I am Procrastinating. Right. Now.

Alternatively Titled: Remember the Time I Spent $1200 to Have My House Totally Wrecked?

I should be cleaning. I need to vacuum the couch cushions (again) and maybe even throw them into the dryer one at a time. Maybe I should steam them with my new (Merry Christmas, Julie!) steam cleaner (not to be confused with a rug shampooer, which I already owned). I also need to shop vac behind the couches, clean the curtains, wipe down the leather benches (again and again and again) and clean the walls, etc...and that's just in the living room!

My to-clean list is lengthy. To say the least.

And this isn't just a winter-time cabin-fever-induced spring-cleaning. No. We actually have a mess that I have to deal with. If I mentioned to you in the past few days that my house is a wreck, I'm not lying.

It all started around Thanksgiving with my Father-In-Law. He told my Dear Husband about Columbia Gas' Home Energy Audit and Rebate Program. Kevin has been interested in having some additional insulation put into our home for a while now, so he decided to take action.

We had a nice guy (also named Kevin) come out to the house and perform a Home Energy Audit. It was highly educational and entertaining. The guy was nice enough to show Connor all his tools and teach him all about what he was doing. It was an afternoon well spent, and at the end of it, we had a nice little report about the energy efficiency of our house, as well as a checklist of improvements that Columbia Gas would help cover the cost of, if we had the work completed this year by one of their listed contractors. Additionally, the improvements would qualify for the IRS energy tax credit (or whatever it is called).

So, we scheduled a contractor to come to the house to do the work. But it is the holiday season, and the end of the year, and the contractor canceled, and informed us that they were too busy to do the work in 2010. So, we went through the list until we found someone who could do the work this year. And then they canceled. And rescheduled. And finally, they showed up to do the work on Tuesday of this week. Kevin was excited! He was finally going to get the additional attic insulation and interior wall insulation that he has been dreaming of!

In case you were unaware, in order to add interior wall insulation in a finished home, the contractor must cut holes into your finished walls. I was aware of this fact, but Kevin assured me that it was no big deal. I was imagining a few holes. What actually happened is that a line of small (2 inch diameter) holes were drilled in all of my upstairs walls. There is one hole between every set of studs. Now my walls look like this (the holes have already been patched with their first coat of wall putty):

But it's okay, because we wanted to paint anyways.

What is not okay is that the contractors did not clean up after themselves very well. There is drywall dust all over from the drilling. And blow-in insulation all over. They tried to vacuum up, but they were using the smallest shop vac I have ever seen. So, the guy walked around and sucked up all the larger pieces of insulation, leaving me to do the rest of the cleaning.

They had brought their hose to blow the insulation into the attic through the window in Connor's bedroom. His room is covered in a dusting of insulation material. I can only be thankful that it isn't fiberglass stuff, because it was all over his bed, floor, walls, closet, etc.

On top of the mess that was made in the course of drilling the walls, patching the walls, and insulating the house, there was a disaster of apocalyptic proportions. After the house was all weather-sealed and insulated, the contractor was to run another blower door test to check and see if the efficiency of the house had been improved since the Home Energy Audit.

Our Home Energy Audit guy had run a blower door test when he was here with no problems. So I didn't imagine that anything bad could come of this blower door test. But I was mistaken. Dead wrong.

You need to know that we have a wood burning fireplace in our living room. And that we use it. In fact, Kevin and I had a fire the night before this second blower door test was to take place. We left the fireplace flue open when we went to bed (so that the carbon monoxide could escape) and I had not yet shut it the next morning, since the insulation guys showed up bright and early. The blower door test guy should have checked this before he started, but of course, he didn't.

He set up the fan and turned it on, and then it happened. The glass doors on the fireplace swung open, and a black cloud started flying into the living room from the fireplace. It was like a scene out of a scary movie. The black cloud just kept growing and growing, and so I started yelling, "No, no, no! Shut it off!" At the same time, the blower door set-up was wrenched from the front door frame and came crashing down on the contractor's head. I don't feel sorry for him one bit.

After it was turned off, the head guy came in and said, "How did you know the fan was going to fall?" I told him that wasn't what I was yelling about. That's when he noticed the smoke filled house, and the black soot all over the first floor, and he asked, "Was that like that before?"

Seriously. Like he hadn't noticed it before during the three hours he was in the house.

Here are some of the other stupid things the guy said:

"Oh, you have a fire place. Does it work? Does it burn wood? Do you use it? I guess we cleaned it out for you."

And then the contractors got really excited. How cool! They've never sealed a house up so tightly before. If there were air leaks, then there wouldn't have been a vacuum force in the house that would have sucked all the soot and ash from the fireplace into my living room and kitchen and dining room.

I remained totally unexcited, so they decided to help me clean up. They went and got their tiny little shop vac and sucked up the bigger pieces of black ash up off the middle of the living room floor, and tossed all of the boys' soot-covered toys back into the soot-covered toy box. That was the extent of their effort, and for that, they were proud.

I spent the next 3 and a half hours while Lex was napping cleaning up. I aired out the house, vacuumed, dusted and beat the crap out off the couch cushions to get the dust out. The punching of the sofa went a long way to let out my frustration, so that by the time Lex woke up I was able to get the boys ready and go to Grandpa's Birthday Party that night. In fact, after that cleaning session, the living room appeared pretty clean.

But if you run your finger along the walls, they come off black. And the couch still feels a little bit grimy. As does the floor. Good thing I got that steamer for Christmas! (It also steams wrinkles out of clothing, cleans jewelry, bathrooms, ovens, grills, cars, curtains, tile grout, and the list goes on and on!)