This week’s installment of the great renovation saga of 2012 (and 13, and 14…) focuses on the Magic 8-Ball that is Craigslist. First, I’d like to point out that Craigslist is a dot org. This should have been a red flag to me, but if I had an inkling, I ignored it. Dot orgs are the wackiest of all websites. Don’t believe me? Here are some examples:

Ghosts.org, which is headlined, Obiwan’s UFO-Free Paranormal Page

Termlifeinsurance.org, which at first doesn’t seem odd, until you click into it and realize it’s actually a page devoted to the World’s Strongest and Strangest Beers, not to life insurance, as the URL would suggest.

And finally there is:

AirCrap.org, which purportedly “Monitors the Planned Poisoning of Humanity”

I rest my case.

Making Pizza: the only thing that kept me sane this week

But what does this have to do with a house remodel? Well, kids, if you ever find yourself on the business end of a demolition project, chances are you will turn to Craigslist to both sell things you wish to demolish and to enlist the services of people who can help haul things away. Sometimes the people who answer you ads are sane. Most of the time, however, they are not. *Especially* if you are utilizing the special section of Craigslist marked “free stuff.” The second you attempt to give something away for free, you become a rare earth magnet designed solely to attract the nutjobs of the world. Read more

Some cliches are cliché for a reason, and peeling back an onion is no exception. The metaphor applies to remodeling a house so aptly, my eyes are watering just thinking about it. If you’ve been following the renovation saga, you already know that this tree exists in the living room:

Well, not for long. As it happens, last week was punctuated by the discovery of dry rot all throughout the improperly-dried trunk, which, if left untreated, could lead to our roof collapsing onto our living room. That is not a problem we wish to deal with post-remodel. In fact, the biggest choice I want to have to make after this house is sealed up and I can pad quietly down to the kitchen in stocking feet, enjoying the radiant heat emanating from the floors, is which bottle of wine to open from the glass-encased cellar. Read more

In the true nature of a faithful servant, I am officially beginning the documentation process of SaltySeattle’s renovation 2.0. I say 2.0 because we remodeled our current home several years ago, while we were living in it, while we were both working full-time jobs, and while we were planning our overseas 80-person wedding. I look back on that time and wonder how exactly I’ve gotten so soft. We spend every day working on 2.0 and at the end of each, I pool into my pillow as fast as a bottle of spilt wine. Of course the pitter patter of eager toddler feet does add a certain difficulty to things…

At first we focused mostly on the grounds, rather than the interior of the house, because we gave the previous owner two weeks post-closing to remove his personal items. Notice how I say “grounds” as though I own some palatial English garden? That is not exactly the case. Human-eating forest would be a more apt description. In fact the five acres are so heavily wooded, the house is in real danger of being swallowed by the woodsy beastess. I do love Madame Nature, but I need a little breathing room, plus I’d prefer she not engulf my house.

So we swashbuckled. I took thwacks to the face, arms and legs, and swallowed approximately 37 spiders. The spider part was for the best as we keep forgetting to pack along our own provisions and we’ve learned that pizza delivery just ain’t available in the c-untry (that’s how the locals pronounce it). Cell phone service is also “challenged” along with a host of other conveniences some of us take for granted, like internet. And pedicures. Read more