Live-blogging the fireplace repair

It's Leap Day!  But let's rewind a bit.

Friday 10:25AM

I'm typing this as the fireplace repair dude is here and I'm staring at about 3" of ass crack.  He just pried our grill off, not happy about that...it just takes a little patience sir, not a crowbar.   I also feel like I just smoked a cigarette simply by him entering the house.  He just muttered "the logs are in here wrong."  Well, they've been that way for 20 years dude, they've been just fine.  It always amazes me how much service men moan and groan as they're repairing something.  Kind of like..."ugh...this is soooo taxing" like they're doing you a favor.  No, I needed a repair, you chose the profession and I'm paying you so shut it.  When I was in a normal job, I didn't sit there sighing and saying "oh my Goooood, another paper to file....UGGGGGH, this stupid form I have to fill out!"

Dear Lord, can't he feel that draft?  That is a LOT of crack to not feel something.  ROFL...now he's making some unGodly noise back there whilst the Mr is on a conference call.  The look on his face was pretty funny.  Lots of spraying going on (I'm assuming canned air?) and I have a feeling we could've taken care of this for $8 and a YouTube video instead of $106.  Oh well, it has never been serviced (I know, I know) so it probably wasn't a bad thing.  Wow, that took all of 10 minutes.  Ooh, he's cleaning the inside glass!  Thank you sir!  Please don't charge me for that.  I could've done it myself but if it's included in the $106 service call charge, I'll be happy.  You guys ever seen that movie The Devils Rejects?  He looked exactly like Sid Haig sans makeup and blood.

Though the way he was manhandling our grills and cursing at them as he was putting them back on, he probably did cut himself so there probably was blood.  They are a pain but not the kind of pain he made them out to be.  Oops, nope, he's still struggling with them and grunting and groaning.  Ouch, I think he took off a finger.  You do do this for a living correct, sir?  I mean, this isn't your first direct vent fireplace?  You shouldn't have this big of a problem with it.  I have a feeling we should check the top grate because I seriously think he's just going to leave it half hanging.  I feel my blood pressure spiking.  I want to smack him away from it and say "for the love of God man, just let me do it!"  Oh gee, thanks for using our white rug instead of your paper towels to wipe up the damn remnants of what you just spread all over the floor...without adding any kind of covering over the floor I might add.  Blood pressure spike. His phone just went off...should I be concerned it was a murderous scream?  No, I'm serious...twas a murderous scream.

Okay, so once he started speaking, he was actually not as scary and it was no more money than the service call quoted.  He complimented our gun metal casing and said it looks really good for a 20 year old fireplace.  That is good to know.  He said the logs were installed wrong, and one was basically laying on the burner, which he also cleaned.  This does not surprise us because using the word craftsmanship to describe the construction of our little home would be an insult to actual craftsman.  (IE:  When remodeling the kitchen, we found the nook that was previously unused space but is now the lazy susan, is where the construction workers decided to throw away their trash.  Yep...water bottles, Subway cups, scrap wood.  Hell, I'm surprised we didn't find a petrified turd back there.  When we had a water leak in the ceiling from the bathroom, the plumber discovered a paper towel under the pipe, indicating the people KNEW there was a leak, chose not to fix it and put up the ceiling in our living room anyway.  So for him to say the fireplace logs weren't installed properly was in no way a shock.  Honestly, I'm surprised the house hasn't imploded, end of Poltergeist style, from the lack of quality put into this place.  But when you're 21 and 23 and you close 2 weeks before your wedding, you take what you can get to own the 'Merican dream.

Anyhoo...

So when he flipped it back on after getting everything jammed back into place, it looked purty.

That glass probably wasn't even that clean when we moved in here and we're the original owners!  So I asked him what he used for the glass.  He said this gas fireplace glass paste (affiliate link) and you can bet your sweet bippy I'm buying some to keep on hand.  Even if I never use it as a maintenance thing, I'll sure as heck use it before we go to sell someday because people will marvel over it.  If you're moving into a new home, this stuff will get off all of the previous owners grime so you can make your own new grime!

The weekend was pretty good.  As we drove around, we were listening to The 1975's new album.  (affiliate link) It is ridiculously good and I am obsessed.  A few songs even stuck in the Mr's head...YAY!  Saturday night we dove into the office.  After two hours, it looked like we didn't touch much.  This is what I was trying to convey to him as far as how you can be in there an hour and all you did was shred and go through piles.  But we made a good dent and I hope to be as close to done with it as I can be by week's end.  Sunday was pretty lazy.  We had brunch and hung out for a bit then ran a few errands.  I did jinx myself though Friday because I told you guys I look forward to the weekend because I get more sleep and I got horrible sleep.  Grrr!

We had a 1000 calorie workout to start the last week of our Fitness Blender program.  HIIT and total body strength.  We opted out of abs because by that time I was at 1100 calories burned and the Mr was at 940 calories and we already worked our abs with so many of the other moves.  We had soup and salad for dinner and settled in to watch the Oscars on and off.

What did you guys do this weekend?

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