Busy Two Weeks: Episode Two

byLabman

79.2K followers

Updated 6 years ago

A Quick Recap

Wednesday: Drive to HHI Slab Oak

Thursday: Slab Oak, Repair Jig, Repair Car Lights, Pick up Trailer, Finish Oak Slabbing

Friday: Load and Unload Trailer, Drive back to Knoxville.

I did forget to mention, the last board, while being unloaded from the trailer, was dropped on my foot resulting in a serious scuff mark on top of my foot. Ouch. I spent the entire next week trying to keep it covered so that it could heal. Arggggh.

This brings me to Saturday. So far, a busy week.

Now....time to drive back.

So this time, I left my truck and Julie and I headed back to Hilton Head Island. With another driver, I was able to nap for part of the trip but still, more driving. The task for this trip was to remove everything from the house. We had arranged a 16 foot Penske truck in Savannah that we picked up at the end of our trip. The HOA would only allow this truck inside the gate from 9 AM to 6 PM.

We had found a couple of guys that were willing to help us prep the furniture we were taking back. They spent 2 full days wrapping furniture in bubble wrap and saran wrap. There were a few pieces that needed special care and a few pieces that were too heavy for one person to load alone. They were very helpful in this regard.

I organized and coordinated their efforts as well as helping to pack and loading the truck in layers so that it was secured and unable to move during transit.

In the middle of all of this, the plumbing (sewer) backed up at one end of the house. No toilet, no shower, and some disgusting things appearing in the shower drain. Plumbers were called and snaked the lines. The plumber's snake hit dirt. UGH.

Once we identified what was going on the truck we still had a problem, there were two bedroom suites and some assorted furniture that wasn't going. We talked with several consignment shops and all of the donation places, no one wanted it all. We were at an impass on what to do with all of the leftovers.

To top it all off, my computer screen was damaged somewhere in the trip. The computer was down, I was offline until I could get it repaired.

We called in the next level of plumbers. These guys were supposed to know the sewer system on the island intimately. They had after all installed most of the sewers on the island. They started looking for cleanouts and access to the lines from the street. Eventually they found a place where the sewer lines were broken. Apparently the industrial sized lawn equipment that the HOA was using to mow the back 40 had damaged the sewer pipe in 2 places.

While chatting with some of the 5 guys that arrived to fix the plumbing, the grandson of the owner indicated that he would be willing to take the extraneous furniture off our hands. He returned with 4 guys and 2 large trailers, loaded it all on them and off they went.

The perk! He was so happy with the furniture that they gave us the plumbing repair at no charge. We made out like bandits and they solved a huge problem for us.

By Wednesday evening, we had the truck loaded to the brim, everything was out of the house and we had one day to ourselves before the closing on Friday.

Thursday was beach day. We all got nicely tanned. Nope, no sunburn for the lot of us. SPF 50 is a wonderful thing.

Our final sunset was a glorious celebration of color over the mainland.

The new owners walked through on Thursday and were pleased. The closing on Friday was a sad day but went without a hitch.

Then the drive back with a massive truck fully loaded and secured.

1800 miles in 10 days.

All that was left was to unload the truck and shoehorn the contents into a storage container.

But wait, It doesn't end there....Tomorrow the conclusion.