The Good

They installed the windows several weeks ago. It’s difficult to get a decent picture of them. Perhaps taking panoramic shots on a phone’s camera with shaky arms after a long day of physical labor isn’t best. Still, this will give you a general idea of how things look:

See the protective film on the windows? I will use a rudimentary knife fashioned from a flat head screwdriver to shank the person who tries to pull that film off before I get to it. Some people do bubble wrap. I peel film. It must stay on until the drywall is up and everything is painted. It’s killing me.

Upstairs windows from one end of the hallway…

…and the other end of the hallway.

You’ve seen windows before. I won’t show you the rest.

I’m happy to report we’re quite pleased with the HVAC team and the electrician and his crew. We have some tricky spots, thanks to a massive steel beam that runs the length of the living/dining area and “separates” the kitchen, pantry, and guest bath from the rest of the house. Both teams figured out solutions to the problem. Problem solvers are A+ #1 in my book.

Here’s Mark and the electrical crew (Ashford and Rudy) thinking through a difficult situation.

We got to know them pretty well as we worked alongside them running Ethernet cable and speaker wire while they did the tough stuff. These men worked weekends, they worked around school schedules (Rudy is earning an electrical engineering degree and Ashford has three kiddos with a lot of end of the school year activities), and they cleaned up their mess every day. The framers could learn a thing or two from them.

This is some of our handy work.

Their handy work is far more complicated…

…you know, because of things like electrocution.

Action shot – running speaker wire. Safe stuff.

Action shot – running Ethernet cable. Have you ever seen anything more exciting?

Action shot of Mark and his dad hanging* light boxes. This work saved the electricians a lot of time and it allowed Mark to put lights/outlets precisely where he wanted them, which is a blessing AND a curse for a moderately OCD person. You see, the control of lining up the boxes to the nearest millimeter is the good part; dealing with trusses and studs in the way of placing the box in the perfect spot is a pain in the arse.

*No wiring involved – only hanging.

There aren’t any pictures of the HVAC guys, but they’ve been doing this work for thirty years, they give each other a lot of good-natured grief, and the bossman has one working eye (which means his team spends a fair amount of time straightening the vents he installs because they all go in crooked). They’re a reliable and skilled team and we’re happy they worked on this project.

More good stuff – we started moving some of the house wares we collected over the last ten months. I’ve mentioned it before (here) but I don’t think I’ve shown proof of our hoarder-like home yet. This is the front entry way, packed full with both bathroom and kitchen materials. The bathtub in the large “MAAX” box impeded the front door for a while. I suspect this picture might give a Fire Safety Professional a heart attack.

This picture, also in front of the front door, includes a chest freezer, a dishwasher, and what I believe is miscellaneous lighting stuff. Oh, and a stray dining room chair.

Around the corner we have an oven, a cook top, a refrigerator, and the light Mark made for the dining room. I won’t show you any more. Just keep duplicating this scene in your mind through three more rooms.

Here’s the tub closer to its new home.

I think it looks happy.

The Bad

I’m not willing to publicly throw the plumbing team under the bus because I have no idea what happened behind the scenes (medical issues? an alien abduction?), but they had a definite negative effect on this project. On the up side, their work is great – when they show up and when they’re pushed to do it properly.

The shower holds water!

Red lines are hot water, blue lines are cold. This is the guest bathroom. If we know you personally, there’s a chance you’ll use these water lines to wash your hands. Think of our poor alien-abducted plumbers when you do so.

The Ugly

Framers.

They need to finish their work (mostly siding at this point), but they’re dragging this out and it’s truly painful now. They were supposed to complete their work no later than this past Saturday. They failed. They have one more deadline. If they can’t manage to complete their task, the builder will relieve them of their duties. A backup team is on standby.

Inspectors.

See this wall of windows?

The inspector red tagged (failed) our electrical inspection because we don’t have an outlet every 6 linear feet. This isn’t a joke – they want electrical outlets in the glass. They don’t care that we have electrical outlets in the floor near the windows. They want them in the glass. Also, they seem to have forgotten they (the city) approved this design eons ago. In building terms, an eon = ten months:
https://adventuresonspringlake.com/2013/08/27/drum-roll-please/

We can’t proceed until this is sorted out.

Back to The Good

I can’t end on a negative note, so I leave you with this image of Mark and our neighbor’s free-roaming dog, Jordan, who likes to stop by for visits. On this particular day she chose to accompany Mark as he made a quick inventory of our work to make sure we did everything on our list before packing up the tools. We first met Jordan back in 2012 when she stopped by to say hi and pee on our lunch cooler while we cleared the thicket around the spring. It’s a good thing she’s cute.