The Construction Zone

Dear Baby Girl,

Ah, the dynamic duo that is “Stimmy.” These two are like an old married couple. They’ve been flipping houses in Florida for two years now, and their one mistake during the process is that they haven’t got a camera crew filming them. They are hilarious together. Add in their living arrangement—with Grandma Tracy and Mammy—and you’ve got yourself some prime time hit TV. Jimmy has titled their show "Flipping Out," which is a duel reference based on flipping houses and flipping out at one another. Although I haven’t video-recorded anything, I have been documenting their progress (and some of their antics) via photo.

Top: Granda Steve trying to plant one on Jimmy.
Bottom: The two of them sharing a little post-work snack.

As much of a full house as we’ve got now in Arlington, you can always count on comic relief and quality work. Jimmy is unbelievably talented. Historically, his area of expertise was drywall, but in the last couple of years he has really honed his skills at tiling. I put these skills to test by picking out glass tiles for our showers. It’s his first time working with glass tile (and he has declared it his only time working with glass tile) but it is coming out even more beautiful than I could have pictured in my wild imagination. He hates working with the stuff. It is difficult to cut, and tedious to place, but he is my new best friend for it. I’ve been trying to win him over with good food and Bud Light (thank goodness for our enormous store of Italian freezer foods), but I know he probably wants to kill me as he carefully places each brick. The bath tub that he’s working on downstairs will likely be your toddler tub, and you couldn’t be bathing in a more regal looking space.

Left:  Upstairs shower. This will eventually be the "kids bathroom" (that's you, Baby Girl!)
Right: Downstairs shower. Your toddler tub as Dad and I can both fit in this bathroom to bathe you.

Jimmy also saved us with the air conditioning. We hired a crew to move the furnace to make room for a larger downstairs bathroom, but they did a truly terrible job with the duct work. With their work, the bathroom ceilings would have needed to be absurdly low. Jimmy corrected all that, didn’t miss a beat, and now the bathroom is going to be perfect. So add duct work to his repertoire.

Of course, Grandpa Steve is working equally as hard. He loves the “wow fact-ah," and as the primary painter he generally achieves it. I don’t always like to give him the satisfaction (I feel obligated keep his ego in line), but when I saw your nursery I couldn’t not be wowed. He’s almost done with the painting, and it looks great. I love the colors that we picked, and the whole house is looking more like the environment that you will know and grow up in.

Top: Grandpa Steve doing his famous proud "peacock."
Bottom Left: The stairway is refinished with a rail and spokes to keep you from tumbling over!
Bottom Right: New windows, paint, and "wet bar" (which will serve as your infant/baby bath!)
Lest you forget what all of this looked like before, go: here.

Grandpa Steve loves demolition and a good trip to the dump. He’s been bonding with your father who’s been assisting him on weekends, and I think they had a solid dump run this past Saturday as both came back in excellent spirits. Your father finds Grandpa Steve's little “Steve”-isms hilarious (glad somebody does). For example: most modern truck owners will use belts, straps, and buckles to secure construction items in their truck bed. Not Steve. He goes old school, using only rope and sailor knots. He was very excited to show your father the functionality of his sailor knot (later, a piece of trim fell out of the truck while driving on the highway. Grandpa Steve contends that the trim snapped, and it was NOT his knot job). Another “Steve”-ism: he rates each truckload of trash with his own personal highway safety label—45MPH, 50MPH or 60MPH. This one makes your father nervous.

Top: Grandpa Steve and Dad on their dump run.
Bottom: Stimmy on a Home Depot run, and Jimmy try to secure Grandpa Steve's sailor knot.

Grandpa Steve and Dad hanging the siding on the house around the new window.
The top picture is an action shot, but the bottom one is posed.

Of course, MY job is primarily being the crabby wench who tells them what I don’t like after the fact and then adds to their already extensive to-do list. I try to balance it out with compliments, and I even annoy myself with how critical I can be. But I do love their work—honestly I do—and we have a good time (mostly). I’m cooking for them as much as I can, I have ridden to the dump once, and I join them on some Home Depot runs (even though as you know I loathe the place).

We’re trying to get everything complete by the end of the month, so your father and I can have a weekend to arrange furniture and what-not in time to have it all set up for your baby shower on July 9^th.  Some of your extended family is trekking to DC for this event (which I am so very grateful for) so I want the wow-factor almost as much as Grandpa Steve does.

Once all of this renovating and the baby shower are done, your father and I will have a couple of months to chill before you come along. Maybe finally get some R&R this summer (HA! Like that will happen. Dream on, Dad)!

Love,

Mom

Dad at it again!
He has taken over cooking duty a couple of nights when I've been tired.
No one has complained, except that he is making them fat.
Above is one of his delicious pepperoni rolls.