that Dean had unburied from the snow, lovingly cleaned and dried and gently laid down by the wall. 

The mortar should dry light like the rest.

My dry-wall bee was getting ready to leave around one so I told him to take some cake with him if he wanted.  I was a little worried he hadn’t liked today’s “cookie” because about an hour earlier, when I’d let him know there was more if he wanted it he told me there was still a lot down there.  I grabbed a baggie for him and then thought maybe it would be easier to wrap the slices in saran wrap so I laid a sheet out on the table.  Take as much as you want.  I’d worried for nothing.  He took the plate, with six pieces still on it, and flipped it over onto the plastic wrap.  And now he is gone for the day.  He’d sanded and textured the laundry room and I hadn’t even noticed any dust floating up the stairs or felt any dust clinging to my nose hairs.

I know you can't see it but it's textured!

Not only that, he’s coming tomorrow morning to sand and texture rest!  I don't care if it’s Saturday, he’s coming tomorrow morning to sand and texture rest! What’s that I see?  Is it?  The light?  At the end of the tunnel?◦

Construction With Cookies – Day Who Cares?

Construction With Cookies – Days 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

As Mr. Rogers always said, I’m “walking backward through my mind” trying to stir up my old gray matter so I can remember Construction With Cookies – Day 8.  

Valentine’s Day was coming up on Saturday and since we were leaving Thursday it seemed appropriate that I serve up heart-shaped frosted sugar cookies.  It probably wasn’t the wisest choice since my food coloring and cookie cutters were downstairs but I braved the pounding of the nail gun and tiptoed through a fine layer of gypsum dust, slipped into the storeroom and grabbed the cookie cutters.  Once I got back upstairs I realized I’d forgotten the food coloring so I followed my white toe prints back down and retrieved it, only to discover even though I had multiple containers of blue and yellow and green, there was only one, nearly empty, tube of red. 

Good thing I wanted pink cookies and not deep, deep red.

I brought a larger than usual plate of cookies down to my two worker bees since it would be the last they’d have for a few days.  I honestly didn’t think they’d eat them all but, just like every other day, somehow they managed, and fueled with all that sugar they hung some doors and nailed up more drywall.  The support bracket still had not come in so when we headed to Lincoln the post was still prominently standing in the middle of the room.

Kitty door!

After nearly 12 hours in the car we reached Abby and Jorge’s.  Along the way we had decided we’d take Angus and Maggie for a quick walk as soon as we got there, but once we pried ourselves out of the car and stood outside a few minutes trying to straighten our bent bodies, that idea went out the window and we immediately began whining about the cold.  And we did not stop whining about the cold the whole time we were there.  I had forgotten how cold, humid air worms its way down into your bones and doesn't let go.  By the time we left I promised I would never again tell Abby she’s a weenie when she tells me she’s freeeeezing.  She was absolutely reveling in her vindication.

When we weren’t whining we were eating, drinking, going to the zoo, eating, drinking, talking, eating, drinking, shopping, eating, drinking, helping with house chores, eating, drinking, talking, eating, drinking, salsa dancing, eating and drinking. 

I was really hoping when we got home the support bracket would be in, the post would be gone, the drywall would be completely hung, the taping, mudding and sanding would be completed, and the texture would be on the walls.  (There’s always, hope, right??)  There was progress while we were gone, but not as much as I’d hoped for.  The post is gone and there is no pile of rubble or gaping hole in the ceiling where it used to be so the bracket seems to be doing its job.  The drywall is completely hung and all the bee's tools are gone, but there has been no taping or mudding or sanding or texturing. 

No post!!

I really did not want to live through the dust I know is going to filter through every nook and cranny and settle on every surface of every room when the sanding begins.  I suppose it doesn’t really matter all that much since I can already write my name on nearly every surface in the house now, but knowing Dean’s penchant for health and safety I’m afraid he’s going to make me wear a dust mask and they really don’t work with my fashion style.  

I talked to my head bee yesterday and the plan is for the hanger bee to stop by today and have a look at the project since, for whatever reason, the original guy can’t or won’t or didn’t want to do the job (he must not have known about the cookie stipend) so they had to replace him.  And since it’s nearing lunch time now and I have seen no bees yet, I’m assuming no progress will be made today.   So no Construction With Cookies – Day Whatever This Is cookie, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t bake anything.  However, after all the food we ate and all the wine I drank while we were in Lincoln, I chose something a bit healthier.  I made granola.  I figure if I put it in my white yogurt for breakast I won’t even notice the dust filtering down into it.

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Construction With Cookies – Days 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

Construction With Cookies – Day Six

Ahhhhhh………it was so nice to have two days without deafening, banging, jolting power tools.  It felt like a vacation.  

