My father, my stepmother and my aunt Dawna have been here for the past couple of days. My cousin Terri joined them the first evening. It's not quite "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition"--the rooms are still all the same size--but nevertheless this house has taken leaps and bounds since they got here.
The kitchen, which was once a sort of industrial booger colour, is now a very pale yellow. Its cupboards (and our baker's rack) now match the table; a big ceiling fan has been put up. The bathroom has been painted and gussied up real pretty-like, and our bedroom has been transformed, from beige-y taupe into "cornsilk". (Painting that was a tassel.)
Curtains have been installed throughout, very nice ones. And all of our appliances are now up and running. Let me tell you, that was arguably the most, well, "interesting" part of the last two days.
Hooking up a washer and dryer ought to be child's play. This was child's play's total antithesis: adult work, and quite a lot of it. Blood was spilled. Curses rained down until they coated the ground.
With the washer, it was a matter of actually getting the $%^*ing electrical cord out through the back of the ^&*(ing thing. It was secured in there like the ^&*(ing crown jewels: four nuts, six large washers, two monster braces, all behind four Liliputian screws set at impossible angles.
This washer and dryer was made in America. How do we know this? Because every last @#$^ing screw is a slothead. The anti-Americanism emanating from around our house over the last couple of days would have done Carolyn "damn Americans, I hate those bastards" Parrish proud.
Obligatory Canadian plug on Canada Day: Robertson screws, a Canadian invention, are vastly superior. There oughta be a law...
The dryer vent required a master's degree in engineering to install. (Final exam, worth 100% of your grade: get a pipe four inches in diameter to fit into another pipe four inches in diameter. You have four hours...)
In the end, we managed to acheive this with the use of a slightly wider bore collar, a couple of clamps (with slothead screws, the %^&*ing Yanks), some drywall screws of our own (that'll hold ya, you sonofawhore!) and a whole lot of duct tape. Yup, Red Green was in the house, with Ken here playing a very good Harold. (Why in the ^&*( is that aluminum vent piping so &*()ing fragile? It unravelled every time we tried to clamp it and tore outright in three places.)
The word of the day is "cock-knocker", boys and girls. Say it with me!
Anyway, it's done. We've done some much needed laundry, and I have a recommendation for all of you: BUY A FRONT-LOAD WASHER. This thing *rocks*. Well, it did until we levelled it. No really, the spin cycle on this practically dries your clothes by itself. My pants were going around so fast I swear I saw pant-puke dot the inside of the door.
I couldn't be more grateful to my parents, my aunt, and my cousin for all the stuff they've given us and all the work they've done. There's more coming, too: a whole truckload of furniture, including a hutch. (We brought enough furniture from our one-bedroom apartment to do a creditable job of filling this three-bedroom, finished-basement house!)
Thank you so much, folks.
Now to continue the unpacking...
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