Finished - Outside

The backyard, with the pool and the extended deck, is really comfortable and, thanks to "instant landscaping" the house looks almost as if it had always been there.

Finished - Inside

Finally! It's over. Now we need to furnish it but, the house itself, done!

The new living/family room is great, the kitchen breakfasts area is fantastic, we've got a huge amount of storage space (empty and hopefully will remain so) and the doors to seal the house off were a great touch.

December Inside

The entry foyer mandarine is so bright that my sisters in law (who are from Spain) joke that they need sunglasses, but we think it is a great way to come into the house itself.

The two small living areas make more sense than a huge one, and the dining room --now in red-- is a great way to frame the outside view which is all green and blue.

The breakfast counter is bigger than the original one, but it sits all three of us comfortably in the morning.

Now we need to start adding details to the house... furniture, counters on the laundry room, etc. but we consider it finished. We'll wait until the January post-Christmas sales to pick up some furniture, a TV set and the many other things we need.

Early December

The house is basically finished. There are small details here and there, but workers don't have to come in at all hours, we are living comfortably inside and we can now use everything. The bathroom is finished, the laundry room is finished, the two additional closets are finished, we installed pocket doors and a new matching kitchen door so that we can close both halves and have some peace and quiet when our daughter has a party.

End November - Inside

We can finally concentrate on the interior of the house, so we decide to go with strong colors.

End of November

With the end of November here, the house is now looking almost finished. We've got small details to take care of, but it seems that those details take longer than big tasks like a structure.

At least the bathroom is usable, the breakfast nook is usable and we can fit visitors comfortably.

They keep promising that it will be ready by end of the month, but, somehow, that doesn't seem possible.

Mid November - Push

My sisters in law announce that they are visiting on November 22nd, just in time for Thanksgiving, so we need to really push forward to make the house liveable.

The walls are taken down as the exterior is now complete, has windows and doors.

The contractor gives me a song and dance about the roof, how there was a large discrepancy between what the architect drew and what the real roof is like... so more money.

The roofers are a disgrace. It must be a hell of a business, because roofers treat their customers like shit, never show up on time, don't keep their end of the bargain and still get paid top dollar. The fucking roofers did not file the papers on time, are late for every filing, miss countless days when they were supposed to work and are, in general, borderline criminals.

The workers themselves are quite the contrast with the regular workers we have. The roofing workers are all pigs; they leave food all over the yard, empty cans and bottles, used napkins, used styrofoam plates... they have no sense of cleanliness about them.

All in all the roofers take 6 weeks to complete what they should have done in 2. The GC seems incapable of supervising them.

The house progresses nicely otherwise and we choose a completely different color scheme from the rest of the yellow/brown palette in the neighborhood. We choose an off white with brown trim that makes the house look larger, more "grown up".