Progress Report --- Week 23

Progress accomplished:

--Countertop installed. See pics above. We went with the "Giallo Quarry" style of Silestone quartz. I think it came out looking terrific. The photo also shows the cabinets installed.

--More painting of addition interior completed. I believe the primer coat has been put on everything, and he's been doing second coats and/or detail work on other parts.

--Interior doors hung.

--Toilet in master bath installed.

--Faucets for vanity sinks and jacuzzi tub installed. This was done after the photos shown above were taken.

--Plumbing inspection of addition conducted and passed.

--Clean-up of backyard, gazebo area done. Wagner had been storing some of his stuff in the backyard, and he got that all cleared out, along with some paving stones he had put down when we had to exit out the back yard through the other side of the house. He also stacked all the leftover brick neatly by the house, as we wanted to keep some spares Just In Case disaster falls.

--Decisions made on how to handle the area above the kitchen sink. Recall that we used to have a window there that had been blocked up in the renovation. I had thought about putting a bookcase there but ultimately decided that wouldn't work well. So I started looking around for a nice decorative mosaic or something we could put in as a backsplash. Wagner found a gorgeous, custom-made design showing a basket full of fruit. It's a lot prettier than it sounds; I'll put a photo of it soon. It was marked down less than half price, and it will make a wonderful focal point for the kitchen while I'm standing there doing dishes.

Obstacles encountered:

--Various illnesses of Wagner and crew slowed things down. There's a nasty stomach bug going around Lexington these days.

--Carpenter has gone on a vacation trip to Europe and was unable to get our built-in bookcase done before he left. So that's going to have to wait until he gets back and un-jet-lagged.

--When faucets were installed on jacuzzi, one handle looked longer than the other. We were mystified that the supplier would've gotten the set mixed up, but we went back to Ferguson's and told them we needed the correct size handle. Turns out that the handles were *exactly the same size* and it was just an optical illusion caused by us looking at them from the side. Given my well-documented deficiencies in spatial reasoning, I wasn't surprised to hear that I was mistaken about the handle lengths. But when I was talking with one of Wagner's men, he looked at me like I was crazy and said "No way those handles are the same length! That one is clearly a lot longer than the other!!" So I had him whip out his tape measure and we held it against the faucets, and the evidence was indisputable--they were the same length. Very weird.

All in all, the closer we get to being finished, the more I'm itching to get in there. At this point I'm guessing we won't be done by our (revised) projected completion date of the end of March. But I'm hoping it won't be too much later. I'm ready to be done. :)