Did We Survive Hurricane Katrina or Not?

Remember the plan to finish the laundry room first?

Remember what I've said about what Hurricane Katrina has done to the concept of a 'plan'?

All week we planned on spending Saturday being productive around the house. We planned on picking up our laundry room cabinets yesterday since the sales slip listed that date as the pick-up date. We thought we would wake up bright and early and start putting them together so we could have them installed by nightfall. I don't even need to tell you that the cabinets didn't come in, do I?

We still tried to get some work done today though. This morning we worked on finishing up the paint in the master bathroom... and then we moved on to sorting through the window and door trim that we had salvaged from the demolition of our home's interior. It's like a giant jigsaw puzzle with pieces missing. Each piece of window trim is cut to fit a particular place on a particular window in the house. One by one we have to try each piece at every window -- turning it different orientations and testing the fit until we find a match. Then we have to take each of those pieces and label them accordingly (something we hadn't thought to do until after we had already worked with about 10 pieces of trim and realized we had to start all over again...) and take them outside to sand off the old paint and caulk.

Once sanded it is my job to get them in place and nailgun them where they belong. My nailgun isn't exactly the heavy-duty sort meaning the little trim nails do not actually go all the way through trim and stud. What this means is that I then must go back over each and every nail with a nail punch to get the head below the surface of the wood. Next I have to break out the caulk and cover the nail holes and caulk the seams between trim, wall, and window. It's a lot of work for very little obvious result -- but the sort of thing that really makes the difference if done well when everything else is put back together.

Tonight I can say that I finished the trim on one complete window -- but of course the 'apron' is still missing... We will have to actually purchase some of those as none were salvaged... Once we get whatever we salvaged back around the windows we have to move on to the doors which will be r e a l l y irritating because there are several pieces which must be fit together for each side of trimwork. Sigh. And when it's all done they will have to be resanded and painted... Then we have to break out the wall paint and touch up again. Daunting, to say the least.

But tonight we're taking a break and going to plop down and watch a bad movie or two. It'll all still be here waiting for us in the morning.