Renovation Update

It's been about 3 weeks since we've posted about the renovation, but that doesn't mean that things haven't been moving. It just means that there's been a bunch of messy infrastructural work going on that isn't very interesting to look at.

The trench in the dining room floor is filled in now and there was a week and a half of work to lay radiant heat in the floor of the back half of the house. This turned out to be a good time for us to stay at our friends', the Juneaus (Juneaux?) while they were in Brazil. We were able to contribute to the Thanksgiving cooking effort and the their house had heat when ours didn't.
Our wood floor was delivered yesterday to acclimate to the house and (I hope) will be installed next week. The cabinets will arrive then also. The HVAC guy was here to do some duct work and the electrician was working away too. I bought what I hope is a beautiful light fixture off eBay and I will post pictures when that is installed.

What else? KC, our oldest and largest cat, has proved able to leap tall buildings at a single bound. No matter how high the wood barrier to the back part of the house is, he can get over it. When this project is done, he is going to PetSmart for a bath. I swear that the challenge of these plywood barriers is the only thing keeping him sane through all the chaos. That and Noelle....I am so glad we have two kitties and not one. The superintendent on our job finally barricaded the space up to the ceiling and built a hinged door perpendicular to the stair so it is more difficult for KC to get over there. But I am sure he will have that figured out by tomorrow morning.

Now, I realize I have been making our project sound perfect and painless. So, just to bring some reality to it all, I should tell you that we can only run our cooking appliances one at a time (the coffee maker OR the microwave OR the toaster oven). We've been having to take trash out the front door and walk all the way around the corner and down the alley to put it in the big trash bin. The new door to the back half of the house has fixed that, thankfully! And, (drum roll please....) our poor neighbor came out of her 2nd floor flat which overlooks our garden only to spy one of the contractors in the portajohn. There's no top on that thing! How's that for a SNAFU? I was mortified (so was she)! But fortunately, we have a responsive team and there is now a raised plywood ceiling over the portajohn. We hope that whole contraption will be gone in a week when the floor is in and they can reinstall the old toilet.

The windows are supposed to be installed tomorrow. I am sure in a week or two we will have pictures that show more interesting progress. :)