Expiring Permit

Someone, besides ourselves, has finally told us that our project is moving too slowly. Today we go the notice from the City of Eugene that unless we get an inspection done ASAP (before 9/13), our permit is set to expire. Luckily, we are allowed to file for one 180-day extension, which I am sad to announce, we will probably have to do.

Finally something other than demolition.

I have been waiting to post about our rot repair until it is complete…however, our contractors are not on the same schedule as we are. When they started, they just went gangbusters. And to be honest, every time they are here, they accomplish what I perceive to be an amazing quantity of work. The problem…they are not here all that often. We were lucky to get some guys who wanted side jobs. It is a little bit riskier, but I was confident that they would be far more skilled than I (not too difficult) and getting side job workers meant that they have tons of experience, but are less expensive than hiring a crew to do it right away. We assumed that it would take longer since they only work weekends and/or evenings. That was fine, we had some time and we prefer to be here when they are working. The real issue is that these guys, who were all gung-ho for work a while back are not so gung-ho anymore. Not surprisingly, as it does with all of us, life got in the way. Soon after they first came out, the wife of one of the guys passed away. A month later, another one got married!

And so, as the rainy season looms in the not-so-distant future, we are considering finding some new workers to lend some muscle and expertise to our humble project.

We did get to take some great pics of some of the rot and some of the huge holes in the house. One of the most intense situations came one weekend as Deder and I were taking a break from working outside, the workers began cutting out rot along the foundation on the West side of the house. We had watched them rip off the siding and as we were eating lunch, the whole house began to shake. Franticly, we ran to take the glassware off the shelves above the refrigerator. Slight amounts of panic… I have never been in an earthquake personally, but I can imagine it was something like what I experienced that day.