On the twelfth day before moving in my contractor gave to us...no progress!

As I type this blog, Queen's "Under Pressure" is blaring in the background in an attempt to calm down a very frustrating evening and morning. If I was an inanimate object, I would resemble a food canner with that jiggling thing on the top vibrating like mad to let off steam. I know I have used this line before in the blog but I am funneling Frank Costanza yet again..."Serenity now!!"


Here is the timeline people. We have twelve days to get this house done. We are moving from this townhouse in thirteen days, June 29th, mind you. Less than two weeks. What is left? Oh, the porch steps, interior steps, interior balusters and handrail, screened-in porch, staining the concrete, finishing the electrical work, finishing the plumbing work (but, wait, our plumber can't finish his job until the tile boys finish our shower), grouting the tile, cutting an air vent for the dryer, returning and crediting unused supplies, installing carpet, installing an interior door in the garage, caulking around the exterior doors, sanding and restaining the exterior doors, installing doorknobs, patching the hole in the kitchen ceiling, installing our rope lighting and dimmer switches, painting the hallway, giving our closets shelving, installing the hot water heater, refrigerator, and dishwasher, trenching for the plumbing to our garage (then covering it up), filling in around the house site with the dirt they removed to do footers, bringing in topsoil so we can have grass, dumping some more gravel on our driveway, hauling off the junk they have used to junk-up the house site, and cleaning our house of all the dusty remnants. That is all. Twelve days, that's all I'm saying. We are installing our mailbox today, at least we know that will get done. Dad has offered numerous times to finish it for us. Why, oh, why didn't we let him?!


Apparently, this situation is not unique to us. I have heard from numerous people who have built a house (through a contractor) that once the house reaches the point where it looks like it's almost complete all of the workers disappear.


On another note, our plumber has done everything he can do until this point. He has installed our toilets (which we thought were going to be low-flow but that is another story for another day) and faucets. We did have to exchange the faucets we bought for the upstairs bathroom because the extensions on the bottom were not long enough to reach through the granite. This worked out to our benefit because the faucets we exchanged them for were a bit cheaper. 


In the mean time, we have been moving boxes from Murfreesboro to Lynchburg as we can. With each trip we bring another load as we will do today. Our goal is to have only large furniture remaining by the 29th. 


Note this 'installment' (as my poppa calls it) is just a dose of reality. As I mentioned when beginning this blogging adventure, we were going to be brutally honest about our experience. One day we'll look back and laugh...maybe. Ha! Ha!