Phase two of our massive renovation is almost over. Some days it felt like it would never end. What was supposed to be two weeks out of our house somehow turned into over two months, and all three of us were so over it.
As much as we love camping and staying with friends and family, we just want to be back in our own beds. Which by the way, won’t be here for another week. . . sigh.
Side note: We’ve made a nest of blankets and pillows on our living room floor and it will do. Dominic is just thrilled that he gets to sleep with us.
The Good News
Our bathroom is complete except for 2 knobs that have to be installed in the doors. I still can’t use the bathroom without wondering who’s house I’m in. It’s just. that. beautiful.
The Bad News
If you follow my Facebook or Instagram, you’ll have noticed this week that there was a particular uptick in renovation stress. I didn’t want to say anything at the time because I was so angry I knew I would regret whatever I said. Now that I’ve calmed down, here’s the deal:
After our beautiful floors were finished I told our contractor to send the bill to Got Mold, our asbestos company. I texted them to let them know that the job had been done. I got a phone call five minutes later saying that they never agreed to anything and that they didn’t owe us anything.
Yet again, another massive communication failure.
Whether or not they “owe us anything” can be debated, but the fact remains that they did not tell me, the customer, in clear terms that insurance was not going to cover this.
Therefore, if you need to have asbestos removed, I can not recommend Got Mold.
The actual work they do is great, but I’ve had communication problems with them in both the work done and amending the damage done that I can not recommend them. I will admit that it takes two to communicate, so I do have some fault in this. However, I have not had anywhere near the communication problems with any of my other contractors in this phase of the renovation.
The Frustrating
If you follow my Facebook page, you’ll also have noticed some extra confusion and delay this week.
Our bed frame arrived on Thursday, but the headboard and footboard weren’t the same size. Thankfully they were able to come back and fix the situation within the day.
I also ordered a decent fridge, but didn’t take into account that our kitchen door frames are smaller than our outside and living room entrance door frames.
Three entrances into the kitchen, and not one of them was big enough.
So I went back to the appliance store and paid more money for a smaller fridge. Bah.
The new thing these days is to have fridges that are counter depth. You pay more for this privilege, of course.
The Hermit also started on our solution to the lack of counter space in our kitchen and discovered that I ordered the wrong countertop from IKEA. GAH!! The nearest Ikea is over 4 hours away, so it’s not like we can run over there and do an exchange. We’re just going to make it work.
The Homestretch
The new fridge is coming today, our mattresses are coming next week, and all I have to do is touch up paint all the baseboards. I was feeling very overwhelmed this week, but now that I’ve spent a night in my house, I’m feeling better.
I can’t wait to reveal our home to you. The transformation is jaw dropping. It’s hard to believe it’s the same house.
But it’s exactly what we knew it could be.
P.S. In case you’re wondering, our renovation has four phases:
1. Initial painting and get the space liveable. DONE
2. Remove asbestos, gut the bathroom, redo the floors. (We’re here!)
3. Rebuild fence, get rid of nuisance trees, and landscape the yard. Coming Summer 2018
4. Re-pour the basement floor, add a bathroom and refinish. Coming when our bank account and sanity has recovered.
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Kristen is a former farm kid turned urban gardener who owns the popular gardening website, Shifting Roots. She is obsessed with growing flowers and pushing the limits of what can be grown in her zone 3b garden. She also loves to grow tomatoes, but oddly enough, dislikes eating them raw.
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