Jason, the mud guy, made an extra final pass on the walls because he wasn't quite happy with his work. It looked fine to me on Wednesday when he finished, but he said he wanted one more pass before doing the final sanding, so he came back on Thursday to do that, which meant he was here on Friday sanding and cleaning up the floor.
His added day on Friday meant I was unable to attend Pizza Night in Ettrick, but Steve and Pam and I had planned to meet Saturday morning for the auction of office and school furniture that was being held for Western Technical College, where Pam teaches.
So I was down on the south side of town at 9 a.m. Saturday. Most of the stuff was of no interest to me, but I was hoping to find some substantial shelving that I could put into the office, as a good number of files and such are still in packing boxes. Pam wanted to find a large cabinet for their back porch (sort of an exterior pantry which is the entry to the kitchen).
We registered and got our numbers. Natalie had accompanied them, and after 10 minutes or so of checking out the offerings, she announced she was going back to the car. I think Steve was more than happy to go along with her.
The auctioneer finally showed up in a little cab on a truck, reminiscent of a glassed-in food truck from a carnival. It had loudspeakers. He had a microphone. A driver drove him up and down the numerous rows of stuff — mostly groups of chairs, desks, tables and such. I was mildly surprised to see about a half a dozen Amish there.
It seemed that most of the people had little interest in the stuff, except for a handful of buyers who were known to the auctioneer by name. They would wait around for a dozen tables to go from $5 a piece for the lot to $3 to $2 to $1, then $10 for the lot, then perhaps $5 for the lot and one of them would snap them up.
Most of the stuff was steel construction, but there were a lot of tables that were solid oak, and I'm sure that the wood alone was worth 10 times more than what they got for it (I kept waiting for the Amish guys to bid on them but they didn't seem interested; they had their eyes on the folding meeting room tables).
Once the lot of tables was sold for next to nothing, two oak side tables were offered: $10 a piece, $5 a piece, $1 a piece, then $1 for the pair. All of a sudden, it flashed in my head that I had been looking for nightstands for my bedroom, and there would be perfect. I held up my number and bought them for 50¢ each.
Pam did get a cabinet and also picked up a set of shelves for Emily's new house. (Emily is buying a house. She's deep in the passing of paperwork between buyer, seller and bank.) They had brought Glenn's truck, but couldn't fit everything into it, so my tables went into the back of their van, the cabinet went into the truck bed and we headed back to my house, where they dropped off the cabinet in the garage and went back to pick up the shelves.
Afterward, we went to Culver's for lunch and they headed back to Ettrick. I returned home and puttered a little, getting ready for Ron and floor finishing on Tuesday. Sunday was similar, but I did a good deal of measuring and planning about what could fit where, attempting to avoid having to drag everything upstairs or, worse, out into the garage.
Today at 9 a.m., Mark from Eagle Eye Property Solutions came by and started pulling staples out of the floor. He had a special tool he was using, but the going was slow, as whoever had put in the staples had used inch-long monstrosities that did not want to come out of the floor. It took him about two and a half hours to pull the remaining staples. We broke for lunch, then tackled the two-man moving jobs (the sectional and the larger furniture), lugging them up the stairs.
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| Naked living room ready for facelift. |
So Patty and I will be relegated to the office tomorrow (the guest room is full of stuff and there's not much space left in my bedroom). I think it will be good, since it will force me to organize and sort through the remaining office boxes (I think there are four). I'm also toying with bringing Patty's food, water and litter box upstairs because she never goes downstairs if anyone else is in the house. The only possible place to stow her stuff would be a small closet in my bedroom. I'm thinking of leaving the box there, since it will be out of the kitchen, and I will be more apt to clean it regularly if it's in my personal space.
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| Only dining room chairs left to deal with. |
I was telling people about getting my floors redone, and they asked who was doing them. I told them Ron Miller, and a good half dozen people said, "Oh, he did our floors. What a fabulous job! You're lucky to get him." I told them that his voicemail box was full, and one person said, "Yes, it's been that way for at least a year that I know of." I feel honored to have a local legend working on my floors.
I stopped by the grocery on the way home and got a couple pre-made dinner items, since there is no room in the kitchen to prepare food beyond sticking it in the microwave. I do believe there will be space to brew coffee in the morning. I sure hope so, if I'm having to get up at 7:30.
When Ron last stopped by last week, he said, in his thick, Minnesota drawl, "If you wanna leave the the back door open, I can let myself in and you can just keep sleeping." I told him I would be up when he arrived, but that I would probably go up and nap for a couple hours more once I know he's squared away.
"Oh, yeah," he replied. "Retired people like doin' that, ya know."
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