Progress Report-Mechanicals & Inspectors-2 months

Greetings from 2 months into our home renovation!  I cannot lie, my patience is wearing paper thin-almost daily I have to close my eyes and take a breath over some frustration caused by the absolute state of chaos in my home.  We lost Johnny's huge walk in closet to build the staircase which now means I share my closet with him and June.  We have holes in ceilings and walls in every single room of the house from plumbing, wiring, and support beams that have been installed.  I have a hot water heater so close to my bed, I can touch it.

When I last reported we were finishing up the plumbing and mid-way through the framing.  Framing is now finished (with the exception of a few built-in decorative requests we've made-including exposing the brick fireplace on the landing of the staircase and adding built in book shelves to the window seats in both of the bedrooms).  Our framing inspection is (fingers crossed) tomorrow, and double fingers crossed that #1 the city inspector actually shows up and #2 that we actually pass on the first go around b/c if not we must fix issues and reschedule (see #1).  We passed our plumbing inspection on the first try, granted it took 3 days of no shows before the inspector actually showed up.  He took 2 minutes to pop his head upstairs and say "looks good, where do I sign?".  Electrical also went smoothly, and we passed on the first go-around, and he showed up when scheduled.  A word on inspection days-When you have an inspection scheduled, the subcontractor must be present, there is no guaranteed time that said inspector will show up, so the subcontractor must sit at your house and wait.  Curtis, our wonderful electrician, is now like the 6th member of our family.  On the morning of his inspection he showed up at our house about 7:30 and sat at our kitchen table and chatted with me until about noon when the inspector finally showed up.  I mean, as much as I enjoy sharing my coffee and breakfast with someone, sometimes you just aren't in the mood to hang out with your electrician in your pjs!  I gave up long ago on actually being up and dressed before people start showing up.  We failed HVAC on the first go around, but managed to get that one fixed quickly and have now passed.

The framing inspection is all that stands between us and sheetrock.  The windows were delivered today, and are currently sitting on our front porch b/c the window delivery men are "not allowed to do stairs"-riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.   So, we were all excited to get the windows installed since it is forecasted to be the coldest night that Atlanta has seen in decades tonight, but silly us, apparently you can't install windows if it is below freezing.  So the windows will continue to sit.  Sheetrock was delivered on christmas eve by the likes of Beavis and Butthead who actually told me we might not be able to sheetrock our space b/c there was no way to get all the sheetrock upstairs-riiiiiiiiiiight, so I'll call the builder and tell him the remodel is off b/c the sheetrock is too heavy? And really, by no way, they actually mean no way other than carrying all 80+sheets one at a time up the driveway, in the back door and up two flights of stairs.  7 hours later, the sheetrock was off the truck and upstairs where it continues to sit until we pass the framing inspection.

We've ordered flooring (all hardwoods upstairs), decided on architectural shingles for the roof, and opted to save money somewhere and decline the spray foam insulation in the attic.  From here we must pass framing inspection, then windows get installed, insulation gets installed, sheetrock, floors installed, and then we are onto finishings from there-light fixtures, bathroom fixtures, trim packages, paint colors etc.  Last week el hefe estimated we'd be done by the end of January early February-I'm not holding my breath on that one, but it sure is a nice thought!