A very, very busy week, with an uncertain outcome

Every week seems to get busier and busier, with complications from being out of town a lot in the early part of November and not being able to use our usual computer and connections because of moving the telephone line to the new house. In fact, I wrote most of the following while camping last weekend on Sapelo Island, and now we are out of town again on a bike tour in Tucson, and I'm trying to get my blog caught up.

During the last week we were rushing to get our new house close enough to a finished state to get even a conditional Certificate of Occupancy, which was one of the requirements for getting a new homeowners insurance policy. It will be conditional because landscaping must be included, and while we have hired a landscaper and have a landscaping plan, that process is just beginning. A new homeowners policy is needed because Safeco, our former insurer, chose not to renew our policy, which was to expire on Nov. 3. So, that was the reason for the rush.

Another document needed for the new policy was a certificate of security and fire protection, and thus our security system provider, Allan Hardigree of Allan’s
Electronics, was busy last week installing the security and fire protection equipment for which the house was prewired. That installation also required the establishment of our telephone service at the new residence, but more about that later.

In the meantime, our cabinet maker Paul continued the finishing and installation of the kitchen cabinets. The base cabinets had to be installed first, so that they could be measured and a template made for the granite countertops. Then the island had to be situated and attached to the floor. An electrical cable and receptacle for the range was then installed, and the range was – with some difficulty – moved into position in the island.

Meanwhile, I was on the phone with the phone company, trying to find out why our phone service had not been transferred to our new house, although it had already been disconnected from our temporary residence. A puzzling part of my conversations with AT&T, our land line provider, was that their computer showed the transfer had been completed, but I could see unconnected wires coming out of the house and the likewise unattached line from AT&T coming out of the ground. I eventually arranged (or so I thought!) to have service at both the old and the new residence.

On Tuesday afternoon the granite countertops were installed.

 And then the kitchen sink was attached.

Later, a plumber connected the sink to the water and drain lines.

When we left Thursday morning to go camping on Sapelo Island, however, the phone service at our temporary residence had not been restored, and I feared that the new service would not be connected either. So, I called At&T again and it took over half an hour, talking to three sets of employees and telling them that if we didn’t get phone service at the new house by Friday, it was going to cost us $1000 for a temporary vacant building policy, plus renter’s insurance, and none of that $1000 would be refunded. If that happened, I told them, we would be looking somewhere else for internet service, and when we upgraded to smart phones, AT&T would not be considered.

That (plus my evident ire) got somebody moving, and someone finally figured out that while the service had been switched on at that address, no one had checked to see if there was a network interface on the house—even though I had said all along that there were wires coming out of the house and out of the ground, but there was no box there to connect them too. It seems that it takes a special order to get the box, the network interface, installed, but they promised that that would be done by noon on Friday, and they would call our security people to let them know. I then told the latter, and they promised to fax the security and fire certificate to the insurance people Friday afternoon.

It's Friday afternoon, 2 November, and I’m writing this on Sapelo Island, where we have no mobile phone service, and I don’t know whether any of this has happened. So this is a real cliff-hanger, and we won’t learn the outcome until Monday when we get home. [We're now in Tucson on 8 Nov., and the cliff-hanger was resolved in our favor: we are insured under a new - if expensive -  homeowners policy.]

Now we have begun to move into our new home, though we've not had much progress so far. Above are two of the first four items we moved in from a furniture consignment shop, a living room sofa and a pie safe for the dining room; the other two are book cases to go in my office. In addition, my office in the basement, where we finally got our phone and internet service, also includes a card table, chair, internet gateway, and two phones.

Nearby, we had an inspection issue arise. A basement room that could be used as a bedroom, because it had a closet, failed to meet code: there was no adequate egress from the room other than the door. There were two possible solutions: (1) install a larger window and (2) lose the closet. The first could not be accomplished in time to get the needed temporary Certificate of Occupancy last week. So the anser was to close up the closet door from the bedroom and open up another one from the the den. And that's what our builder George is doing in this picture. I learned in taking this shot, by the way, that one should not surprise one's builder with a flash when he is pulling on an electrical cable. Sorry, George!

 Well, that’s a lot for one post. I have more pictures from this week, but I’ll have to save them for blog post no. 33, which I promise to send out the first chance I get. Now it's time to go biking.  --oc