City Holiday

I went to city hall today to talk to a planner to find out what permits I will need. I completely forgot they are closed due to the MLK holiday. Unfortunately, this sets me back two days instead of just one because I am aleady booked tomorrow. I am meeting the electrician to finalize our agreement once I've been to city hall.

I decided to use the time to bag some more trash at the house. I find I can only do it in small chunks of time - 3-5 hours at most. It's overwhelming because there is so much trash and even neatly bagged and stacked, there's hardly room for it all. A lot of it is just loose, small stuff that needs to be picked up by hand. It's very tedious. I usually leave anything sweepable (even if it is larger than what I would normally sweep) to the end and get it with a heavy broom. It's funny because I debated whether or not to buy the heavy broom and dustpan. I just don't like having things that are not useful or things that I have more than one of. But, boy have they already paid off! Today was difficult because I was working in the master bedroom where a lot of electronics were. Each time I'd go to pick one up, it would be followed by a tangle of wires that connected it to other electronics. Each of these "octopusses" were difficult to wrestle into a trash bag. Some were 6 feet long! I also picked up a length of plastic hose and discovered too late that it was for a shop vacuum with the top attached. As I picked it up, a huge cloud of dust spilled out the end and all over the place. Yuck, ew, cough, sputter, x#$%^& !!!!!

On a good note, still no critters sighted!

I've heard such horror stories about contractors that I've been expecting the worst. So far, my worst experience has been just a bit of poor listening and communicating. I've actually met several really nice ones that have gone the extra mile to help out. The guy we selected actually took the time to write out a work flow for the whole remodel for us. He said he had seen too many jobs go awry when the homeowner tries to manage it. I think this is an excellent way to do business - it was a small gesture on his part that wasn't strictly "his job" but that will save us both time, money and headaches later.

I called 10 plumbers and was able to set 2 appointments already. I called in the evening so not a lot of them were in. There are a lot more highly-rated plummers on Angie's List than electricians so the choices are good. I was very pleased to find that several were licensed not only as plumbers but also as HVAC. I found at least two that can do the plumbing, repiping, and heating system. This multi-licensing will be a high item on my priority list as many things in this area (plumbing, HVAC and repiping) are critical path items and it will be great to have just one contractor instead of 3.

I also purchased a white board today and laid out all the different projects and contractors in a flow chart. The arrows make it easy to spot the dependencies and the critical path. It really helped ease my mind a lot. I had to assimilate all the information we have to date and really think about it. There are tons of dependencies, some of them obvious, others not so much so. For example, we need the driveway cleaned (oil and chemical spills) and repaired (cracks and shifting) before we can close off the end of the driveway with a fence as part of the backyard. Another example: we need a structural engineer to look at the foundation and possible tree damage before we have the trees trimmed, i.e. we need to tell the tree person any recommendations the engineer makes. I am glad I got a white board because I can easily change it as I go (I changed it many times just drafting it). Also, I like the visual organization it provides. I plan on wiping things off once they are done - that will make it easier to see the remaining items and give me the satisfaction of watching the remaining items dwindle. Here is my first pass at my plan (it's not as bad as it looks, really!) I think also it looks worse than it is because I was really cooking while I was drawing this, and didn't really take time to make it neat.





I am an organized person by nature, and disorganization causes me stress. So, believe it or not after finishing drawing the tangle above I felt less stressed. I took a little bit of time before I could see how to organize this process, but I am getting on top of it now. I just put together a binder with sections for everything. Even today, while calling plumbers, I was so much better prepared than I was for round #1 when I talked to electricians.