OK, our project is not exactly a well-oiled machine of closely-scheduled contractors. We’ve had many days of no work fine at all, then here and there someone shows up, does a few hours of work, and leaves again. I don’t think it’s been even eight hours of work yet, even though we started 10 days ago.

This is all right – we’re not on some tight schedule – but I’m looking forward to having interior access to our laundry room and garage back some day, hopefully sooner than later. It’s pretty inconvenient carrying all our laundry out the front door, through the garage, and into our laundry room. With all this in and out, we have a hard time remembering if the garage door is open, too, and have narrowly missed leaving it open all night several times. However, I remain grateful that we don’t have to go to a laundromat or carry our laundry long distances normally.

Anyway, on Thursday afternoon “Builder Dave” and “Builder Jim” (as Benji says) came, cut some holes in the ceiling and walls, and planned how to run the heating duct to our bedroom. It’s not far, but one water pipe to our bathroom has to be shifted to the side a bit. Jim assured me it was “no big deal,” but I remain skeptical.

Friday morning, Jim came over again and finished cutting the wall and ceiling for the duct to go in.

This resulted in a tremendous amount of wallboard dust, which got everywhere throughout the house despite the oh-so-convenient plastic sheeting. I cleaned up a bit in the remodel area, a possibly futile effort, but it’s still inside the house and I have to maintain some standards, right? A shop vac would be really useful, but I managed with a broom (mostly… There are still some dusty bits I couldn’t sweep).

Now we’re cooling our heels waiting for the duct guys to call and tell us when they’ll come and do the work. Supposedly that’s some time today, but goodness knows when it will actually happen. After that it’s inspection time, then fixing the drywall and doing the tile. Then we clean up a bunch and breathe a sigh of relief – or, hopefully in my case,  finally sleep soundly again.