Finished… For Now

Dearest Rachel –

So, today’s the day. The inspectors are showing up this morning, and the final payments are due. I’ve written the checks for the latter (and yes, there’s two of them – one is the final payment as originally agreed upon, and another to cover the incidental additional work done on the house, including lifting certain parts of the house in order to bring it to a level surface as needed. Incidentally, when Tim presented the bill for these incidentals, he blinked for a moment at it before muttering some inaudible invective; the page he was about to hand me was for a job he and his team have been working on elsewhere, and he’d presented my incidental bill to them, which they paid. And why not? It was some three, four hundred dollars less than the one he meant to give them. Don’t know what he’s going to do about that, whether he has to eat the mistake or if he can go back there, hat in hand, and get it resolved, but that’s not a story I’m likely to be party to), and made sure to clear out of the house for the former. Evidently, there is to be three inspectors going over the work; presumably each of them focuses on a separate aspect of the work. For his part, Tim seems quite confident that the work will pass inspection (and given that it has thus far, I see no reason that it shouldn’t – although if it does fail, that will be just one more story to tell you about, I suppose).

So, we’re done with everything now, right? Oh, how I wish.

Sure, everything is installed, up and running – and I’ve just gotten the word that everything passed inspection as well, too – but there’s always more that needs to be done. And I’m not even talking about the fact that the rooms between the ones that have been upgraded – the sunroom, the dining room, and the family room – now look all that much more like they need a similar treatment applied to them. No, I’m talking about the fact that these room that have just passed inspection still need a few finishing touches applied to them yet. You can probably see a little bit of the baseboard in the distance in the photo above, and the fact that it’s unfinished, showing the color of the wood. Even if the wood color matched with the rest of the kitchen – and it doesn’t – it would need to be varnished or otherwise sealed, I think. As it is, I think it needs to be painted to match the rest of the kitchen.

Now, if you can’t see that in the picture (and it is a small portion that’s visible, here’s another short of what needs to be taken care of, this time in the front hall:

But you’ve probably noticed something else wrong with this picture, too. Yes, that seems to have happened by accident somewhere along the way. I pointed it out to Tim at some juncture, and he admitted he wasn’t sure when it happened, but it came to light when they tore down the plastic sheeting that they’d been using to protect the house from the dust and debris as they worked. Impact damage, however, was not something that plastic could have protected against.

Perhaps next project, they ought to cover the walls in bubble wrap. I understand it was originally developed to serve as a form of wallpaper back in the day; it might be time to revisit that concept, at least on a temporary basis.

Fortunately, I did have a painter in early last week to look the rooms over and devise an estimate for taking care of these touchups (including both painting and patching) throughout the rooms that have had work done on them. And his estimate arrived sometime during my trip out to Iowa, in fact. According to Tim, his estimate is quite reasonable, so I’ve left a message with him to get back to me so we can get on his schedule sooner rather than later.

All of which boils down to the fact that the job really isn’t quite finished even yet – and once it is, there will still be the rest of the house to deal with, soon enough. I still wish I could make it to your (or Megumi’s) liking somehow, but with you gone, there isn’t much point to that, and with no indication that she even exists, there’s no way to appeal to her, so… yeah, this will have to do. I’ve got to hope she likes what’s here, if she ever shows up; and if she wants a say about the other rooms, she’d best turn up soon.

Anyway, I’ll catch up with you later. Until then, keep an eye out for me, and wish me luck.