still plodding along . . .

Well, when we left things last week I, apparently being the eternal optimist, was hoping for both the stone work and the interior paint work to be finished by this post. Unfortunately, sharp eyed readers may have already observed the picture from this week looks suspiciously like the one from last week.

However, if you look closely, you will see the steps have been started. Recognizing the English language is only a concept (and a very vague one at that) to the stone masons (equalled perhaps, only by my concept of Spanish), our animated and motion filled conversations were finally reduced to crude drawings and pointing to numbers on tape measures. I felt we had reached a breakthrough of some kind since the blocks were starting to look like steps (although not exactly like I'd planned) when the stone masons simply stopped coming to work. After a few days, we noticed we were out of sand, a key ingredient for stone masons. So, more sand has been ordered and hopefully they will return to finish. I'd estimate the stone work to be more than 90 percent complete which is good; what is even better is we have not paid for 90 percent of the work so I am fairly confident they will be back before too long.

The painter is apparently enjoying this job for he is in no hurry for it to end. I told him the electricians were going to start hanging lights this week so hopefully that will speed things along. The tile guy is going to start on Tuesday and install the tile in the bathrooms and laundry room. (California Sand, for those so interested. It was on sale.)

And the kitchen cabinets finally arrived, although the packing list and installation instructions were for another job leaving me to wonder exactly whose cabinets are these? As with most things, time will tell.

So hopefully, by this time next week the interior paint, tile and stone work will all be done and the electrical finish be well underway.