Hurry up and wait

Although the first phase of renovations was little more than two years ago, we had already forgotten the amount of down time there is in the remodelling process.

Even before allotting a job, the various trades have to be briefed (which depending on the size of the job can take up to an hour and a half) then it generally takes at least a week for them to arrive at a quote, then in all likely hood they have other jobs lined up... Apparently patience is a learned virtue. Well, we must be in the midst of the master class.

At the moment we are waiting on quotes from two electricians and three door manufacturers. The electric work in The Tall House is creative to say the least so we expect this to eat up a sizeable amount of our budget. So too will the two sets of french doors leading to the backyard which no matter how many concessions are made still apparently have to be custom built.

The event that thrills us the most is the impending installation of a mammoth 35 foot structural beam that will enable us to completely open up the first floor. Being no body's fools we are well aware that this job is way out of our league so we have brought out the big guns and hired no other than Pierre our contractor from  the previous stage of renovations. Pierre is extremely talented and we trust him blindly but he is expensive. So while it would be so much simpler to hand over the whole job to him, we can't afford it. So for now we have struck up a deal where upon he acts as a consultant for an hourly wage and when the task is just to tricky we hire him and his men for specific tasks.

The steel beam has to hold up the top two stories of the house, so it will be a MOTHER. At 35 feet long and 14 inches thick, it will weigh over a hundred pounds per linear foot and take a week to install. And of course there are other various mini beams that have to be added under floors, over stair cases as well as a few steel columns in the basement. A tornado could touch down on the Tall House and it wouldn't move. Pierre and his gang will start on Monday, August 3rd at 7am sharp. It promises to be quite a show.

So while we have been waiting for this (yet again) mystical date, Manu has been spending most Friday afternoons and Saturday mornings continuing the demo work. For it seems that one can never open up enough. The basement ceiling had to be taken down in order to make the rewiring simpler, the non structural walls on the first floor had to be cleared out and most exciting of all, the wall separating the upper floors from the lower ones has to be removed. Manu has been wonderful about it, never once complaining about missing out on time at the park with the kids, or about having to do the work alone. He also looks really cute in his handyman outfit.