Not Quite Ready

(Perhaps some of you are enjoying a heat wave right now-- in that case I hope the timing of these building re-cap posts cools you down!)

As we were enjoying days where the temps were in the 50s, winter suddenly looked over its shoulder and said, "Hey, I forgot Oregon!"

 

Well, a little dusting of snow doesn't hurt. 

Well okay, six inches or so for sledding. Fine. 

Remembering the roof snow avalanche in an earlier winter, I steered clear of all eves, climbing up on the side of the porch instead. 

True to their word, the drywall pros came back the first of February. The announcements were thrilling: "This room is ready to paint!" "That room is ready to paint!" 

They moved down to the first floor and started doing what they could, but it turned out that we weren't really ready for them down there. We needed to re-build some in some places, re-plumb in some places, and order a bunch of materials. With all the time it takes to tape, mud, remud, mud again (not to mention if the pros were even available to come back), not being ready could mean quite a delay in wall progress. 

We couldn't manage to sell the ol' snow car. It was too much of a lemon and my honest husband ended up talking everyone out of buying it. Eventually the Prius went up for sale instead. And yes, now you can laugh. 

I just want to put a note here about not being ready from what we learned. Get a detailed list from the contractor of what he needs to have in, be done, or see before he comes out to do his part of the job. Don't rely on your memory, write it down! If you are doing stuff, or another sub-contractor needs to do stuff, make sure you have that list and check it twice. Also, something I recently learned from a contractor: nowadays, if you are not ready for a contractor when they show up at the appointed time, you will most likely be charged a gas fee & hourly fee for all their trouble and time to drive their diesel pickup out to a non-job that day. This can occur even if you forgot to leave a key for them to get into the job; they really don't like that kind of delay. So make sure you think ahead!