Complete in just over 3 short months (no sarcasm here)...

This experience would have been helpful back during my first year of law school when I was trying to understand the craziness of the disputes between general and subcontractors...here are some pics.

Thanks for reading!

"the entryway doesn't look as bad in the dark"

my husband says to me. We got back from a weeklong vacation yesterday, while we were away the hardwood floors of our entryway had been sanded down and refinished, damaged board replaced which I had expected to love but am struggling to even like. Turns out I liked the entryway with 30+ years of wear and dirt and now that they look new and don't like them anymore. It didn't help that there was dust from this project all over the house, including our kitchen and dining room (yuck!). They'll have to grow on me I suppose...

The numbers have been re-set on the house so no more lost delivery persons although they were re-set in a different place and so the mark from where they used to be is sort of an eye sore that we'll still need to remedy. A new outdoor light is finally up.

The driveway is partially repaired, some work left to go on that.

The funny thing, we were told 3 months of ago that none of this was being done because they needed to get the door in first, well door was still not in until late this afternoon. But now that it is, I am starting to feel better about the whole ordeal to the point where I could bring myself to type this update. We still can't use said door because the hardware we were told we could re-use actually doesn't fit the door we ordered. Tomorrow the door will be stained and I hope post an AFTER picture and a final message...not keeping my fingers crossed though.

Been Oddly Quiet On the Home Front

The side of the house is patched up. We have a temporary front door. I was told that we were just waiting for the weather to be warm and dry enough that the front steps could be tiled but when I looked at the tile that had been ordered to supposedly match that on our driveway steps I couldn't help but notice that IT DID NOT MATCH. After pointing this out multiple times in multiple ways, new tile was ordered so now the race is on between the new tile getting delivered and the weather improving. We are also waiting for our new doors to come in, and our new bathroom vanity. In the meantime Jasmine and I are enjoying having our house to ourselves and peace and quiet during the day. I like coming in and out of my temporary front door which is difficult when the repairmen and all the powertools that accompany them are camped out in the front and entryway of the house as well as the garage. Jasmine is a late riser and the repairmen are not and she was not accepting their arrival and the firing-up of their power tools as a wake-up call. We have a ways to go but I think the end might be in sight very soon and at least it is quiet for a bit in the meantime.

Ding Dong

An electrician came and re-wired that which was damaged. We once again have a doorbell and an outlet in our bathroom.

Most of my days this spring I spend some time on the phone, over e-mail or driving around in attempt to motivate forward progress on my house getting fixed. Below is an update on some of the pieces that have come together as well as those that have not:

Door. The doors that were ordered were the wrong size (too big!) and they are not returnable. Anyone in need of two 36" doors pre-hung? Would love to get them to a good home... We now have to figure out who should pay for this huge mistake. We are all a little bit to blame (the door salesman for ordering the doors without getting a final ok from anyone, our general contractor for not checking that measurement before the doors got ordered, myself for not double- checking the measurement before the doors got ordered). Thankfully our general contractor built us a plywood door so that we can now go in and out of the front of our house while we wait another month or so for doors the correct size to arrive.

Front steps. New cement was laid and we anxiously await the tile guy to re-tile it.

Exterior siding. General contractor ordered the wood, now to just match and stain and put it up.

3. Interior siding. General contractor found a match (!) now we are just waiting for it to arrive.

Entryway flooring. Hardwood flooring subcontractor seems to think he can fix the damage no problem.

Closet and bathroom doors. We decided to save money by re-using the originals, they are a little scraped up but nothing too awful.

Bathroom siding. I can smell the fumes now from the freshly stained wood.

Bathroom vanity. After considerable time and effort by everyone involved our general contractor figured out a way to get us a vanity we like that fits the spot we have for it all within the budget the insurance company has given us.

Sometimes I want to cry (and I do), other times scream (everyone involved is now familiar with my stressed-out voice) but generally I am finding peace in my home despite it's altered front and patiently waiting for the insurance company to cough up money so the contractors can get paid for their work. I am thankful for a home that is large enough to escape the construction noise, mess and fumes when my toddler or I are not up to it.

We found a door!

http://www.simpsondoor.com/products/idea_gallery/idea_gallery_more.asp?currentImage=8

I am most excited about the "operable speaking port" -- please let me know if anyone has input on this choice and keep your fingers crossed that the insurance will go for it.

We leave on Saturday to go out of town and I am sad to report that we will not have a front door to lock when we go but we are making progress.

Nightmares in Home Repair

Door shopping is not going good. We found a door we liked, but it of course is astronomically expensive so it is unlikely that we will be able to convince the insurance adjustor...

