(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.)

😳
😳
😳

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. 🙂

(This is not one of the 263 sponsored posts.)

I just entered Bonita in People Magazine’s World’s Cutest Rescue Dog Contest. One of the prizes if she wins would be a 1,000USD donation to Evolución Animal A.C., the refuge that took such good care of her for the ten years between her rescue and us finding each other. I think that the care she got there can best be summarized by the fact that Bonita is food secure. Even living with 200+ other dogs, she has knew her next meal would come and so she doesn’t steal food or scarf it down. She is very lucky that they found her.

Evolución is having financial difficulty at this time. They’ve had to reduce paid staff and are struggling to feed all the animals. They recently put out a call for donations. If you love animals and are looking for a charity to support, this is a good one that will use your money wisely.  Here are all the ways you can donate, with PayPal being probably easiest for foreigners: paypal.me/EVOANIMAL

(Post 113 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.)

I thought a lot happened yesterday. Ja ja ja ja.

The first thing that happened today was that I had to go back out to the tile place to get more tile since the tile place miscalculated how much tile I’d need. Augh. At least, I misunderstood my contractor last night that we’d need eight boxes more rather than eight total. So we only needed four more. The lady at the store remembered me and offered, without my asking, without my even mentioning that they’d goofed with their measurements, 25% off my purchases today since I had to come back. Just goes to show that a little sweetness goes a long way. I bet if I’d gone in angry and demanding a refund on my delivery fee, I would have gotten nothing. Instead, I basically got a box of tiles free!

I also picked up an absurdly expensive toilet seat (Did you know slow close/quiet seats are a thing? I didn’t. It was love at first sight.) since they had Helvex branded ones. I was surprised that Home Depot sells the Helvex toilets but makes you go off brand for the seat. They do that with a lot of products — like if you buy a ceiling fan that needs an extension, you cannot get the extension that goes with your fan and have to MacGyver yourself one from whatever they do have. It’s a very silly store. But I digress! On to the Day 7 progress!

(Post 112 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.)

My contractor had personal issues to deal with yesterday, so nothing happened. He thinks he can catch up in the evenings, but I’m thinking we’ll need an extra day. At any rate, lots happened today!

(Post 111 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.)

Today was the Home Depot run for bathroom fixtures. My contractor, Adrián, is so amazing! He was very patient as I hemmed and hawed and tried to find something I’d like from a rather limited selection and displayed items not being in stock. I do have to give myself credit, though, because I was able to look at was there and make a satisfied choice of what was available rather than holding firm to a vision and making myself unhappy for not being able to realise that vision. So instead of a vintagey bathroom, it is going to be super modern! That actually goes with my plan to make the office look different from the rest of the house. For my other bathrooms, I plan to buy from special-order faucet catalogues to have more selection.

But this little bathroom needed to come in on budget because the reno overall is right at budget now. Adrián had said he could bring me in for around $50,000 all-in for his part of things. With the floor surprises and my very pricey custom chair, I’m now at close to $90,000. My hard budget was $100,000. Sounds like a scary number, but that’s still only 5,000USD and includes a full bathroom, custom doors, a stone desk, and, the aforementioned very pricey chair, so I’m getting a lot for my money!

Some items on the list turned out to be easy. For the mirror, I was fine with just a plain mirror since the tile does have a pattern and I think a frame would look too busy. I spotted a mirror in the correct dimensions with a little shelf under it and Adrián went “That’s the one. You’re not going to otherwise have anywhere to put things down.” We were both surprised by how absurdly reasonable the price was, around $1,000. The accessories — towel bars, toilet paper holder, and robe hook — were tougher. The one I wanted was out of stock. The next closest looked okay, but I was worried would be a cheap chrome-finish plastic that would not wear well, so I was happy when I opened up the box at home and the pieces had heft to them.

The sink was the biggest question mark. I wanted something like this, a basin over a concrete slab, and Adrián said that was a great idea and would be inexpensive as long as I didn’t want the in-wall taps!.

Home Depot had this exact sink in miniature, but as we looked at it, we both realised that the taps I had spent all that time picking out wouldn’t work. Neither one of us liked the drop-in sinks that would fit the taps, and I absolutely did not want an all-in-one sink and MDF cabinet that would look like crap in a few years. Adrián made me leave the sinks and took me to pick out a light fixture. That was way easier than he expected — I found the bathroom light fixtures section, quickly eliminated anything pretty, and picked out a very sleek modern LED fixture that turned out to be a bargain purchase!

Next, we grabbed a shower curtain rod. All that was left was the sink. I asked Adrián what he would do. “I’d sort of stick to your vision, but for the size of the space, I’d do a round basin instead of a square one, and then change the faucet to a taller single-handle one in that style you told me you’re not keen on.” I decided I really wanted that style of sink so I was willing to compromise on the faucet. Back we went to the faucet aisle and… I almost immediately found the perfect faucet to match the shower taps! It wasn’t even on display, but I spotted it in a box underneath the display! It had been so hard to initially find a matching set of shower and bathroom taps that we knew the bathroom gods had just blessed our design! 😆

I keep finding little details that have been taken care of without my asking about them, like this cable runner for the AC copper grounding wire.

I’ll add painting it to my sign-off list, but knowing them, I’m sure it’s already there.

I’m thrilled with the progress this week and have been promised my office will be done by next Friday! So now, I have to schedule Izzi to come move my modem. We want that done before sign-off day because the last time they were here, the installer made a lot of damage to my new exterior paint job. The hope is that if he can be here at the same time as the crew, he can be better directed and then the crew can patch up if necessary.

Onward to work. I have two days to catch up before the work starts up again!