Trucks, Trucks, Trucks!

Josh and I took a field trip to the Ferguson showroom in Alexandria this morning to look at a line of cabinets that Cindy priced for us. For some reason, most showrooms are only open Mon-Fri from 9-5, although a few may have limited hours on Saturdays. This makes it challenging to actually find time to go and look at stuff in person if you have a job -- which you need in order to afford to buy any of the things they sell. Anyway, we hoped to get there right at 9am when they opened, but the morning rush hour traffic conspired against us. We both realized how lucky we are that we don't have to deal with that every day, since Josh bikes to work and I telecommute from home.

Once we got there, we made a beeline for the cabinet section, took a look at the sample kitchen, and went through the door styles and stain colors in the display. The cabinets seemed OK, but the display kitchen has either suffered some abuse or was not installed well, so we didn't get the best impression. Still, it was helpful to see the cabinets in person.

The traffic was even worse on the way back, so Josh scrapped his original plan of driving straight to his office and just went to the Clarendon metro station instead. Since I was in the neighborhood, I decided to make a quick stop at the house before heading back to the apartment to see if anything was happening. Boy, was it ever! The first thing I saw was this huge truck and dumpster parked at the end of our street.
There was another huge truck in our driveway. It had a giant crane on top that was lifting stacks of drywall off the back. I saw Rob run over from across the street to help untangle some dangling plastic wrap.
I joined Rob and Jim on the curb across the street to watch the drama unfold. The guy on the crane would grab a stack of drywall off the back of the truck...
... maneuver it over towards the house......and then feed it through the balcony doors to the crew inside.
Meanwhile, at the other end of the block, there were more huge trucks taking down a tree in front of Jeremy & Alison's house. Despite the additional chaos, Rob said it was a happy coincidence that the county had the street blocked off this morning since we had so much activity involving big trucks at our end of the street as well.
When the tree was no more, all the county trucks drove past us like a parade. They even waved as they went by!
It's always sad to say goodbye to a big tree. This one was in pretty bad shape -- a large branch fell into their front yard last summer, and a couple others looked like they might follow. Hopefully the county will plant a new tree there soon. By the way, if this house looks vaguely familiar, it's because it is the fraternal twin of my house. A few of the architectural details are slightly different, but the floor plan is nearly identical.
Anyway, back at my house, the drywall truck left, and the dumpster truck maneuvered the dumpster into the driveway. This took some doing, as our street is very narrow. Remember that scene in Austin Powers where he gets the little electric cart stuck in the hallway? It was kind of like that, but with a huge Mack truck. Oh, and while all this was going on, both the roofers and the stucco crew were working on the house. That must be why Rob parked himself on the curb across the street -- so he could keep an eye on everything. He seemed his usual cheerful self, but he mentioned later that he was stressed out. I imagine there was a high potential for disaster with so many things happening simultaneously.

As I was heading back towards the house, Marta and her husband arrived. Sadly, they missed most of the excitement, but they were still happy to see so much activity.
One of the reasons there was so much going on this morning is we had a brief respite from the rain. The sun even came out for a while. But there is plenty more rain in the forecast, so I think everyone was trying to get as much done as they could while they had a chance. Once the crane was gone, the stucco guys quickly re-erected the scaffolding on the front of the house and got back to work. I needed to do the same, so I headed home.
I had to park around the corner, since the street was blocked off, so I discovered another view of the house on my way back to the car.
I got a call from Rob later in the afternoon asking about my preference for door hinge color (seriously!), and he said the roof should be done today. They'll still need to install the gutters and downspouts, but all the tile should be on. I'll have to swing by tomorrow and take a look.