Meanwhile, in Montana...

I hope that your Thanksgiving was one filled with reasons to feel grateful — and that nobody tossed the green bean casserole at someone with a different political point of view.

Dear Husband and I spent Thanksgiving here at home demonstrating our flexibility and creativity. For example, we found the mixer but not the mixing bowl. Undaunted, I attempted to make mashed potatoes by holding a small bowl of hot potatoes under the single large beater, which I somehow also found in one of the many boxes taking up space in our house.

While it is true that potatoes flew through the air, hitting me and the wall, it is also true that some of them managed to stay in the bowl, creating a lumpy dish that did have some resemblance to mashed potatoes. #win

I do not eat meat and so it was largely an improvised and plant-based affair but it worked. Somehow.

There is some progress on the kitchen and dining room. For example, the living room is painted!

How is that progress on the kitchen, you wonder?

Well, it goes like this — if we are painting the kitchen and dining room we need to paint the living room as well since it all flows together.

And if we are painting the living room, the wainscoting needs to come off since we took it off in the kitchen/dining area due to water damage and decided not to replace it — and if the wainscoting is coming off in the kitchen, dining area, and living room then certainly we need to take it off in the hall and paint that as well.

Basically, Remodel Creep is real — but since progress anyplace is progress on the whole, painting the living room is progress on the kitchen! Yippee for progress!

The other place that Remodel Creep is occurring is the flooring. We cannot replace the floor in the kitchen, dining area, entry, and hallway and not replace the living room carpet! (Thank Goodness).

BUT we cannot do the flooring until the cabinets go in and they are currently being made someplace and might be here in January.

Did I mention that the two zone heaters in the kitchen/dining area were water damaged and so we have no heat in those areas? No worries — it is only Montana in the winter!

Good thing I love adventures!

Dorm Life

People are always sorry when they ask about the kitchen — but I always feel better after being given the chance to complain about it!

Yesterday — after a friend made the mistake of asking and I spent five minutes complaining — she observed that it is like we are living in a dorm room. So true!

We make food choices based on how few dishes we can use, whether said food can be microwaved, we eat a lot of cereal, and dishes are washed in the bathroom sink. All we need is a loud neighbor on one side and the smell of weed coming under our door and it would feel just like a college dorm!

Everything is harder without a kitchen. In fact, I would estimate that no kitchen uses between 30 - 35 Little Soldiers every single day.

And it is not just the work of life with no kitchen, but also the work of dealing with all the moving parts of getting things reconstructed. I am exhausted by it — and truthfully, I suspect that is part of their strategy.

But I persist.

I sent this email this morning:

Good Morning [Insurance Person with copies to various other insurance persons plus the Repair Person Company]:

I have a question I hope you can answer related to the below [email string that included negotiation between various insurance companies about who is ultimately paying this claim].

I spoke with the Appliance Specialists at Home Depot about the dishwasher fiasco; the dishwasher that is Ground Zero for the destruction of 1/3 of our home was purchased there. I explained the situation, which is that one these two things caused damage to our home:

1. Faulty dishwasher (i.e., water supply line malfunctioned); or,

2. Repair Person sent by GE did not tighten the dishwasher water supply line.

There are no other options, unless someone is prepared to assert that some random stranger snuck into our home and loosened the water supply line; I suppose someone could also offer that a dog or cat did it but that, of course, is equally ludicrous.

The opinion of the two appliance experts is that it was the Repair Person's failure to adequately tighten the water supply line because there is no history of that kind of problem in GE appliances. They, in fact, recommended a GE dishwasher to me, which is how the conversation started in the first place.

By the time the house is reconstructed we will have been without a kitchen for seven months. Seven Months.

Here is the question: Who is going to make it right in terms of the disruption and additional expenses we have incurred as a consequence of either a Repair Person's failure to do his work properly (a Repair Person sent to our home by GE) or -- less likely but possible -- the failure of a GE appliance under warranty to work properly?

Absent a magic wand, I am absolutely talking about additional compensation for the loss of three rooms in our house for an extended period of time. Which of the various companies involved is going to negotiate with us about that?

Thank you!

I believe that they should pay rent — after all, they are effectively utilizing 1/3 of our home for 7 - 8 months!

SO ANNOYING.

In happy news (sort of) — after months of negotiating to get the budget where it should be we were able to finally order the kitchen cabinets and countertop — they will be here in 6 - 8 weeks (hence the “sort of” part of the Happy News).

This is the design — but appliances and sink will all be stainless like the fridge, and that is not the actual floor.

The countertop will be quartz and in a fit of whimsy, I selected something called Stellar Snow — because it sparkles. Yep — my kitchen will match my dog.

I have a most agreeable and patient Dear Husband — or maybe he is just more exhausted by it all. When I say, “what do you think of this?” he just says, “I want you to be happy.” Hence the sparkly countertop.

Aren’t you glad you wondered about the kitchen?

Life in Montana

I am pleased to share that we FINALLY have a reasonable budget for the repair caused by the Dishwasher Fiasco of 2019.

To give you an example of how this all works, the insurance company originally sent their guy out to assess the damage and as a result, they decided the Replacement Cost of the custom oak kitchen cabinets was $4,570.29.

This amount was only to pay for the damaged bottom cabinets — apparently they expected that we would just keep the original cabinets on the top.

My new friend, Dale, from Linley Cabinets (they installed the original cabinets in 1986) said there would be no way to match the upper cabinets with new ones, they could not be painted, and sanding/staining would cost more than new cabinets.

And so Dale provided the amount it would cost to replace all the cabinets in the kitchen with the same features and like-product.

I sent that off to the insurance company person, explaining about how we needed upper and lower cabinets replaced and why — and after two phone calls and a few weeks of waiting, the amount was approved!

This had to be done with EVERYTHING.

But we have a good adjustor who obviously has construction experience/knowledge, and all bids/estimates were approved — it was just a lot of hoop jumping, which is definitely not my favorite way of doing things.

It has been two months and two days since we had a kitchen but we meet today with the contractor, and should be able to get started on the reconstruction soon.

Nevertheless, she persisted. The Squeaky Wheel is reinforced yet again.

In other news, Sabbatical is over. When walking back to my office from getting a coffee yesterday after class, I took this photo with my phone. I thought it was just a pretty shot of the campus building but it turned out to be a Love Note — do you see?

How awesome is that?!

And the answer to the Claire Question is still NOPE.