there is a threshold for how much time we can spend in the house on any given trip. before the gas was on, we could only stay in the house as long as we could stay warm in coats and hats in 10 degrees (about 20 minutes). then, without water service, we could stay only as long as the next bathroom break (about 4 hours, if you planned your beverage consumption appropriately). now the water is finally on, which has extended our threshold for spending time in the house considerably.

currently we are able to stay as long as daylight lasts, because most of the power has been temporarily disabled again. it’s a two steps forward, one step back kind of thing. we can stay for > 4 hours, but only if those 4 hours fall into the daylight set. (can someone tell me how to write that in math notation? i wish i still knew.)

for weeks we’ve been asking when the water will be turned on, and not really getting a good answer, until now. it turns out the problem was that there was one bad solder joint left to repair, but it was in front of the first water shut-off valve. so the water needed to be turned off at the street level before it could get fixed. it has been slowly leaking into the ground against the front wall of the basement for who knows how long. the complication was that the ground was so frozen that no one could get to the water valve. once the ground thawed, they dug up most of the front yard looking for the valve before giving up and calling the city. who came out and apparently only pretended to off the water. sneaky city services. but someone attempted the repair anyway, failed, and left the joint basically at a steady trickle (like, at the same rate as a water fountain) overnight while they waited for the city to come back and really turn off the water. for an additional service fee of $40. because that’s how chicago does business. Ben and i go by the house most nights after work to check on progress, and on Thursday we discovered the basement floor covered in puddles, and water basically running down the pipe into a hole in the floor. and by floor, i mean, the place where the concrete basement gives way to bare dirt. we raised hell, and the foreman was sent out, and a call was placed to 311 for overnight service, but nothing really got fixed until the next day.

the water in the basement evaporated/drained pretty fast, but i am concerned about what is under (or rather, no longer under) the house in that area. the next day when the contractor called to say, “your water is on!” Ben translated that to, “your sinkhole is ready!” i do kind of worry that someday soon the front of half of the house will just sink 6 inches or a foot without warning. we should probably get a foundation guy out to look at it. but for the short term, the joint is fixed and we at last have water service. toilets that flush! sinks with running water!

the power is mostly off because electricians are working seven days a week to finish what is turning into basically a completely new electrical system. it was regrettable that we had to do it, or rather that we started this project without knowing that it was necessary, but i am glad that this will now be this:

the other success for this week? the burrito is gone!

one of the things that drives me bonkers is how filthy the house has gotten. the construction dirt is one thing, but the garbage is another. the tradesmen leave in their wake a spectacular trail of half-eaten food, takeout containers, coffee cups, wrappers, tools, boxes, discarded bits of wood and wire and conduit and receipts and whatever else just falls to the ground. has it occurred to no one to bring in a garbage can? or to repurpose a plastic bag? or to sweep up at the end of a work day? i am a deeply cluttered person myself, but there’s a difference between clutter and pure slovenliness. it speaks of a lack of respect for the job and the work that is being done. theatre carpenters may leave a trail of sawdust behind them, but my guys clean up their shop every night and put away the tools and through that, demonstrate respect for the space in which they work. and in turn, it raises the quality of the work that they do.

(i’m still getting to the burrito part, bear with me). of particular note was a big box that had become a trash box. someone had thrown the remains of a lunch in there, and it got rotty and more and more smelly. and the worse it smelled, the more stubborn i got about NOT TAKING IT OUT MYSELF. we worked every night for a week pulling moulding down amongst that burrito smell, but still i did not cave. in the end i won. i waited out the carpenters for more than a month. but, when we came in this afternoon, no more burrito! i win!

actually, everyone wins now that the burrito box of horror is now gone.

today we made what is becoming a regular weekend sweep past two of our favorite salvage shops (reBuilding Exchange and Salvage One) and picked up a few more bits of door hardware. i am about to start boiling these door plates in a solution of hot soapy water, as the internet tells me that is a good way to get the layers of paint off. or make a deadly soup for your worst enemy. either way. for obvious safety reasons, the directions recommend that you do not use cookware that is used for food prep. that’s okay, because i have pots for cooking food, and other pots for making fake blood in.*

we also went to home depot and bought all the door locks and had them rekeyed so the various apartments and common areas all coordinate. it was easier to do it ourselves than trust that the carpenters were going to buy the brand we’d spec’d or coordinate the right keys with the right doors. ben is installing them now. because he’s awesome. and we’re really impatient to get into the house, there are less than 3 weeks until moving day, and this is something that we can do.

we started packing. ugh. because when all the stress of the house renovation becomes too much, what we really need to do is come home and worry about having to move. but i am kind of excited about trying out this reusable moving box service.

this week we also began the dance of scheduling the window replacement, the floor refinishing and the painting. all of those things we bid out to other contractors, so this is where we’ll begin functioning as our own general contractor. which honestly, can’t be any harder than chasing down our contractor and trying to get him to actually communicate the information we give him to his foreman and crew.

the really good news is that we found a place to stay for a few weeks in may if we can’t move into our new apartment by april 29. a friend is working out of town and generously offered us use of her apartment and will even let us bring the cats. so while i am not psyched about possibly having to move twice (while in tech for my biggest show of the year) i am thrilled that we won’t be living in our car with two cats who hate each other.

it wasn’t looking so good around Thursday (burrito, flooded basement, possible homelessness), but by the end of the week the balance was looking to be in our favor. the basement is dry again, the roof is done and the neighbors only said one passive aggressive thing about all the nasty creosote that got all over their porches, the burrito has gone to a better place, the toilets flush,** and probably the house won’t burn down in a tragic electrical fire.

* i also have a very patient husband.
** which means i no longer have to wonder where the workmen are peeing.