Well, A LOT has happened and NOT happened all at the same time. Let me explain...
Our contractor quit us... yes, you heard that right. He quit us. We were having some communication red flags and finally called him out to an in-person meeting. Well... turns out he's having some "personal problems" and won't be able to finish our job.
Thunk! whomp... whomp... uh-oh!
I remember that email very clearly. There may have been a few (or many) F-bombs out of my office when I read that email! The next day we were getting our concrete poured! All went well with the concrete pouring and foundation.
This foundation also included the 40 sq feet addition to the back of our house for the kitchen remodel. It made the most sense to do it at the same time since those concrete pump trucks are SUPER expensive and had to get pumped over our house!
A quick second of wanting to give up on our remodel and then some quick strategizing (freaking out) we decided to call out 3 contractors to bid on our project. 1 contractor was super speedy with communications and setting up a visit, one was medium and one was slow. They went in the same order for getting back to us with the bids. Guess which one we choose? The speedy/communicative one! It was pretty challenging to explain our project (AGAIN for the... 9th time)! But, we did it, tweaked the proposal and signed (and put $$,$$$ down)!
We have signed with
Pro.com and are super happy so far - like I said earlier - speedy communication, gets back to you when they say they will, checks up on you periodically, answers questions, cost comparable, the list of everything a normal contractor is NOT.... They do small jobs all the way up to big jobs.
We start demo next week! Which means this weekend we are clearing out most of our 1st floor possessions this weekend! We are both very excited to be at this stage after ~2 years of planning, drawing, sketching, architect drawing, etc. And we are both very exhausted thinking about all that work. But, we are a good team and will work together to get it done.
Back to the old contractor for a minute. He's a good guy. I feel bad about his personal situation (which I don't know what the personal problems are, none of my business). But, at the same time, I feel like this new Pro.com contractor is
everything I need. Communication, transparency, flat pricing.... all good things. And we are expecting to get done around Thanksgiving, so right on our schedule we developed with the old contractor.
The old contractor did offer to finish the shell of the garage. So, since then he's completed the foundation concrete, foundation drainage and backfill, moving the gas meter outside the new garage, poured concrete floors and will get 3 new garage doors Friday. But, this has all been due to in large part, our prompting, asking/pleading, and scheduling the new contractor's start date that has forced this to actually happen. It's like managing a project manager. Not fun when you have to do it, but sometimes it needs to be done.
After the shell of the garage was done, we hired our roofers to finish the roof of the new garage. Just in time because it rained pretty heavily after it was on!
Which meant that my bedroom window had to be removed since it has about 1/2 of it filled with new roof from the garage now. No worries - getting a new window (or 2) in the master bedroom soon!
In the downtime with the contractor (waiting for the for the drainage/backfill, so the gas meter could be moved, so the concrete slab/garage floor could be poured so the garage doors could be installed), we did some yard projects. Which meant Lance got to play with a toy! ;) And Sara too of course!
We dug out a garden island full of plants and moved it so that the front yard would be ready for our new driveway. It sounds weird, but the existing garden island would be too close to the new driveway and feel "cramped" so we moved it! Also, we are preparing our backyard for a new gas firepit (so nice!) and so Lance prepared that area in the back yard for the gas line, the new flagstone patio and new gravel.
new backyard patio area, all dug out and ready.
new backyard area on the other side, new garden there now.
where the old garden island was, is now mostly new grass. All the plants I wanted to save got moved. And a few new plants went in! ;)
And the other BIG news is we got a new fence! See above for a peek at the old cedar privacy fence. This new fence is mostly wire with a wood frame. I'm really hoping it should be easy to maintain since there is so much less wood. Wood requires periodic staining and with 300 feet of fence, that is a lot of work (or a lot of money to pay someone). The new gates are AWESOME and so much lighter! Which means in the winter when it rains a lot, they will still be able to open easily. Previously, the gates were hard to open in the rainy season (or basically 9 months of the year) when they would swell. I'm so happy with this new fence. It's definately different. Lance is going to have to get used to the openness of it. The dogs are going to probably bark more.
One other challenge we have been dealing with is that the fence is'nt entirely complete. We need to wait for the walls to be built on the kitchen area (and have siding up) so the last panels that connect to the house can be installed. This has been one of the toughest parts - our dogs can't go run around in the backyard because they can get out. Which means we put them in a large kennel all day and have to be out there with them to keep them in. And then they are super crazy when we let them out.
We can't wait for the fence to be integral so we can let them out! Who let the dogs out?
The gas meter finally got moved, the concrete slab finally got poured, and the garage doors are getting installed today!
Here is our old garage doors. An interesting design choice we made was to remove the old notched corners. It looks SO good! I cant' wait to come home today and see the new garage doors installed!
A BIG update! Thanks for reading all the way to the bottom! More coming soon!
