Progress report --- Week 16

Progress accomplished this week:

--Carpentry details on garage study installed (baseboard, windowsills and window frames, doorway frames, doors installed)
--Carpentry details in addition begun
--Several doors in addition installed
--Tile for bathroom delivered; tile work starts Monday. This photo shows samples of the 3" decorative border and the trim piece.



--Painting begun in garage
--Weather cooperated and the masonry work on exterior of garage and addition is finally finished! WOOT!
--Continued working on perplexing leak in chimney that has plagued us since we moved into the house 5 years ago. We've tried everything to fix it, including rebuilding it from ground up. Until now, nothing's done the trick. But Wagner had his men seal it again and check/redo the flashing. He discovered a small crack in one part of the flashing, and fixed it, so maybe, just maybe, the problem is resolved. It didn't appear to leak any with the rain we had last night, so keep your fingers crossed.
--Meeting with concrete man to plan/start paving of ground outside new garage and rework our front walk to be accessible
--Back yard graded
--Sod for back yard put down

These last two steps sound simple, but they probably represent the most visible dramatic progress on the site, and I'm sure it's the step most appreciated by our neighbors. We no longer have the huge dumpster in the back yard and the mountain of dirt excavated for the garage. Wagner had to scramble around to find anybody with viable sod at this time of year, but he got a truckload of it in. He worked feverishly to get it all down yesterday before the heavy rains that were predicted started falling. But now our back yard looks like a back yard (albeit with a monstrous garage plopped down in the middle of it) rather than a construction site. It makes me think that, yes, this renovation *will* eventually be finished! Here's a shot of our new, flat, green back yard, with fence (temporarily) removed, showing the neighbor's shed now located firmly on his--and not our--property. ;-)



Obstacles encountered this week:

--Representative of the whirlpool tub company came out and looked at the tub and deemed it too damaged to repair. We are returning it under warranty and awaiting the replacement.
--During the grading process, the backhoe/bulldozer machine uprooted a tree stump, which pulled the telephone wire off the pole. No phone service. Phone repairman was out here for 3 hours yesterday, during which they discovered all sorts of other problems with the line. It was finally repaired and stayed repaired for, oh, about 12 hours. Noticed this morning the phone service was down once again. They'll send somebody out again tomorrow. *sigh*