I wasn’t sure how early my bees would show up on a Monday morning but they were here shortly after 8 a.m. and within minutes were dragging in rolls of insulation.  The noise as they stapled insulation was barely noticeable after Friday’s cacophony.  I didn’t have any problem hearing their country music playing in the basement and I suspect they could hear strains of Mumford and Sons coming from upstairs as I was baking Chocolate Peppermint Snaps – Day Six’s Construction Cookie.  The recipe said they’re supposed to taste similar to the Girl Scout Thin Mint Cookie and I love Girl Scout Thin Mint Cookies so even though I’d never made this cookie before I took a risk. They didn’t look like the Thin Mints, and they didn’t taste exactly like them (of course I ate one … okay two … and a half) but they were minty and chocolaty and pretty tasty.

By the end of the morning my worker bees had stapled up all the insulation.  Now it really looks like we have walls!  Unfortunately it also feels even smaller down there.  But when I step off the bottom stair into the room I kind of feel like I’m being enveloped in a fluffy cocoon.  And it’s so quiet.  It’s kind of cozy and comforting. 

A truckload of drywall was delivered around noon and all 51 boards (yep, I counted them) had to be carried down to the basement.  When Dean and I were demolishing the basement I helped him carry some drywall boards upstairs and out to the garage so I know from personal experience they are dang heavy.  Hopefully the cookies gave my bees some added energy, but after watching them haul all those boards from the truck, up three porch stairs and down 12 basement stairs (yep, counted those too) and then back up those 12 basement stairs and down three porch stairs to the truck to grab another one, I thought I probably should have just given them a big bowl of Wheaties instead. 

Speaking of demolishing the basement – you know how they say when you heat with wood you are warmed twice – once when cutting and splitting and once by burning?  Our basement warmed us twice too.  Well, it warmed Dean twice since, even though I implied I was an active participant in the basement dismantlement, he was the one who pulled off all the rough cut wood on the walls, and pulled out all the nails, and then cut it shorter, and hauled it in so we could warm the house with it.  This basement was my project and I fully intended to pull off all that wood myself and take down the drywall and do all that basement demolition stuff, but he really seemed to want to do it and I didn’t want to hurt his feelings by taking that away from him.  I did do a lot of vacuuming and cleaning down there though so that must count for something.

 Anyway, at the end of the day yesterday we still had a support post and the mechanical guy who was supposed to come and put in two more heat registers was a no show.  But I’m sure he’ll be here today and my worker bees told me the support bracket is supposed to come in this week.  In the meantime, let the drywall hanging begin!

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Construction With Cookies – Day Six

Construction With Cookies – Day Four

Our electrician, Willie, arrived about 8:30 with his hair looking like he’d stuck his finger in a live socket just before he knocked on our door.  Or, given how old he seems, it’s more likely he stayed up half the night playing video games and yanked on his hair every time his voltage-tester-wielding avatar was blown away by the scorching-torch-brandishing figure of a plumber.  But no matter, he was here, rarin’ to go and my worker bees still were not. 

About an hour later as Dean and I headed out for a dog walk (on-leash, of course.....the dogs on-leash, not us, although if there are rocks nearby sometimes I've wished I had Dean on a leash....joking, Dean....I'm just joking.....) my worker bees pulled in.  They hadn't come the day before because they’d been waiting for the official certificate saying they could remove that support post and replace it with a beam so we won’t have a big pillar in the middle of the basement.  I’m trusting (which does not come easily for me) the engineer who issued that certificate knows what he’s doing because as nice as it will be not to have a pillar in the middle of the basement, if it’s a choice between no pillar or the floor above landing on my lap while I’m watching TV in my newly finished basement, I choose the pillar. 

Anyway, the worker bees got right to work … for two hours … and then went to lunch and to pick up more wood … for two hours.  Willie took a 15 minute lunch break and was the first to enjoy day four’s construction cookie – lemon bars.   I suppose lemon bars aren’t really cookies but they are in the cookie section of my cookbook so yesterday, they were cookies.   

Willie did all he could until my worker bees finish the framing (which they almost finished by the end of the day) and said he would be back today.  As he was walking toward the front door one of the 7,821 rocks and fossils we have around the house caught his eye.  I called Dean over so he could enjoy the rare experience of explaining a geologic wonder to somebody besides me, whose eyes, no matter how hard I try to look interested, always glaze over with boredom.  Actually, that’s not true.  I don’t even try anymore.   Poor Dean.  What he has to put up with ... Willie, however, seemed genuinely interested in what Dean said to him, but just in case, I rewarded him for his patience by giving him another lemon bar for the road.

I’ve been giving my worker bees a bad time here, but really they’ve been hard workers.  It was their idea to see if the support post could be removed (which should happen today) so we’d have a nice open area, and they made the effort to talk to the experts and make sure it really would be safe to use an alternate method.  And it was their idea to frame in a bump-out for the TV.

TV area boxed in on the left, furnace boxed in on the right.  Post will be gone today.

I knew this finished basement wasn't going to be much bigger than a postcard but with actual walls going in I'm beginning to feel like it might be more of the size of a postage stamp.  But with the help of my worker bees, at least it will be one of those larger commemorative stamps.  I think my cookie baking is paying off.    

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Construction With Cookies – Day Four