Renovation Report: Weeks 20 & 21

It's time for another renovation report and I am combining week 20 (the week we were away) and week 21, last week. The report for Week 20 is a little odd because we left on the Sunday with some things left to be done and arrived home on Friday to an empty, clean house.

They hung the mirror in Sam's bathroom.

They put the topper on the last stair.

They finished painting in the (old) office, the hallway, and the basement stairwell.

The dumpster was out of our driveway, and, most importantly, all of the construction supplies were cleared out of all of our rooms. And the cleaners had come through so everything was clean!!!

Last Monday, we came home and they had started to build the back porch. Additionally, Sam had used his new shower for the first time on the weekend and we discovered that they had forgotten to seal a piece of the door so it leaked all over the bathroom. So that got fixed!

More railing supports have been added here.

There were clearly still supplies in our driveway. However, at some point in the week, I came home and helped the workers identify the last few things they had stored in our garage so that was cleared out.

Sam's towel bars got hung...

...and the light bulbs for our basement light finally arrived! Whooo hooo!!!

And on Wednesday, the back stairs were completed...

...and our backyard and driveway got cleaned up.

 

There are still three small things left to do but on Thursday, for the first time in months, no one was working at our house. One thing left is to pick up a mirror which was ordered for us but was too big for the space. Another thing is to deal with the piles of dirt from digging the windows, but the piles are currently frozen so they have to wait for them to thaw. The last thing is to install a deadbolt in our back door.

 

Then later in the spring, the workers will come back to finish one final piece of weather dependent work.

 

Learnings from the past weeks:

 

We shouldn't have actually been sleeping in the new rooms until the city officially allowed it. Ooops. We didn't know that :)

 

What defines "done"? The main question we've been asked (and we are asking it too) is "Is the renovation actually done?" We thought that would be easy to answer but here's the thing. What defines "done"?

Are they done working on our house? Mostly. There are just a few small tasks left.

Is our building permit still up? Yes.

Are the workers coming every day? No, nor do they need to.

Did we pass our final house inspection with the city? Yes.

Do we have full use of our house? Almost.

 

Is the contractors' sign still on our front yard? Yes.

 

As I said above, what defines "done"? So with that, I declare the renovation done. Allow me to paraphrase TS Eliot's "The Hollow Men" as this is what has been running through my mind the past week:

 

This is the way the [renovation] ends 
Not with a bang but a whimper.

This will be the last "renovation report" I'm writing for the blog (although I reserve the right to change my mind on that!). I will write a few "post-renovation reports" but not weekly. Thank you for cheering us on through this process, being excited with us, and reading all the nitty gritty (dusty!) details of our house renovation.