Karen's Quilt
I talked to the contractor today about the missing ten inches. He had all this logic on his side. Something about the studs and if they went to the next stud that the balcony door would open past the opening. This not being good. And as it was I could put another cabinet on that wall. I fell for it.
But tonight, I'm looking at the kitchen itself and measuring things. If the studs are 16" apart as they are in the cut out part, then taking the cut out another 16" is not even close to where the balcony door opens out. So unless the wall studs are not regularly placed, I again don't see why I can't have what was planned. And even then. So they do some carpentry and finish the cutout without a wall stud being handy. I'm paying really big bucks for this kitchen redo, if it costs an extra couple of hundred to get exactly what I want then I'll do it.
The contractor will be here again Monday morning before I leave for work. He can explain in person why I can't get what I really want. For some reason he has resisted the cutout since I proposed it. I'm not sure why...originally I thought it was because he didn't think I knew how much it would cost me. But obviously we're past that point. I'll let you know how Monday goes.
Day two of demolition is recorded in flickr below. The apartment is not as dust ridden as I had thought it would be. There's a definite dust factor in the living room but nothing near what I had feared. However, the plans I signed off on said the wall would be cut out 61". I measured and he only cut it out 51". So I will have to haggle with them over that 10 inches. It's important because the design inside the kitchen was based on those measurements. As is, it leaves 10 inches of wall blank. Unused. Not acceptable. I'm paying big bucks for this kitchen. I will not accept less than what my BF Natalie and I planned.
Demo began on my kitchen today. I uploaded some photos but so far they're not appearing on the flickr site on the lower left. But there's debris in my dining room packed in with the new cabinets. The fridge is in my living room...how handy! Want a fresh beverage? And my kitchen is gutted. Click into my flickr account to see the pics.
Major improvement in my broken shoulder situation today: The doctor said I could lose the sling! I still have a long way to go with physical therapy but the doc said he was sure that I would get back to where I was before.
On a totally different note, today my car's odometer turned 77,777 miles. Yahtzee!
On top of a totally lousy weekend on call, I just flushed the toilet and realized the water is cut off to my condo. No water out of the kitchen faucet. I don't even want to know why.
The weekend started out with planned work on Friday night. I had a database to migrate but we wouldn't get to start until 7pm. Late in the day Friday that turned into 9pm. Then the Windows admin guy got a late start and he didn't finish his part until 2:30am. I worked through my stuff with problems caused by other than me, and barely finished before the apps folks were due to start at 6am. I was peppered with calls Saturday afternoon.
Then today, it was a Unix work weekend. Meaning lots of servers down and lots of filesystems being messed with. Calls all afternoon. Nothing because of something my group did, all because of errors of other people's. Calls all evening. Even some for development stuff that are supposed to be email only, not calls. I am so tired. Last page was 11:20pm.
So I have no idea what this no water thing is and I'm not even going to try to cope. My plan is to go to bed and deal with it in the morning. I can only hope it will resolve itself and I'll be able to shower when I get up.
Update: And another call at midnight. People, leave me alone! I need to sleep! I emailed my group that I would unset my alarm and they would see me whenever. Please, this has to be the last call of the weekend.
And, I tested, still no water.
I have dates for my kitchen redo! August 20th the demolition will start. The following week they will do the electrical work and the week after the tile floor and the cabinets. Then they will make a template of the countertop and it will be seven to ten days before that is ready. Then, I'm guessing another three days or so to install the countertop and the backsplash. So HGTV!!