(Post 166 of 263)

Just bla bla bla today because I’m not happy with the video.

It was decided to continue work next week because phase I is done and it made no sense to bring out a crew for two half days as there would have been a late start today because of my early Pilates class. I was happy with that because it’s a lot of people time in a week now since I have the Pilates. I also have a bottleneck to get through at work, so two solid days to just scope will be a gift. All the big stuff is in — fans, ACs, and, yay, the upstairs toilet (my contractor finalised that today) so I don’t have to keep using the one downstairs, which is very far away in the middle of the night! I’m going to do a good clean so we can start fresh Monday with painting!

We settled our accounts for Phase I. I had a budget range of $8,000 to $12,000 as the expected total for both labour and contractor-provided materials for Phase I, depending on how many surprises we got. By last night, I was thinking the $12,000 because the AC had to go to the repair shop. Labour and his costs came to $9,600, and then I paid a further $2,300 for contractor-provided materials, for a total of $11,900. That includes getting the AC compressor repaired! So we were spot on. I’m definitely not going to be nervous going forward doing projects with him that don’t have a fixed budget, especially if he keeps using that electrician and plumber.

In other good news today, the insurance company has come up with a number to reimburse me and it is several thousand pesos higher than I’d dared hoped for! I’m still out money, but not enough to cry over. I still have to go to the police station on Monday to get the reports to finalise the file, but I think this might actually resolve in my favour!