Sometimes working on a house feels like climbing Mt Rainier in a blizzard: one step forward, half a step back. Today three appliances were delivered and installed: washer, dryer, and refrigerator. This felt like good progress until we discovered that the painters crimped the copper water line for the refrigerator so we couldn’t attach it — it needs to be replaced with a flexible line. One more item for the “handyman list”.
The gas plumbers did an excellent job upgrading our line to supply four appliances instead of two. Now the house has natural gas to the cooktop, dryer, furnace, and water heater. This is helpful in several ways. Not only does Eleanor insist on cooking over gas flames, we are able to free up some breakers in our electrical panel because we no longer have an electric range and electric dryer. We need those breakers for other things, not the least of which is the 30-amp plug to the Airstream in the carport.
Eleanor spent the afternoon happily spinning clothes in the new high-efficiency washer and dryer, and they seem to have her stamp of approval. The new water-saving toilets are installed as well. Without getting into details, let’s just say that they were tested today and so far we are happy with their performance. They use less than 1/3 of the water of the old ones, and the washer uses about 1/2 the water of a top-loader, which is a good thing here in the desert.
The refrigerator seems massive. It’s 26 cubic feet, the biggest refrigerator I have ever owned, by far. Our Airstream’s refrigerator is 8 cubic feet, and we have lived happily with it for over two years, so I am sort of wondering what we will do with all the space in the new one. It does have a few advantages over the typical RV fridge, however, including room for a full-size frozen pizza and a gallon of ice cream. So guess what we ran out to the local supermarket to buy today?
Our cooktop and stove hood came in too, but we can’t install those until later in the process. So instead we are beginning to map out the kitchen with the appliance boxes. To one side of the room lies a big box marked “FRANKE” — that’s the sink. Atop it lies a box from Kohler, containing the faucet. Opposite is a box with the cooktop, and next to it a box from Braun contains the hood. It’s not a functional kitchen but at least we can see it growing. The only thing out of the box is the fridge, and the installers took the empty box with them. Hey, that’s the fun part! I bet they keep those boxes and play in them after work. I know I would.
Safelite came by this morning to replace the windshield of the Armada. The ding I picked up in the glass last week (thanks to a truck spewing gravel on I-10) turned into a large crack overnight, and so glass repair ceased to be an option before I even had a chance to try it. That was a quick $230 out the window — or should I say, “out the windshield” — since our deductible is higher. I would have liked to have captured the license plate of the truck that did the damage, but at the time it seemed the prudent thing to do was to slow down drastically and get away from the hailstorm of rocks it was tossing. So he got away and I got stuck with the bill. Between that and the slight bumper damage, it was not a good week for the Airstream or the Nissan.
This weekend we are expecting a few Airstream friends to drop by. None, however, will be bringing their Airstreams. In fact, we are expecting our first houseguest on Saturday. Since the house is still rough and sleeping quarters will amount to an air mattress on the rug in front of the fireplace, it makes sense that our first houseguest will be one of the most resilient people I know: Brett. We’ll use his visit as an excuse to take time off from hunting for house components, and go play around Tucson instead. But maybe he’ll help me fix the bumper too.
