Things have been kind of on simmer for awhile while we wait for the reordered cabinet which is supposedly going to be delivered tomorrow. I'm not sure whether that means to the warehouse in the urban jungle or to our house. But I'm hoping we see it this week and put this project to bed, at least as far as the contracted part goes.
For my part, I did a lot of trim painting and installing baseboard. We then spent the weekend doing the furniture shuffle to get stuff back to the kitchen area, the hardest being a huge china hutch. I was able to unscrew the top half and slide it over onto sawhorses and then using rugs, were able to slide the lower half into place on our new wood floor. (Keep in mine I am only halfway through the 6 to 8 week healing time for my three broken ribs.) We stall out on the top half. I was able to lift my side using my good arm opposite the broken ribs but my wife wasn't able to lift her side. I tried calling a few people with strong backs but everyone wasn't answering. So in the end, I used a car jack, a cut to size 2x4 and some Egyptian engineering and we got it in place.
I have also been working on repairing my office which is directly below the kitchen and got pretty beat up during the install of all the various mechanicals. Fortunately I have a ceiling system that looks like a false ceiling but actually snaps up to the bottom of the floor joists so you don't loose any headroom. So other than a couple damaged pieces I have to replace (and I still have extra panels from when I installed it), it is like putting a giant all white puzzle back together again. I've got about half of it back up and will work on the other half today.
The backsplash tile.
We met our contractor for a sit down to hash it out. In the end, he agreed to keep our original verbal agreement to tear out the incorrectly installed tile, smooth over the surface and credit us for the cost of purchasing the tile over again. I will then use that money and some more to purchase my spouses first choice of tile and install it myself later this winter. He said he would do that at the same time the reordered cabinet gets delivered and promised us that he would be gone within two days of the delivery.
It's been a painful experience living without a kitchen for five months and at the mercy of someone else and if there ever is a next time, I will do more of it myself. The only reason I contracted part of it out is because I thought it would be faster and less of a headache to not have to deal with certain aspects I really don't enjoy doing anyway. Live and learn. Once the contractor leaves for good, I plan to install the rest of the flooring and trim first, then work on building cabinets and finishing the pantry area. Then I plan to turn a narrow filler lower cabinet into a pull out spice rack and build a wine rack and a few other minor pieces for the kitchen. After all that is done, it is back to the dining and living rooms to scrape down the popcorn ceilings and redo them, maybe tear out a wall, and continue the hardwood flooring throughout. That will necessitate redoing the stair railing to our basement as well. Hopefully a lot of that can be done before spring when I need to landscape our new addition and finish painting everything that I didn't quite get done due to untimely broken ribs. Despite the list being long, I'll be doing it myself free of contractors and for that I'm excited.