Grampa's New House

One week after we were initially supposed to head over to Block Island (a trip delayed, I would remind you, by a lack of sufficient plumbing, a situation that would have been far more problematic to us than to Asa), Grampa called us on a Sunday morning.  "Are you coming over tomorrow?"

"Umm... I don't know.  Are we?"

"There are working toilets."

"See you tomorrow."

What a trusting soul I am.

There were, indeed, flush toilets - three of them, in fact, which is terribly exciting after years and years of a house with one bathroom and long lines.  There were walls and a roof... most of the major construction was done, and there was even paint on the walls.  Beyond that...

I didn't take "before" pictures.  I should have done.  This is from the day the old house came down, but really, the difference between this and what we saw when we arrived varied mostly in which pieces of furniture were piled where, rather than the existence of piles at all.

The dishwasher, which is the black thing under the window in the photo here, was in place, although not functional.  Ditto the dryer, without which having a washer is not terribly helpful.  The microwave wasn't even in place, so we learned to thaw baby food by leaving it on the counter hours before it would be needed.  The cardboard and paper covering the hardwood floors (see above) was still in place, as was the plastic on all the windows.  That was actually one of the first things to go, to M.'s great pleasure.

In her jammies, no less.

Aunt Jessica came over Tuesday evening and hung out, which was good fun - we even managed to get a room ready for her before she arrived!

We also had huge amounts of help from Mummy's cousin Shanon, and Asa's cousin Joe and some of his friends, Pat, Zach and Brad:

It was nice to have screens in the windows.  Even if it did mean some heart-stopping moments for me, what with my fear of heights:

Yep, that would be my Dad, standing on a stepladder that he had leaned against the wall, in a stairwell.  UGH.

The first weekend we were out there, all of Asa's godparents, plus Kohta, Aunt Jessica and Uncle Mike came to stay.  And frankly, they worked HARD, painting trim, putting up screen doors, doing up-high touch-ups (thanks, Jen!) and poking around the fridge.

But why, you ask, was Jen looking behind the fridge?

Two engineers, one icemaker.  Odds were in their favor, but no, the icemaker won.  Last I heard, it still wouldn't make ice.  It was a valiant effort, however.

Meanwhile, Uncle Mike had an appreciative audience for his painting efforts:

Ah, and do you see what's behind them?  Yes, a Living Room.  Neat, orderly, fairly clean.  Yes, by the end of eleven days (Monday to the following Thursday, inclusive) we had a house that was *almost* ready for the tenants who were due to arrive the next morning.  Joe put together the day bed, and his means of removing plastic from the mattress just underlines, I think, how punchy we all were by day 8 or 9.

I don't doubt that Grampa (probably with Joe's help) worked until very late in the day on Thursday with all the little finishing touches.  Like dusting under the couch.  But man... the difference.  Wow.

But where, you ask, was Asa in all this?  We didn't leave him at home, after all... but that really is a whole separate post... or two... or more...