Happy Birthday, your foundation sucks.

Our pantry project has begun. I got the bright idea to convert our little coat closet into a full pantry. It's not insulated so it has to be gutted. We're also putting a sliding glass door to the deck where the window is; this will eliminate the need for a egress in the pantry so it can be closed off and used fully.

Here is the project underway:


Up until here all was honky-dorry. I came home Thursday night expecting the slider to be in place and everything to be fabulous.

Instead ... I spent yesterday "celebrating" what might have been the worst birthday on record since early pubesence when I vaguely recall at least one birthday spent full of self-pity, hating life in my bedroom. Yesterday was a small step up from that -- as I was wallowing in self-pity in my kitchen. Our fabulous pantry project had barely begun when it was abruptly halted (only after a gaping hole was cut into our kitchen for the intended sliding glass door and the pantry room was completely gutted, all doors removed) due to the fact that our foundation has apparently bowed out 3 inches. Our contractor refuses to continue work until a structural engineer can review it. This will happen Monday and we will learn whether the whole back of the house must be torn down, a new foundation poured, and the house rebuilt, or whether our children will live to go to college with our savings instead. Meanwhile, I spent all yesterday evening on hands and knees cleaning every possible crevice of my entire downstairs of an 1/8 inch covering of horsehair plaster dust.

By the way, Phil should have the right to comment here (although technically he could log in and do it himself). But his official comment to this posting is "whatever, you're like the leadership team that over-reacts to insufficient data" -- referring to folks at his work and illustrating that he truly is a cautious realist and can not be prodded into emotional reactions no matter the circumstances.