So to clearly understand the door project, one needs a little background information. When I moved in with Fran, I had my own cats which would not have blended well with her herd. So to remedy the situation we decided to give the tenants in the apartment next door 60 days notice, my cats would move in there and we would alternate every other night between the two apartments.. Those kitties are long gone, but we continued to alternate because we had changed the bathtub in Apt 1, so my only place to take a bath and relax was Apt. 2.
Then in the summer of 2006 we invited our friend who was diagnosed with terminal cancer to live there until the time came that he needed hospice style care. He only stayed a few months and had to go home to his father and step girlfriend in Tulare and passed a few months later. We didn't really go back to the alternating sleeping after that and mainly used it as a place for guests to stay.
Well about a year and a half ago my FIL passed away leaving behind his sweet cat Olga. We brought her over to our place and it was clear this was NOT going to work. Our cats continued to terrorize her, to them it was curiosity, to her it was war. About two weeks later we went on our last trip to WDW. Our cat sitters tried to get her in the house. It poured rain the whole time we were gone but she would rather be out in the rain than live with the other cats. Well somehow she found Apt 2 and one day I found her in there asleep on the bed happy as a clam.
We had tried to find her a one cat home, but all our friends already had cats so we realized this was the perfect solution and about a year ago went back to our alternating nights between Apartments 1 & 2. Well since we have our loan and it is a pretty long walk from the front door of Apt 1 to Apt 2 and Fran has trouble with the step from the back doors, she decided if I could have a necklace, she could have a door. So the door project was begun. We contacted the contractor who remodeled the apartment upstairs that had laid vacant for over a year due to the fact that we couldnt find reliable workers to get it ready for rental.
He was happy to give us a quote on breaking through a wall in one of our bedrooms into the living room of the other apartment to add a door making our home a five bedroom house with two kitchens a living room, dining room, family room and three bathrooms and four entrances. Actually we will lose a bedroom and it will become a total walk in closet.
Sounds easy right? Well no, Fran has been a compulsive buyer since I met her and eBay has not helped at all. Combined with her disability and lack of ability to go out anywhere she has embraced online shopping like no one else. There was a time when the UPS guys were bringing 6-10 boxes every day!
There was the Civil War phase where she bought enough instruments, uniforms, hats, mess gear everything you would need to outfit a CW band of any size and she was planning big, also wanted to make sure she could fit any size of person, so we had tons of uniforms.
Then once the CW band went into extinction she decided we would get into Cowboy Action Shooting, so she bought everything that we would need (or at least her) for any size and a Scottish Impression, a Western Impression, an Indian Impression and everything inbetween. Then there was the swing band, buying dinner jackets and boater hats. All the while as she was buying stuff she said, Put this somewhere. So here is somewhere.
So when she decided that we needed a door (which I mentioned years ago, but her father would never have let us do it more or less let us use the money) I almost fainted.
So a couple weeks ago we started boxing up all this stuff and putting it in her fathers empty motorhome garage. We must have boxed up 30-40 jackets, I cant even imagine how much western wear for the CAS (Cowboy Action Shooting) and other stuff that we found, it was just insane.
Here is the room yesterday. Can you see the resemblance?
This is the other side of the wall
Yesterday we emptied that cabinet and today we got rid of everything else including the plants and other stuff. The construction guys will move the cabinet to the other wall. This is what they used to look like.
And these are the emptied bookcases that will be moved so that the china cabinet can fit there. We had to move all the paper that was in front of the china cabinet before we could empty it and we did that yesterday! Whew!
So, the contractor is coming on Wednesday and hopefully WE are done and all that needs to be done is that his people will move stuff and start construction, but well see. I hope that I can post the new pictures of the door soon and then when we end up in Apt 2 without underwear, we dont have to walk outside to go replenish, but can just walk through a door in the house.
), but I have been in a lot of pain in the last couple of weeks. I have been to the doctor several times, and then I went for an MRI. I have a herniated disk in my cervical spine (neck). It's pressing on a nerve root which is why I am in so much pain. It affects my right shoulder, arm and hand (and I am a righty 
). I haven't been to work all week, but the doctor said I can try to go back tomorrow and see how I am, for now.
