Hallelujia!

It's done.

All of it.

Every item on the punch list is crossed off. The permits are all final-ed. The kitchen countertops appear to be securely affixed to the cabinets. The bathroom marble vanity has had its scratches removed. And re-removed. The bathroom floor is level. The new sidewalk (and driveway, and drain) is in place. Bryan will pick up his last check tomorrow morning at 7:45am. And then I never have to see his *^&%$ face again.

Halle-frickin-lujia!

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Things were, I dunno, cartoon-ugly before. We were all playing out our prescribed roles as cranky homeowners, hapless workmen, surly contractors. But then, something snapped. Bryan started accusing us of ugly stuff -- of damaging things ourselves and then blaming it on his crew, that sort of stuff... even though it was clear that nobody (including us, as we'd been in Seattle) had been in the house other than him.

He did a really half-assed job on some of the punch list items. He re-damaged the newly-fixed marble countertop in the bathroom when he re-installed the sink. And then, when we called him on it, he sent Noel to do his dirty work. Which, you know, was OK. Because Noel's a reasonable guy.

Or so we thought.

Then, as we're going down the remaining punch list items with him, he says to Cameron: "You know, we're not just going to keep coming out here forever, fixing things for you."

Oh my god.

I was listening to all of this from the bedroom, as I got ready for work. If I hadn't been standing there in my underwear, I would have thrown open the door and ran him our of the house. I actually reached for the door handle... I was that mad, I didn't care.

Instead, I just sat on the bed and cried.

Cameron and Noel moved outside, and I pulled myself together. I got dressed, and headed into the bathroom to dry my hair. Just then, Noel came back in, spouting more of the same "we need to be DONE here" crap.

I lost it: "Look, Noel -- none of this crap is new. This is ALL stuff that either we've been asking you and Bryan to fix since March, or else it's stuff that your crews have damaged while fixing the other things. We want this job done, too. But for you to say you're not going to come out here and FIX stuff that we've been asking you to fix -- stuff that WE PAID YOU TO DO -- is outrageous."

He at least had the shame to look away.

Anyway, it's done. Over. Finished. Not well or nicely, which is sad. We have a few little other projects we would have loved to send their way in a year or two, but after this last episode, there's no way in hell.

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One nice thing that came out of the sidewalk re-do: We ended up with a new water-supply pipe, an upgrade that we'd toyed with doing, but wrote off as being too expensive and unnecessary -- we'd gotten some good water-pressure gains just from the new interior pipes and fixtures. But, as Pat's crew were excavating for the trench drain, they realized that the old supply pipe needed to be moved. And moving an 80-year-old pipe isn't gonna happen. So, now we have copper pipe, all the way from the meter to the faucet, which is a lovely thing. And it doesn't take a plumber to realize that the old pipe really did need to be replaced:


If you're curious, here's a Flickr set showing the whole sidewalk / driveway / drain job, from start to finish: CLICK