Lots of small progress

This week, we have made lots of small progress. We are both feeling more content and settled in the house, and we are looking forward to the future when more of this is behind us. We absolutely love the location we are in. Life and our surroundings continue to become less chaotic (although still very chaotic). It feels so good just to be making progress even if at the pace of cold molasses. It sure beats sitting and waiting! I have a new guy lined up to finish the work needed to close our old permit. This will be a huge relief since it has been open over 13 months. I had to get an extension because you normally only have a year. The work on this permit was only supposed to take 6 months. Ugh, contractors! Event he inspectors expressed surprise that the work is not done. I am working on a contract with a new general contractor to put in the deck and back door, and you never know until the work is done how things will go, I am hopeful that this permit will be less painful than the last.

Our prior general contractor who had to be let go because he stopped showing up finally renewed his business license, which is necessary for me to close my permit. It was supposed to be done last July1, and he let it lapse. I bugged and bugged him, and he refused to do it. The city has no recourse for me - either I pay or he pays it. In his separation agreement, I specifed that he had to renew it by yesterday, and he waited until the last possible minute to do it. One last opportunity to thumb his nose at me? I was honestly shocked he actually did it though. He emailed me last night and I went to the city this morning to check it out. I made them give me a printout just to be sure!

One of my projects this last week was to buy and install a closet system in an unused nook in the hall for a coat closet. We have no coat closet or hall closet, and our entryway is very awkward so things like backpacks, purses, wallets, cell phones, keys, etc ended up in all sorts of weird places and added to our chaos. I am really happy with the final result, and it feels good to have something done, especially something that cuts down on chaos. It is also good to have something completed - so many things are in various stages of completion.

Here is a shot of the hallway before:


And here is the completed coat rack. I generally like things like this covered and behind closed doors, but if I had to drywall this nook, I would have lost a lot of space and it wouldn't have been big enough for coats.


I also got prepped for the new guy coming in to finish the permit work. I had to pull all the parts and documentation to the cooktop together. Our prior contractor had a nasty habit of opening boxes, scattering the contents and leaving it that way. He tended to mix, meld and pile things around, and as a result I have a whole box full of unidentified house parts. It is really aggrivating to me, since I hate clutter and disorganization. His sloppiness added a lot of wasted time to the job. I also had to pull together everything needed to do the bathroom floor. I took the flooring out of boxes (to let it "acclimate" before installation), and got the underlayment out. I also had to make sure I had painting supplies because once the toilet is pulled up this will be my only chance to paint behind it.

Here is the cork floor for the bathroom ready to be installed. Now that I see it with my tile choice, I am really pleased.



Here is a close up to show the texture of the cork. It is really warm and soft underfoot.