Finally!

The contractors finished up yesterday. For all intents and purposes, the remodel is complete.
Tile floors to replace the linoleum, tile surrounding the tub and reaching all the way to the ceiling, new fixtures, granite counter-tops, two wash basins instead of one and new paint.

Now it’s just a matter of putting in the finishing touches like mirrors and handles on the cabinets and so forth.

I think it came out very well, especially considering what it looked like before.

TRF is gone for another year

Anyone who has seen my band The Flying Fish Sailors play live has probably witnessed the spectacle that is our performance of Loch Ness Monster, a song written by Greg and the title track of our 4th CD.

It’s hard to describe but it’s VERY dramatic and features Greg and myself being rather *ahem*… animated on stage. The highlight is during the chorus of Loooooooooooch Neeeeeeeesssssss Monsterrrrrrrrrr when Greg and I stand back to back and he uses his arms to form the jaws of the monster and I use mine to form the tail.

At our last performance of the festival season we had a very nice crowd of some of our more faithful and dedicated fans. On a bit of a whim I asked the audience to help us out and mimic Greg and I during the song. The result was an audience full of monsters. I could barely keep a straight face.

Progress

Great progress by our contractors.
We lucked out finding these guys. Their bid for the job was nearly half of what was bid by larger, more well known home remodelling crews. On top of that they are coming in on budget and going the extra mile.
The painting is mostly done, the recessed lighting is installed and some of the plumbing has already been completed.

Here’s the tub

And the new vanity that will have two sinks instead of the one that was there before

Of mail migrations and end users

We are in the middle of migrating from Exchange 5.5 to Exchange 2003 after successfully avoiding Exchange 2000 all together.

1000 + users we are moving, not to mention their sundry public folders and extra mailboxes. We’ve created scripts to upgrade Office 2000 and XP to Office 2003 on all of the work stations and to convert their existing Outlook profiles. We planned for so many contingencies and yet, for the last few days, I have been on the phone pretty much non-stop. Ah, well…job security and all that!

Last weekend of ren fair coming up. One more night of fund raising at the radidio station tomorrow and the ongoing remodel of the master bathroom.

It’s so awesome being me!

There’s do-ins a transpirin’ !

Last week we began the remodel of the master bathroom.
And by “we” I mean we hired a contractor to come in and demolish what was there and install the new one.

Here’s some shots of the master bath as it was when we bought the house.

Ugly, pale blue wallpaper with pink butterflies and the linoleum floor have to go as does the form fitting plastic tub/shower and the cheezy washbasin vanity. All gotta go!

I was happy to find no horror behind the shower. I fully expected water damage and/or termites but it looks good. There was an even uglier wallpaper under the layer we had removed. Yuk!

We’re installing a new vanity and a large tub and tiling the floor. Floating and repainting the walls as well.
It’s going to be spectacular.

We also had the kitchen cabinets refinished. It was done in the first week and that part of the house is returning to normal. The bathroom should be complete sometime in the next week and a half. It’s a very disruptive process but it will increase the resale value on the house not to mention the bubble baths.