Wallpaper

We are back in the condo.  This is the first day in two weeks that we have not been in some way involved with and troubled by plumbing problems.  Last week we had to move out.  Friday we moved back in to holes all over the place.  Brother Dan came by on my birthday; he kept saying, “Oh my God.  The holes!  The holes.”

Funny after a day or so I didn’t notice them anymore.

Then on Monday and most of Tuesday we have a guy in and out of the condo all day plugging the holes with sheetrock.  He was an ok guy and did good work.  Still it was a pain and while he was doing the work, it was raining.  So we let him work out of our half of a garage which meant we couldn’t get in and out of there much either.  Though all I needed really was some toilet paper.

So now the holes are plugged, but the finishers are two weeks behind at least.  They won’t be by to make things look normal for quite a bit, and then after that we will have to get somebody to paint over the finished areas.  Be damned if I am going to get it.

We will probably get Bobby to do it.  He is the son of the carpenter who built my little office.  He is back from Iraq after three tours over there and is going back to college.  But he’s on break and drove down yesterday from Lompoc to pull this god awful textured wall paper that has lined the walls of our downstairs half bath and the area housing our washer and dryer.  This was awful stuff—turd brown, to put it graphically.  And, as I said, textured.  So he pulled the stuff down and cleaned up with a pretty expensive solvent—took him the day—and I swear even with holes and ugly old yellowish paint now visible, it still looks better than the other stuff.

And, oh, today, we have people coming to re-appraise the condo because we are going to re-fi (as people say) our mortgage.  We talked this over with a number of people and even with the upfront costs, we will make our money back and more what with 5.185 interest (or something like that) on a fixed rate 30 year loan.

I forgot to send in the paper work for a new driver’s license, so I drove around a couple days with an expired license.  It came yesterday.  I have been renewed until 12/14/2013.  Being who I am, I immediately thought.  That’s pretty optimistic.  2013?  Does the DMV know something I don't.