Less than a week!

This past weekend was a flurry of activity on our parts and the contractors'. My Mom and Dad came down to help out. Mom and I packed up a storm, being careful not to pack the pooch.



Dad and Rob built the rest of the fence, so that the pooch doesn't escape once we move in.



Here's a view of the driveway side of the house. There will be one more wooden step on the concrete slab at some point.



Here's a view into the new room and through to the kitchen from outside--you can see the Mexican Tile Green and a bit of the Honey Dew in the kitchen. As I post, Rob is at the house making sure that the cabinets are all installed correctly.



And here is the opposite view, from the living room, through the kitchen to the new room. At this point, the walls are fully painted, no spackling in sight.



We won't have a kitchen sink or dishwasher for a couple weeks because those won't be installed until the countertop comes, which can't be ordered until measurements on the installed cabinets are made, which should happen in the next day or so. But things are coming together better than I expected last week at this time. Keep sending good thoughts!

Maybe that 10 lbs IS water retention...

(refer to Anita's earlier comment).

I stopped by the house this afternoon and they were sanding away at the floors! They'll stain and varnish before they leave today! Yeah!

Of course, you never know what you'll find when you sand hardwood floors. What we found was a bunch of dog/cat pee marks, and I swear they weren't all from Abi and Emmy Lou. There were too many for them to bleach (read: they didn't want to and we didn't really want to slow them down so we bought their story. There were a lot of spots.), so we had to go with a slightly darker stain than we wanted, but it's still lighter than before.

They'll finish painting Friday and put the cabinets in over the weekend as well.

Now that there will be no more 4 am ruminations on my part about how they'd finish the floor while we were in the house, what ever in the world can I worry about now?

It's official!

We're moving back into our house on November 30.

But don't tell our contractor that--he thinks we're moving in on the 28th.

What we'll be moving into is another matter, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there.

The Jeep???

And here is the damage done to my vehicle by the contractor. He has admitted to it. He didn't realize he had hit it????? But he has said he will cover the damages. What will happen next, a lightening strike??? Bring it on Big Guy!!!!!!!! Guess I'm going to Hell with the rest of the republicans! Those F$#@$#$$ers"!!!!!!

And we've got leverage...

Rob's taking too long to post the latest installment of our renovation saga so I just had to do it.

We met with our contractor last night at the house. Things are coming along, painting and trim are happening, but more on that later.

The contractor left and we were upstairs for awhile picking other paint colors. After finishing that, Rob was going to follow me in his car to Sears to get more paint, but he was taking a really long time to get in the car, fixing his side mirror and looking at the side of the car. He finally yelled to me to come look at something.

Long story short, our contractor backed into the side of Rob's jeep as he was leaving.

We couldn't make this stuff up if we tried.

The Wrath of Erica

So here is a peek at the tiles in the laundry room floor:



And a peek at the floor tiles in the downstairs bathroom:


And they painted the trim and siding on the outside of the house:


Note how I'm NOT giving you a peek at anyone working on the house on Sunday when we stopped by after being at my parents' for the weekend.

Keep in mind that they have always worked on Sunday throughout this entire project. Keep in mind that we need to move in by November 30 because we've given notice and there is a new renter moving in Dec. 1. And remember that our house is really not anywhere near a point where we can move in and be vaguely comfortable.

So you can imagine how high my blood pressure got at about 2:30 this afternoon when we pulled up to the house and there was NO ONE THERE.

And so I called our contractor, which I have only done once or twice before because I'm not always as diplomatic or as sweet or as patient as one might want in these situations.

He said the workers had taken the day off.

I refrained from blowing a gasket, but informed him that was inexcusable, that he'd better get his butt in gear because we needed to move in Thanksgiving weekend, and that we continued to be disappointed by the progress on this project. He said that he would start moving in fast forward, to which I said that he should have done that months ago.

I'm hoping that he feels good and guilty now. We shall see.

The Cabinets!

This is what you get when the contractor is behind schedule. An overlap of disciplines! The drywall isn't done and they are already installing the cabinets. If they damage them, they will end up replacing!! Anyway, here they are. At least things are moving forward, even though some of the cabinets have some damage and need to be replaced!

MORE DRYWALL AND BAMBOO FLOORING!!!!!

Can you believe it, they are actually getting more done! Here are some more shots of the drywall progress. The bamboo flooring is also being installed in the kitchen. Douglas fir has been purchased for the window trim and base. They have also been working on some of the outside landscaping issues. They bricked out an entry into the crawl space, and installed a french drain pipe at the garage. We have given notice to our property agent that we will move out of the rental by the end of Novemeber. The pressure is on the contractor, otherwise we will be living in our cars!!