This may be a little confusing because I have only been counting the days that the contractors have worked on this project. However, with the kitchen renovation, there has also been a cabinet maker toiling away in his shop for a couple of weeks. I did not count the days he spent installing the lower cabinets as construction days, so, for consistency, I won’t include the days he spent installing the uppers either.
This is how the week of May 18th shaped up:
Monday May 18: The contractors were at another side job on the holiday weekend. They had told me that they would not be returning to our job until Wednesday. The cabinet maker dropped off the upper cabinets. I headed out to one of the big box stores (they are all a blur to me now) to purchase wider shelving for installing above the closet organizers in our closet. I assembled the Cubeicals and we started moving a few things upstairs.
Tuesday May 19: As expected, the contractors were still at their side job. In our closet I installed the shelving and storage towers. My attention was diverted for a couple of hours to cutting our front lawn which by necessity involved tuning up the lawnmower. The cabinet maker began installing the upper cabinets and discovered that there had been an error in measurement on his part. He would have to build another box to fill a 10 inch gap. My wife and I decided on an open shelf, suitable for a few cookbooks.
Upper cabinets installed in kitchen
Wednesday May 20th: I am counting this as the 45th day of construction since the contractors were back on the job. Their focus was to get the hallway ready to lay the tile on Thursday and Friday, since we would be gone to visit the in laws and would be out of their way on those days, giving the tile the entire weekend to set up before we returned. Because this was our last day before leaving, it was our last opportunity to move stuff from storage and get the bedrooms ready.
I think next time I might consider another mover
We hired the same mover that we used to move the stuff from my Dad’s house into storage last year. I figured that since they were the ones that crammed the stuff into the storage unit, they could be the ones to get it out. The move was scheduled for 9:30. They were an hour and a half late. I needed to pick up the mattress that we had purchased on the weekend. Had I known they were going to be late, I could have picked it up before the move instead of during and saved half an hour of time.
This was not my first negative experience with this mover. When I moved from my apartment to my first house back in 1996, I had hired this company. It was a small move, estimated to take only 2 hours. There was more than ample time to accomplish this before I had to be at work for the afternoon shift. But they were running more than hour behind at that time, too, and rather than risk being late for work, I cancelled them and hired another company which oddly enough showed up on time and finished the move in 2 hours!
Mind you, these guys are very professional and do a terrific job when they do show up, but I was certainly not happy about wasting an hour and a half on Wednesday, unable to do anything but twiddle my thumbs when I had so much work to do back at the house.
Unfortunately, the lengthy delay in the morning set the tone for the entire day. There was simply too much to do and not enough time to do it. There were other errands to run to get ready for our road trip on Thursday, and at the end of the day, the state of the house was far from perfect. We did manage to get the guest room in order and the new mattress set up in our daughter’s room. Wednesday night marked the first night that our daughter slept in her own bed in her own room in this house since we first moved in six years ago. I guess that in itself is a major milestone worth celebrating.
Cool angles in the kid's room.