dust is settling, blood is boiling

Many of you have already heard the story about what we came home to after the three-week vacation, but for those who haven't I finally have the time and mental energy to blog about it.

After nearly 36 hours of transit time getting back home from our epic journey to the other side of the world, I had been quite excited to come home and see my "brand new" house. I'd arranged with my brother-in-law to do some work on the house while we were gone. Win win for both of us. He'd earn some extra cash so he could buy a camera he really wanted, and I'd get a big chunk of remodeling done that I'd been putting off for almost three years.

I wanted to make sure it was manageable and so we scoped out the project before we left -- scrape popcorn ceilings in the entrance, up the stairs and hallway and the master bedroom; replace the baseboards and trim in those same areas, and then paint the walls. This would be monumental, as I would no longer have a baby blue master bedroom with popcorn ceiling.

Just to give you an idea, I saved one of the photos from when I bought the house. The furniture is from the previous owners. Anyhow, this was a pretty significant project, as I'd been procrastinating the remodel for a long while and I knew that this was the opportunity I needed. Jeff works as a contractor, so he knows what he's doing. And I get to keep my sanity.

So when I got off the airplane as we returned from our vacation, I turned on my phone and listened to a voicemail from Jeff. "Uh, what time are you guys getting home? I'm going to need to get your help to move furniture back into the master bedroom."

I'd had a nightmare on the trip about coming home to a state of chaos. I guess I realistically expected that I'd come home and the remodel would be done, but that our things would probably not be in their rightful spots. That I could live with.

What we walked into, I could not live with.

The first thing I saw was the layers of dust covering the whole house. The floor, in the livingroom, on our brand new big screen tv, in our office, all over our computers, the spare room was piled up with the contents of our linen closet -- all covered in dust. My dresses, covered in dust. The master bedroom was completely empty. Our bed was in the middle of the livingroom, stripped of the sheets and protective cover, with things tossed on it and covered in dog hair. Our dresser was in the kitchen. The kitchen table was covered in dust. Inside the kitchen cabinets, the plates had dust on them. The hallway closet with all of our coats. Yep, you guess it. Thick layers of dust.

Rick about went ballistic. I, on the other hand, went into survival mode. Since I was going to work the next day, I needed a bed to sleep in, a bathroom to shower in, clean clothes and a clean kitchen to eat food. Everything else would have to wait.

We dropped our packs in the livingroom and ventured upstairs to the master bedroom. First we had to put this room back together so we could sleep that night. We vacuumed the bed to get the dog hair off of it, and I scrounged around to try and find bed linens that weren't covered in dust. Rick and Jeff carried the dresser, the armoire and tv back into the bedroom.

My cell phone started ringing and I saw that Rick was calling me. He was standing in the backyard with Zoe. I went down there and he just vented. He left to walk Zoe for a couple of hours and blow off steam. I got down to business, wiping every surface I possibly could in the kitchen and livingroom. I knew it would be fruitless as the dust would probably resettle over night. Even our ionic air purifiers were caked in dust.

Six hours later, I'd done the best that I could do. Rick was back and helping out as well. My allergies in high gear with all of the crap in the air.

At 3:30 am I woke up to birds outside and the beginning of the sunrise. Our portal air conditioner was trapped in the spare room, so we left the bedroom windows open. The curtain rod had been removed and we hadn't put up anything to keep out the light. I went ahead and got up for work. Although I'd spend the day filtering through three weeks of email, that was more appealing than hanging out at the house. Rick had the day off, so he spent it window shopping for motorcycles.

The rest of the week was so exhausting, as so I had minimal energy to throw at the house. Jeff came over for a few minutes one night to fix our bedroom door, but other than that, he didn't show up all week. And on Friday, he and my sister were leaving for a whole week on a road trip to Wyoming. I was quickly realizing that this would continue to be my reality for awhile.

That first weekend home, I spent doing laundry -- all of the towels and bedsheets had to be washed. I bagged them up in garbage bags to keep them from getting dusty since I still don't have a linen closet to use. I assessed the damage in the coat closet. Washed what I could and then piled up the rest for dry cleaning, along with some other clothes that needed to be dry cleaned as well and dropped those off.

The spare room by now had some organization to it, but was no where near clean. I opted to not dry clean the comforter in there yet, since there's still more dust settling.

As I thought about the situation, and have been stewing on it for the last two weeks, I can only come to one conclusion. He must have used a power sander, and not covered a damn thing up. No sheet over the tv, no plastic to cover the loft opening, no sheet over our computer equipment. Nada, zilch, no thought or regard for our personal belongings.

Now I know he's family, and he was giving me a good rate, but he never once took into consideration the cost of time and money that he left us with when they took of for their road trip.

The one room I'd been avoiding was the office. I could see the dust on the stacked books. Each one would have to be removed individually. The popcorn ceiling remnants were all over our computers. Those would have to be taken apart, dusted and cleaned, and then all reconfigured again.

Rick and I spent a few hours in there yesterday tearing it all apart, just to put it back together. All the while, my disgust and fury were escalating. You know, if this had all been taken care of within days of us getting home, it probably would have been a distant memory for me. Now that I have been forced to deal with it for the last two weeks, compounded by having been gone from home for three weeks, I am livid.

My whole family is coming into town in a few weeks, and come hell or high water, Jeff is going to finish the project -- sans power sander and with over-the-top room prep to ensure that everything that I have worked so hard to clean, stays clean.

They should be home from their trip now. I wonder how long it will take for him to call me and set up the plan to finish everything. Nevermind, I'm not going to wait for him to call me, I'm taking the reigns on this one.