One step forward, two steps back . . .

Everyone who has that awful popcorn stuff on your ceilings, raise your hands. Not too high -- you don't want to touch that horrible crap. We had it in every room, including the dining/living room adjacent to the kitchen. So we thought that as long as we have the big mess anyway, we might as well get the ceilings scraped. I thought that would be one of the first steps in the whole project.

Me, day one: "So you're going to start with the ceiling, right?"
Contractor: "Nah, we'll do plumbing and wiring first."

Me, day two: "So now you're going to do the ceiling, right?"
Contractor: "Nah, we'll do some drywall today."

Day after day they kept putting it off. But last week the ceiling was finally going to get done. Two days. Thursday and Friday. We had to move everything out as best we could and put plastic over what we couldn't move. But it's only for two days, right? Except . . .

They got the popcorn scraped off, sanded and started applying the mud. Which promptly rolled up and fell off. Thus bringing everything to a screeching halt until they could figure out why and what to do about it. Leaving us with a house like this:




Today (Monday) they decided the problem was the 100 tons of very fine dust everywhere, including our new cabinets and appliances, which was why we wanted the ceiling done FIRST. So today they put a coat of primer up. That should give the mud something to bond to. Then tomorrow they can mud, and Wednesday they can put the final coat of texture up. Which means we can finally start cleaning up this disaster area Wednesday or Thursday. If all goes according to plan, but what are the odds of that?

Our four-to-six week renovation project, now in week seven . . .