Canuxican

Ok.. a few days since my last update… let’s see what’s happened…
On Saturday Andrea got home, FINALLY! It’s good to have her back
So I cleaned the house on Saturday morning. My parents and sister came into town and wanted to check out the house… but I was going to be picking Andrea up at the airport. So I picked Andrea up and then we drove AGAIN to Houston to go to IKEA. We had one last cabinet to pick up there. We also picked up a light for our hall bathroom. IKEA is a lot of fun! We got back pretty late Saturday night.
Then Sunday we went to the condo to pick it up. It still needs cleaning, but most of my tools and stuff are out of there now.
Speaking of the condo, we have ads running right now and we’ve received about 8-10 calls on it. Only one where they scheduled to come take a look at it though. I show it tomorrow. Probably will do an open house sometime this weekend.
Monday I studied all day for my home inspection test. I made these black bean burger veggie tacos that were pretty good!
Tuesday I took the test *grumblegrumble* and missed a passing score by 3 questions I was pretty bummed. I plan to take it again. I should have studied more and not put it off so long. I have to take a few more classes as the requirements went up, but it is something that I want to do. On the other hand, I had my second interview at that company from last week, and it went SUPER well. I really like the folks there. Small company. It just has a much different feel than a massive corporation. So I’m hoping to hear something from them soon. It was nice to have a great interview to balance out the test from the morning.
Last night we worked on clearing out one of the rooms where we just stashed boxes when we moved in. We got it almost done, will finish up probably tonight.
And today, I am buying a couple more parts for our kitchen sink since the plumber somes tomorrow. I’m also finishing the cleaning in the condo. And I think we’re having lunch at Mangia!
Below are some pics from the drive to Houston. There were haystacks EVERYWHERE in this one field.

Rolls and rolls…

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Today I had an interview! I don’t want to jinx it, but I think it went pretty well. It was for a small company (45 employees worldwide!) here in Austin. I’ll post more details if I get the job So I did the interview and they called me later this afternoon to schedule me to come in for a second interview (I made it through the first screening!) Pretty awesome And the cool thing? They found me!
So I went to the condo, I finished the last bathroom faucet. Then I fixed one of the thresholds (see pics from yesterday). Then I painted the hinges on the downstairs doors, then painted the railing (which came out AWESOME!), then taped off and painted the other hinges on the upstairs doors, then finished painting some unpainted trim and did trim touchup. And that kept me there until about 2:30am. And now it’s 3:20am and I’m hitting the hay. Andrea gets back in like 11 hours! CRAZY!!! Can’t wait to see her!
Left to do at condo: Touchup some wall paint, put the doors back on their hinges, install kitchen faucet, clean and then install the A/C vents, get all my stuff out of there, vacuum floors throughout condo, clean bathrooms and kitchen, clean floors, plant flowers in the backyard. Done! Oh yeah, and we already got a call on the condo! I’m running ads in a couple papers right now! AWESOME!

Me, looking unemployed, and scruffy.

But happy because I have a job interview today!

Carpeted stairs.

I painted the edges of the A/C vents because when the painters taped them off, the paint chipped.

And I painted the hinges of all the doors.

Is that what I think it is?

Yes! It is the railing, all finished and painted! Looks GREAT!

The master carpet.

Another angle.

Hall carpet.

And the final view.

Today Ben came over and helped me with some stuff at the condo. He installed faucets, while I finished the thresholds. Then we went to a party that my realtor put on. Lots of fun!

A wild tape ball!

The downstairs bathroom faucet.

A faucet and the tape battleground.

The last faucet. (I actually installed this the following day)

Here are the thresholds!

The entryway threshold.

I goofed on a piece and cut the wrong angle for this one, then I found a scrap that was within a half inch of the length I needed. If I hadn’t found that, I’d have had to piece this together.

Well the thermostat guy was supposed to come by today to install a free programmable thermostat. They didn’t say he was going to come by at 8:15am though. So he came by, and got that installed. So now I’m going to head over to the condo to get stuff DONE!

This morning, Thomas came over and we cut a section of the flooring out at the house (just a sliver) where it was rubbing against the wall. Then we bolted over to the condo and gave it a good scrubbing. Unfortunately, that was cut short because I had to come back to meet the flooring folks. I called after we had left the condo, and they were running about 90 minutes late. Well time is not something I have a lot of, so I went back to the condo and Liquid-Nailed the tracks in for the thresholds. Then back to the house to meet the flooring folks.

These guys were ABSOLUTELY outstanding. I couldn’t believe what a good job they did. When they came in, I asked them if they could fix the damage. He said “Well, we’re sure going to try.” And I said, “No, I need to know if you have repaired damage like this before.” He got pretty offended that I was doubting him I guess. “Sir, this is what we do every day, for a living.” I knew then and there that we had the right guys. I want someone that takes pride in their work and gets offended if you doubt it. Perfect! So the floor guy, and his assistant got to work. I watched them and learned tricks here and there and asked for tips. Really nice guys and very knowledgable. That said, it took two experts, who do this every day, 6 HOURS to repair the damage. So I’m really glad that we got it done by pros. It would have taken me longer and I don’t think I could have done as good of a job. I’m really happy with the work they did.

Since it took so long, I didn’t get to go back to the condo (though I did contemplate starting my workday at the condo at 10pm, reason won and I didn’t go over there). I worked on electrical at the house all day, and transferring numbers off my old cell phone. I switched to Sprint, with Andrea. SO much cheaper and Cingular’s service has just out and out sucked here in Austin. Cingular would have been cheaper for the both of us, but just not worth the crappy service. I’m glad to be back with Sprint.

The boxes they went through.

DONE!!!!!

Perfect!

Inside the closet.

This was the toughest spot.

This is the MOST you can see of the whole thing, and this is only when you are right up on it. They filled the crack with some tinted putty. When you’re standing, you can’t even see this.

Closet fixed. Done and done!