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Tomorrow I have the guy coming to finally remove the paint. I’m really happy to get this step out of the way. Today was pretty crazy. I had to dig a trench around the entire house to expose all the paint that is below grade. It was not easy. It was raining and I encountered all sorts of huge rocks, bricks, and broken glass buried in the ground!
Plus I am a weak little man and I have the bad back = @1:14:) This guy too.  We all need this.  Ok let me stop…

I must admit at this point I feel far more like Bob Villa than Steve Albini.

If you’re wondering what’s up with the big black tape everywhere, that’s what is presently stopping the rain from coming in.  It’s Gorilla tape and has stayed on the house for almost 2 years!!  I definitely recommend it if you need something that will last!

I had a recording session on Tuesday with PT Burnem’.  It went well despite a few problems.  We are working on his first official full-length release entitled Paper Cranes.  I’m very excited to be working on this project with him.

Today I had 2 guys come to the house to look at the paint removal situation and give me an estimate.  Dealing with people in the construction business is very difficult.  The first thing to know is that they are all crooks and they just want your money.  You can’t trust anybody.  I realize this is probably the deal with all business but it’s still worth mentioning.  Nobody follows laws, rules, or codes because nobody enforces them.  We have the  MHIC (Maryland Home Improvement Commission) that is supposed to enforce code and go after people that do things wrong but they are  full of shit.  I had a conversation with them once about a problem I was having and the guy basically said to me, “I’m not going after somebody for YOUR problem.”  So If you’re in the state of Maryland do your research cause you are on your own!

I talk for a while to the first guy that came.  He was filled with ideas and other things that he thought I should try other than removing the paint.  This made him seem  genuine and thoughtful which is rare, but I still don’t trust anybody.  He mentioned calling his friend who does something called concrete injection, which I need to research but I’m pretty sure it’s not needed.  When you mention a flooding basement people have a tendency to think of certain problems and solutions.  He told me about gutters and grading and all the things that I already know about.  My problem is unique to this style of house and I’ve researched it thoroughly so I pretty much know what needs to be done.  Still, discussion with people can never hurt, you never know what you can learn.

I was hesitant about having the second guy come because when I talked to him on the phone he said that he would charge me $250 just for an estimate.  He explained to me that in order for him to give me an accurate estimate he needed to set up his equipment and actually test an area to see how long it would take.  I really don’t like this idea and I still kinda feel like it’s a rip off but it’s not an absurd idea, it does make sense.  Better that he does this and gives me an accurate price than to go in blind and half way through the project tell me that he miscalculated and it’s going to take twice as long and be twice the price.  I’ve never payed for an estimate before, though a chimney repair company tried to make me pay once and I started yelling at them and they backed down and said they made an error.  In the end I did agree to the $250 though… this has been such a looming problem that I’m willing to pay the money to get the end result that I need.  This is not something I can skimp on.

First he tried baking soda which worked well but was slow.  He then tried glass and that worked a lot faster.  It was amazing because the pressure of the spray broke away some of the loose concrete and blasted it to the ground.  This reaffirmed that this really is a problem and that it needs addressing.  Once I saw that there is basically going to be a crack all the way around the entire house that needs to be filled I knew that this was exactly what I expected it to be – a big deal and why I’ve been dreading doing it for such a long time.  I just need to keep my eyes on the prize and picture everything done and having an awesome studio for people to work in.

Now I need to line up a concrete person to immediately follow the paint removal.  Once the paint is removed even more cracks will be exposed and the last thing I need is for it to rain while I’m looking for a contractor.  So the plan is to have somebody all ready to go, they can start the second the other is finished.

Heres a picture of the test spot.  You can see the pieces of concrete that the spray blew away:

Do you see the crack in the beige mortar below?  That is where the water gets sucked in.  It is like this at various points all around the perimeter of the house.

In other news, I did a session with Height last night and it went really well.  We recorded vocals for 3 songs and made a really minimal beat out of scratches and cuts for a cover of a Schooly D track.  I’m really amazed with the Hamptone.  It reacts very differently to different voices.  When I recorded Jones it had a very clean tone but when I recorded Height it had a very saturated agressive sound.  The difference in their voices is night and day so it makes sense that it would react differently.  I’m looking forward to using the pre more and getting familiar with it’s vast tonal palette.