Another slew of pictures of the new bathroom. This is perhaps 85% complete, with the last mile being maddeningly elusive. The sink was too wide to allow the drawers to fit into the vanity, so those will have to become false fronts - no word on the timing for this. The countertop guys came to try to fill in the scratches left by the box cutter, but it still looks like crap. Our options there are as follows:
1) Tear out and have them replace the CT and the backsplash
2) Have them buff the whole thing down, which means a lot more aggregate would show through and it would look more ‘rough’
3) Live with it, and get the contractor to compensate us financially for it somehow
We haven’t really decided yet, but I don’t know if I could stomach going through the heavy-duty construction phase again.

In other news, we are still waiting for the replacement pantry cabinet doors to come in - the first batch were all damaged in shipping. We haven’t seen or heard anything from the crew in about 10 days, and I’m guessing we won’t hear from them until those doors come in.

The crazy part is that there is still a rather large sum of money hanging over their head, payable on ‘completion’ of the projects - neither of which are technically done. I can’t imagine the cash flow problems that would create to have those receivables out there indefinitely. One story I heard from a family member was that their contractor decided the work to get that last payment wasn’t quite worth it so they just quit and forefitted the balance. I’m not sure how I’d feel about that at this point, but it remains to be seen if that is how things will play out.

I got home yesterday and Justin had been here all day putting up the backsplash tile - small rectangular glass tiles. Apparently they were difficult to work with as there was blood splattered all over the floor and bloody paper towels filling the sink. Jill even said he got some glass in his eyes.

I guess that explains how he mistook our concrete countertop for an old plywood workbench. The tiles came in 1′ wide sheets with mesh backing holding the tiles together, and as best as I can tell the correct option was to cut the mesh with a box cutter directly on the countertop. It is concrete after all, right?

So now there is a nice checkerboard pattern scored into the top of our $1200 workbench / vanity top. I’m sure this is a very sought after look right now, but I just don’t have the right perspective. Educate me, Paige!

Last week all the tile and grouting was done after the drywall was finished. First the floor tile went in, it is very rough and just what we were hoping for.

Next Justin and Cameron put in the vanity, which looks great. It was a different line of cabinets (Diamond), and everyone said they were much easier to work with than the Kitchen Craft cabinets in the kitchen. Still no word on when the pantry cabinets and trim will be here to finish the work in the kitchen, the last date we heard was 12/19.

The countertop guys came last week and did their thing, and that looks great as well. The other bit of progress was the installation of the Robern medicine cabinet.

The most exciting part was on Thursday of last week, when Rick, Justin and Cameron showed up to get the plumbing hooked up for the shower, stool, and sink. Things quickly went awry when Rick pointed out that the wall where the faucets were to be wall mounted was an exterior wall. This, he felt, proposed a significant risk for frozen pipes. The concrete countertop was designed with the wall-mounted faucet in mind, so there weren’t any faucet holes. The thought was that we would have to pull out the vanity and countertop, drill faucet holes in the countertop, and get a different faucet set that would work to be counter-mounted. This was a big kluge, since there is a very narrow spot behind the sink bowl.

So I had a panic attack, called the countertop guys, and Rick left, saying call me when you need me.

About 1/2 hour later, Justin and Cameron began thinking about the wall in the bathroom, which had a an 1 1/2″ header board between the exterior wall and the drywall. They called David and between the three of them decided that would be enough insulation to reduce the risk of freezing. Rick still wasn’t (isn’t) crazy about the idea, but agreed to do it, saying only “I can’t guarantee anything.”

So now it is Monday morning, and Rick is back cutting the hole in the drywall above the countertop to plumb in the faucet housing, and Justin is on his way back from Home Depot with our toilet. With any luck, we’ll have running water by tonight.

Last week Jimmy and company finished the drywall, and came back on monday to spray the ceiling. He was only here 10 minutes, apparently he left some needed equipment at another job site.

He sprayed on Tuesday, and I primed the walls and ceiling yesterday. We’ve been calling David for the last few days to try to get a status from them, but no joy as of yet.

And as I type, a carload arrives. Subfloor and tile will go live today…updates and pictures later.