The wood on the interior of our house was the main thing that we LOVED about the house when we decided to buy it. It got busted up in our entry and we apparently can't find a match to it so we are having to figure out what do about that.

The wood that made up the wall of our bathroom that got bashed in, supposedly is easy to match but the "match" the rebuild people brought by doesn't actually match so now Kevin and I are in disagreement: he wants to use it and just not worry about it not matching the other walls while I would rather do something different with that wall if it won't match.

To make matters worse, we realized that the crew who cleaned up had thrown away my cowboy boots which was a big blow as I spent 10 years looking for my boots so they will be difficult to replace...

By the afternoon we were at the Brewery near our rebuilders office because we couldn't take anymore.

About your shoes...

Kevin keeps his shoes easily accessible in the closet as you enter our house. When the truck crashed his shoes got filled with sand. The restoration company offered to have them "detailed." Those of you who know my husband, know that he doesn't bother with "detailing" anything and so he opted to just have them leave the shoes, he planned to dump the sand out and continue wearing them. Somewhere in the chaos of getting the debri cleared and our house sealed his shoes got thrown away but it was not until this morning that this sad news was shared with me.... Model of efficiency this project is turning out to be.

I was instructed to start shopping for doors last week: not a fun experience. If anyone has any great french door recommendations please let me know. Also looking for a bathroom vanity...

Many people I have talked to seem confused: no one drove into our house, in an awesome twist of fate a truck containing materials for the fence being built in our neighbors yard rolled from across the street, over our planted divider, down our driveway and into our house, no one was in it. Our neighbors fence looks great, they have got lots of compliments.

When friends drop by and you have no door

Our friends were on a bike ride the other day and decided to drop-in and survey the damage but they said upon their unannounced arrival they were not sure where to knock....ah the perplexing reality of having no door...I leave the garage open so that if people aren't timid they can access an entrance to the house but so far most people just knock on the plywood bolted to the side of the house where the doors used to be which makes me laugh, then Jasmine and I go to our window that looks out over the former entryway and view our perplexed visitors and laugh some more. We are averaging two visitors a day what with all the insurance/repair related folks dropping in and so this provides much entertainment for my curious toddler.

It was fun when the insurance adjustor got lost and called and said "I didn't see a #21" to which I replied "Oh did the numbers on the side of the house get demolished too?" They didn't, but his comment had me realizing all the details I had yet to note regarding the damage.

It has been over a week since the accident occurred and all I know is that they can't find a match for the damaged tile on the steps so the steps coming down our driveway will no longer match the steps going up to our door-- I am having trouble caring since we have no door to go up to yet. I haven't made much progress on door shopping: with a sick baby and no idea what my budget is, I am having trouble motivating.

"OH they were DOUBLE doors"

Says the "team leader" on our home repair. I had just shown him a picture the inspectors had taken of the front of our home when they had inspected it last October per our contract to buy. I was proving that there were new cracks on our driveway, trying to enlist him to help me argue sucessfully that the insurance should cover repair of the new cracks. He was just stunned by the fact that what he had been picturing as a single door was actually a double door before the accident. I now realize how disorienting our house looks to others. The shards of the left-hand door still looked like my idea of "welcome home" but to the men who cleaned it up I realize now it just looked like shards of wood. I have adjusted relatively well to not having front doors and when I look at the front of the house I either picture the beautiful doors we used to have or the replacements I hope to get. Others probably see the ugly plywood that is there and wonder if we had a meth lab blow-up or something else sinister this week. Last night Kevin was able to download some pictures as I put Jasmine to bed because instead of his normally heavy load of paperwork he came home perky after an afternoon of doing physicals for high school spring sports. So I hope to have those posted soon for people's viewing pleasure. Sorry my blog isn't more involved at this point, I thought keeping up with Jasmine was a 24/7 job and now I am struggling to also facilitate the home repairs that need to happen.

A truck rammed through my front doors today

We never did get around to weatherstripping our front doors like the home inspector suggested in October before we bought this house and eventually we had hoped to replace the dated bathroom sink and vanity but seriously did god really have to send a pick-up truck barreling through our front doors to motivate us to change? For whatever reason I had the urge to laugh about this all day, even though deep down I feel sick thinking about how one of us, namely 16-month old Jasmine, could have been standing in the entryway when the truck barged in. But the hardest losses we suffered today were our doors that we both really liked, the tile steps, that had really grown on us, and the quirky old sink designed to be able to wash a person's hair in which I sadly never got around to trying out in the 4+ months we have lived here.