Law of Surprise

The roofers came really early today. I was ready. They were tearing off the roof by 6:30am. I think by law they are supposed to wait until 7:00am. However since there is a heat wave, I figure they needed to start early.

Luckily I had pre-negotiated that any sheathing plywood would be covered by my roofing estimate. Normally they charge by the 4x8 sheet. It ranges from $50 to $100 a sheet installed. My contract stipulated that the price for any sheathing replacement was covered. Turns out they roofers decided every existing sheet needed to be replaced on my roof. That could have cost me $3000++ extra.

During the removal of the second layer of existing roof, somebody must have slipped and fell through the roof. It punched a whole in Kat Kat's bedroom ceiling. She was disturbed to say the least. The main roofer was apologetic. He came in and cleaned up the mess from the puncture. They he called a guy to come patch the ceiling.

They color matched the ceiling. But the color would not match exactly. It was close enough for us. I did have to run after the contractor because he took the wood/lumber that we used to cover up and brace the whole temporarily. They offered to give me extra plywood that they will be throwing out. No thank you. I just wanted to keep what I started with.

As an aside, I have made a lot of charges this month with the kids bathroom renovation, plus Momoko's niece coming out to visit for the summer. While I am not at my limit yet, paying the balance on the roofing job would push me over the limit. I was able to call up my bank and get them to give me an instant credit increase. Now I hope we should be good (still have a beach trip to pay for later this month).

Roof Delivery

The roof installers arrived really early this morning. I guess they prepared to be pulling up the old roof prior to 7am. I asked them to not remove the rain gutters. The delivery people had not brought the roofing material the prior day as planned. The installers put in a call with them.

The installers put down tarps everywhere. They asked even the car in the carport to be moved away. The took the grill and black trash enclosure away from the house in the back patio. Ladders were extended up to the roof. Things looked ready to go.

After a while, I heard the ladders being retracted. One truck left. They the last installer told me they would have to come back tomorrow as they had no idea where my roofing materials were. I later got a call from the company that the delivery truck broke down.

In the afternoon, a truck with a huge crane on the back appeared. They dropped of a lot of plywood in the driveway. They also put some ridge venting material on top of it. The real impressive part was that they lifted the shingles right onto the roof. A guy secured a safety harness to the roof as he pulled the shingles off the pallet hoisted by the crane.

Afterwards I parked four cars to box in our materials. Better to hide it and make theft difficult.

Bathroom Redesign

The kids previously had a pink bathroom with a tub. They only took showers in it. Water kept escaping from the tub onto the floor. Not good for the house. I decided to get the tub converted to a shower only. The kids then asked for more updates to their bathroom.

They chose their shower wall and bathroom floor tiles plus colored grout. They chose a square shower handle. They chose a floating vanity with matching sink. They chose a tall medicine cabinet and a modern LED light above it. They also got accessories in brushed nickel. Their shower door was a frosted glass which turned out to only have half of it which would open/move.

With Momoko's niece over for the summer, plus the redesigned bathroom, it was time to get our hot water problem resolved. The water would only remain hot for 10 minutes. Second person taking a shower usually got cold water. After trying a couple fixes, I decided to replace the hot water heater.

Initial estimate for a new 75-gallon gas hot water heater was $4.5k. Went through my handyman to get one installed for less than half of that. Unfortunately the top of the new expansion tank has water coming out of it slowly. Waiting for that to be repaired.

Timber

Our next door neighbor alerted us that he was having people come and cut the trees around his house. Previously he had a big branch fall and damage his house. He was worried it would happen again. The tree cutters were going to start early in the morning.

I hearing the beeping of the crane truck as it backed into the neighbor's yard. The operator of the crane sounded the manual horn every time he wanted to get another worker's attention. I presume somebody climbed up and cut branches. They would tie the branch to the crane.

The crane reached over the house to the trees in the back yard. Then it would rotate the trees out to the street. There the workers used chain saws to cut the branches off the trees. They fed most branches into a wood chipper that ground up the wood.

My handyman had to tell them to get out of the way when he came to our house. Luckily, they were in between tree cuts when we went out for lunch. By the end of the day, all that was left was a couple tiny twigs here and there in the street.

Getting Shower Shelves

The kids and I went to purchase some shelves for their new updated shower. We wanted to get the permanent kinds that are physically connected to the wall. The kids did some research online. Kit Kat wanted some that have a bar to hang a wash cloth on. Little Kat wanted a different style. We decided to go purchase both.

At our home improvement store, we asked an employee to direct us to the shelves. That got us to closet shelves. No luck though. Kit Kat tried to install the store app. There was bad Internet reception. So we headed over to the bath aisles. I found some old school shower caddies that go from floor to ceiling with a tension rod. Bought two for the master bedroom shower. We will be having kids in there taking showers while their bathroom is being remodeled.

The kids finally found Kit Kat's shelves in the aisle with faucets. However we could not find Little Kat's shelves. We left the store and headed for another location on the other side of town. It was overcast and seemed like it was going to rain when we got there. I felt like we were in the neighborhood of my friend Ben.

We rushed to the faucet aisle and found Little Kat's shelves. Then we made a bee line the self check our register and purchased the shelves. As we were leaving, the store lost power. I rushed to the exit so we would not get stuck inside. Little Kat ran for the car. The rain was coming down in huge drops. There was much water on the sides of the roads during the drive home.

Gerbil Relocation

The kids are about to get a massive bathroom renovation started this week. Our handyman is going to rip out almost everything from their bathroom. The bath will be converted to a shower only. That will seal up any water that currently escapes their tub. There is one drawback. The demolition is expected to cause a lot of noise. Our poor gerbils!

The plan is to temporarily relocate the gerbils to the basement while the demo is underway. Kit Kat bought a small secondary gerbil cage today. It will be placed in my study, which is in the basement of the house. Still will be some noise heard down there. Hopefully it will be a lot less than what will be audible on the main level.

Kit Kat plans to bring the gerbils downstairs each day when our handyman arrives. And she will return them to their main cage when he leaves each day. I am at work downstairs during handyman hours. So these gerbils will at least have some company. I guess I can hook them up with nearly unlimited cardboard to chew during the dayh.

Niece Visit

Momoko and I are thinking about inviting her niece to stay with us for the summer. The niece is out of a job at the moment. And her college career is on hold. This might be the perfect time for her to come for an extended stay.

First question is where will she sleep? We have an extra bedroom upstairs with the rest of the bedroom. However this bedroom serves as Momoko's study. It could be converted. I also have a den in the basement. It serves as my study. It is pretty large. Then we also have a library upstairs. There is a lot of traffic through it by the family though.

So if the niece is game, we can fly her out soon. There is one disadvantage. She will be arriving right before we undertake a massive renovation of the kids' bathroom upstairs. I guess she will have to live with the noise during demolition.