Monday saw Rick and Apprentice arriving. These guys are really busy, they worked for a few hours in the morning and then left for a few hours, only to return in the afternoon to complete their task. I guess when plumbing goes wrong it really goes wrong…not a lot of grey areas to speak of. In any case they plumbed (?) the whole bathroom, and got rid of all the old pipes. The showerhead is going to be so freaking high I can’t wait.

Tuesday Cameron and Justin were here to move the register up to a higher height as well. Previously while showering it blew right in your face (well, in my face) which was not entirely pleasant. Mission accomplished. Jimmy also arrived to drop of ‘The Rock’ (no, not that Rock). He for whatever reason didn’t install it, but said that Tommy (no, not that Tommy) would be by later that afternoon to hang it. Be by he was (did?) and spent several hours hanging, muttering to himself the entire time. It looked good and quite straight along the joints.

Jimmy came back with Apprentice on Wednesday to tape and mud the drywall, and the space is so small it only took them a few hours to finish. Again, it looks good, and he said he would be back on Friday to do the sanding.

Jill and I spent several hours cleaning up dust last night as we have guests coming this weekend, but the sanding is surely going to undo the dusting, hence my taking to thinking of myself as Sisyphus.

It would be great to see the subfloor go in today, but haven’t heard any promises. When Jill said she would like them to be done by Friday in half-jest to accomodate our guests, their only reply was that this was the only job they had going right now. The do however seem to spend a good deal of time working on David’s own house, apparently a fix/flip he purchased recently.

These are of the small patch of linoleum in the entryway - that will get gone too, hopefully soon.

And then the fun began. There was amazing quantities of concrete everywhere in the bathroom - affixing the tile to the floors and to the walls, and in addition there was this wire mesh everywhere, apparently to support all that concrete. Our bathroom probably lost about 1200 pounds last week. Here are a few shots of the undoing process, and the resulting mess.

As you may have noticed, we had them go ahead and remove the tub too. We had considered keeping it because it had some interesting ‘antique’ detailing around the edge, but we decided that after the abuse it had taken (not to mention being in the same room with the demo) it would be better to start completely from scratch. As I watched Cameron standing inside the tub fanatically bludgeoning it with a sledgehammer I resolved to try my best not to make him mad.

Apparently, as shown below, there was some pretty major leaks in the bathroom at some point, as a good portion of the subfloor was rotted away. I kept waiting for Justin or Cameron to wind up in the crawlspace, especially when they were trying to haul out the cast iron tub. Speaking of leaks there was a bit of a panic when one of the pipes under the house ruptured from all the jostling, and there was water spraying out into the crawlspace for several minutes. The bat signal was raised, and Rick arrived shortly thereafter to cap those lines.

It was a little cold in that part of the house in the middle of the week, especially considering that there was no ceiling and there were gaping holes in the floor down into the crawlspace. I sure hope all the spiders appreciated us rolling out the welcome mat for them.

By the end of the week we were partially buried in snow, and I have a feeling that had something to do with the work slowing down. We were hoping the plumbing would get done last week, but by Friday all that had been completed was the demo (a smashing success), rebuilding the subfloor, roughing in the electrical, and insulating the ceiling and exterior walls.

Everything went pretty smoothly except that there didn’t really seem to be a plan for Kyle (the electrician) - he showed up essentially asking where I wanted evertyhing. My first shot at electrical design, I hope I did OK.

Bonus Photos
A few pictures of our fortress of solitude. The neighbors seemed a bit confused when they saw me outside in my Superman costume snapping these pics, but I just couldn’t resist.

Significant progress made in the kitchen, and while there are a few loose ends to tie up it looks like everything will come together nicely, and it has been very nice being able to live in the kitchen for the past week or so. Remaining items include a new trim piece around the top of the cabinets to cover the gap, and replacements for several of the damaged countertop doors. There are also a few other stragglers, like installing a vent cover for the register above the kitchen door, and putting a light above the kitchen sink…Duane supposedly ordered the former, and we have ordered the latter.

They worked over here a few days last week patching drywall, etc, but left the latter part of the week to let us ’settle in’ and their plan (as of five days ago) was to return tomorrow (Monday) to begin the demo of the hall bathroom. So we’ll be giving the ‘new’ bathroom a full test, and keeping our fingers crossed that we won’t have to return to the community center to shower.

