Day Eight of Office and Bathroom Reno and Day One of Master Bedroom Reno

(Post 114 of 263. Thanks again to those who participated in the Fundrazr. As I mentioned in the post announcing Bast’s passing from COVID, I thank everyone for your generous donations to the original Fundrazr campaign, which resulted in sponsored 263 posts. I will continue to honour the commitment to write those 263 posts, but I will not commit to more. The link above is to a new campaign to help Bast’s family.)

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My contractor showed up with more guys today and said they were going to start on my master bedroom. 😳😳😳😳😳😳 He wants to deliver everything to me by midday Saturday. 😳😳😳😳😳😳😳😳😳😳😳😳😳😳😳😳 When you live in an area where contractors are notorious for being a bit lackadaisical, it’s pretty amazing to have found a crew determined to deliver on time and on budget, even when you double the original scope of work! Turns out that if you can afford to hire as many workers as the foreman needs to stay on schedule, things stay on schedule!

I’m just glad that I “jumped the gun” and got my bedroom mostly empty last week so it was just a quick dash this morning to get rid of the remaining bits.

My contractor disappeared before we had a chance to speak further, so when I caught him at the end of the day, I asked about changing all the outlets and light switches in the bedroom to three-prong and also replacing the ceiling fan. So we’re doing an other Home Depot run tomorrow. And I somehow managed to catch another ceiling fan sale. I’ve got fan luck!

The other big thing that happened today is that my ISP Izzi came to move the modem. I remain stunned by how much trauma I have left over from my 20 years of dealing with Canadian telcos and that I can’t let it go and just appreciate what I have here without always thinking back to the bullshit I had to deal with in Canada. I mean, I Whatsapped my ISP a couple of nights ago to ask about moving the modem. Yep, just sent them a text message. They replied promptly that they could do that for me, but since they very recently ran all new cable for me, there would be a 300 peso charge. Not a problem, I said. Can you please do it Thursday afternoon? Sure thing, we’ll be there between 12 and 4. Last night, they called to confirm I’d be home this afternoon, and this morning they called to confirm my technician had me on his schedule.

However, when the technician showed up, he said he couldn’t do his job properly with the other work that was ongoing. He had a talk with the contractors, had a look around at what needed doing, and said he would be back tomorrow morning to do the move. In Canada, this appointment would have taken me months to schedule, cost me hundreds of dollars, and there’s no way I could have rescheduled so easily. You can’t live through 20 years of that and not have sequelae. Case in point, I’ve got a friend in Halifax in a nightmare situation with Bell right now that Izzi would have resolved for me within 24 hours.

I’m super excited for tomorrow because it’s going to be partial move-in day! Hard to believe when there is no plumbing in yet or grout in the bathroom and I don’t have my new doors, but my contractor says the office itself will be done. After all, he delivered the most important piece today, my gorgeous new desk, which is fitting for the CEO of a successful and busy scoping company. πŸ™‚