We came back two days after thanksgiving and primed and painted the trim, which seemed to go on for miles. It is all now white, and looks good except for a few nail holes and gaps that need to be filled in. David said that when he paints trim he really ’slops it in’ but I’m not sure any quantity of wet paint would have filled some of the gaps.

We’re now trying to get used to the countertops, for the first several days we were afraid to set anything directly on them that wasn’t 100% cotton, but we’re slowly coming around.

We spent a few hours this afternoon putting a coat of paint over the primer in the kitchen, mostly the same Melange Green color, and the back wall an attempt at a brown color that turned out more purple and will be re-done in a day or so. The walls look really nice now that there are no pencil marks, etc.

The other pictures include one of a new dining room table that Jill found in Tulsa on one of her business trips. We drove from Springfield to Tulsa and back the Friday after Thanksgiving with random chairs dangling out of the open back window of her Explorer. Getting it into the house presented another exciting challenge but once in place it looks great. There is also a shot of our new barstools, delivered from across the pond courtesy of eBay. It’s a small world after all.

Wish us luck with next week’s disruption…as dusty as ‘phase 1′ was, I have a feeling that ‘phase 2′ will be at least as challenging as the room being destroyed is across the hall from where we sleep. Hopefully they will have some creative ideas for managing the level of airborne debris.

Sunday we sent a note to David letting him know that we would need to meet with him before the work could continue, as we needed some reassurance that our concerns would be addressed.

The conversation went much better than I expected, and Jill and I felt better getting his committment that the job wouldn’t be complete until we were satisfied. He said that many of the items we were concerned about were on his list as well, but that he hadn’t had a chance to address them yet. As it turns out half of his small crew was out of pocket for very valid reasons - his son had been in a motorcycle accident, and his uncle’s mother had some serious medical concerns.

Long story short, they came out with guns blazing on Monday and Tuesday, and went a long way toward correcting many of the issues we had noted to date. There is still a lot of work yet to be done, but I think we have a little bit of a new perspective and a realization that despite how long it has taken, we must be patient as it is a very major project with many moving parts.

The bright side is that we are two meals in to our new kitchen, out stove was reinstalled yesterday and we made dinner last night and breakfast this morning. The fridge came in as well, and the dishwasher was adjusted and now seems to be working nicely.

It is 3:15 on a Wednesday in Mission, KS. Andy is in his office working. Enter Rick, the plumber, stage right. With Rick is Joe, assisting Rick.

[Rick] Andy? We’re just finishing up, we’ll be taking off now.
[Andy] Oh, sounds good Rick, did you get it all taken care of?
[Rick] We sure did. Well, except for the shower. I don’t have a trim kit for that, so I’ll be back in a few days with that. Oh, and the bathroom countertop isn’t here, so we’ll have to wait on that too.
[Andy] Hm…Ok, but everything else?
[Rick] Yep - your sink is all hooked up, and the toilet too. Your dishwasher and washer and dryer are ready too. The washer and dryer are out in the garage.
[Andy] …
[Rick] See you later!

Approximately fifteen minutes pass, during which Andy discovers large quantities of sealant in the kitchen sink, slopped around both drain openings. Cleans this up, then anxiously turns to the dishwasher, eager for something - anything - to finally work. Zoom in to see the look of frustration as the dishwasher, clearly not fully attached, refuses to start. Upon further investigation, it appears that the door latch is bent. A few minutes of quiet desperation pass, then re-enters…

[Rick] Hey Andy, me again. I lost my cell phone, do you mind calling it so I can track it down?
[Andy] Sure, Rick…by the way, did you say the dishwasher was ready?
[Rick] Yep, should be all set.
[Andy] Well, I just must not know how to work this one…maybe you can give me a hand.
[Rick, looks closer at the dishwasher. After a moment, he stands] Looks like Joe didn’t fasten this to the cabinets… [Shakes head, as if thinking of the crazy antics of a wily misbehaven child] Well, maybe you should try reading the manual!
[Andy] …
[Rick] See you later! [Exits stage left]

Other fun facts to know and tell…

• The electrician decided that we no longer needed a switch to operate the floodlight outside of the garage. This useless non-sensical pinky-toe of a switch was replaced by a robust, well-intentioned switch operating an overhead light also controlled by an adjacent switch a scant 4 feet away. Who needs to control outside lights, anyway? If they were meant to be on, they would be on, dammit!
• The GC’s (David and company) seem to have a strong aversion to subcontractors. They will not come within three days of when a subcontractor was here, despite a host of tasks yet to be completed. I mean seriously, you can’t very well attach cabinet pulls or a range hood when the plumber is hooking up the toilet! What were you thinking!?!?
• My repeated requests regarding the bathroom coutertop have been check-mated by the unyielding reply of “materials are in. they have the template. should be ready very soon”
• The microvave, carefully selected from among a long list of contenders for its ability to fit within a small space and look swanky complete with a trim kit is fully twice as deep as the space alloted. Completely invalidating the trim kit ($100, please!). Necessitating a clownish shelf to support the front feet of the microwave, which will perch precariously over the precipice, waiting for the right moment to topple out and destroy the Zodiaq by DuPont countertop below. Preventing the adjacent cabinet door from opening fully, as it bumps into the side of the microwave support shelf.
• The cabinet on the back side of the island no longer opens, as it is blocked by the overhanging countertop. Obviously a consequence of foolishly buying a house that was not square

Call me a whiner, call me what you will, but last night when the lights were finally on, I spent a lot of time looking at all the detail work a little more closely than I had previously, and although there is still time to go (and contract money withheld specifically for this purpose), I’m not thrilled with what I see.

Part of it is after you prepare yourself for the incredible expense of remodeling, and get used to the idea of camping in your own house for week after week after week, you have the notion that everything is going to be just so. If you’ve ever lived in an older house you may know the feeling, there are lots of little annoyances and imperfections that you just accept and say “oh well, it is an old house, what can you expect?” But then when you undergo major surgery on a sizable portion of the house, you think that you won’t have those issues any more - walls and ceilings will be straight, trim will be just right, things will be, well, perfect.

I’m beginning to come around now, and realize that although the bulk of the major milestones have been completed, there is going to be an exhausting process of us preparing countless checklists of things to be completed / redone, and the contractors doing some percentage of them before the list is re-issued. It was like that with our siding project - list after list was prepared, and eventually each request seemed to be met with a reply of “NOW are we done?”

I have the sinking feeling that even after trudging through that uncomfortable process, there will be a lot of things that we will just have to accept. The one I keep coming back to is the fact that the cabinets are not flush with the ceiling because the ceiling is not level. We were hoping that once the lights were on and the kitchen was closer to being finished it would be less noticeable but that is definitely not the case. We have heard several crying comments from the carpenters so far along the lines of “your house isn’t square…” but they gutted everything and built back, so I’m at a bit of a loss as to where the blame lies. I would assume (in my very limited knowledge of carpentry) that if a wall or ceiling wasn’t square, then you would make an effort when re-building it and hanging new drywall to make it so.

As I walked around last night there are countless places where the trim is flush at one point, and has a sizable gap at other points - even on brand new walls that didn’t exist before. Shims have been used liberally so that cabinets will look straight. Walls and ceilings have noticeable imperfections. Is this an issue with the drywall hanger? With the construction of the walls? With the original builders who didn’t make it ’square?’ What recourse do we have at this point for things like that? You can keep adding trim over trim to cover up imperfections, but it shouldn’t be like that. We could withhold the final payment, but what remedy can we suggest they offer us? To take down the cabinets, tear out the new drywall and new ceiling and start from scratch?

Additionally, there seems to be a continual process of newly completed work getting damaged along the way. For instance, when the drywall had just been hung, a block was nailed to the base of the wall to prevent the doorknob from hitting the wall. After the trim went up, no such protection was in place, and inevitably in one of the many trips out to the trailer, the doorknob banged and gouged the wall. So our ‘new’ walls will be patched all over.

It seems the best I can do at this point is have faith that they will correct what needs to be corrected and prepare myself for the difficult decisions about what level of imperfections are acceptable…