Day 60! We made it! Well, that was Friday, and I’ve been so busy since then that I didn’t even get a chance to tell you about it. So, Friday capped off a great week (and capped of 12 weeks of work so far!). Caleb and J.J. finished tiling and grouting the backsplash, Dave finished building the pantry nook (which I LOVE, by the way), and started working on the shelves for the baking nook, while I cleaned, sanded and painted the radiator covers for the entire first floor. We were all busy, motivated by the Shakira and Beyonce channel on Pandora. (Let the record show, this was a request by the boys – they even sang along to some of the diva-tude. It was rather cute.)

Caleb and J.J. worked so fast getting that tile up the walls so that they would have time to grout everything before they left. The only thing left for them to do is a bit of cleaning and sealing the tiles and grout (which should happen Tuesday). I can’t believe that we’re at the point where we might be done with one of the phases of the job! Tile: done? How did that happen? Crazy! We also picked Caleb’s brain regarding a future project (stay tuned!) to happen after the craziness of holiday times are behind us. It was nice to discuss a future project with him, and to realize that we have another chance (if all goes well) to work with him (and J.J.) again. They’re just so delightful. Sigh.

And Dave worked so fast, too. I mean, he built an entire cabinet structure in a day and a half, basically. I was super impressed, and grateful to have such a dedicated and caring professional on the job. An excellent way to finish out 12 full weeks of work, plus countless hours of planning, phone calls, and running around on our behalf. If you need anything done, call Dave. For reals. You won’t be disappointed.

Lest I forget, Brad was also here doing some ducting for us, both in the basement and in the attic. He’ll be doing a bit of future work with us, too (I know, you’d think we were done with electrical!) which makes me happy. We love us some Brad time. So, now our dryer works again. (Some of the ducting was crushed during demo, and our dryer had been laboring, and eventually stopped getting hot because of clogged and inadequate ducting.) Like I said, we love Brad.

And, on Saturday, after the week was over for most of the Team, Team Plumbing came by (finally!) to help complete some of the tasks still left on the list, and to fix some of the issues we had with some of the install before. Carl came by early Saturday and worked for several hours getting pretty far down our list. He needed another part to complete the gas line, and some of the heating elements haven’t come in yet, so we will still need to schedule another plumbing visit. But, at least we are much closer than we were. And, despite our wish to stay sleeping on Saturday (I’m starting to feel permanently sleep-deprived, and fall asleep sooo fast now), we managed to use the momentum to our advantage, cleaning out the master bedroom, prepping and painting it the new color (Hush, Aura by Benjamin Moore). I have so much more to do, paint-wise (trim, trim, trim!), and we have so much more to sort through and organize before we can move our furniture and whatnot back into their homes, but I’m determined to keep at it. The sooner I get done, the sooner I can stop worrying about it, and start enjoying the house again. Just keep swimming.

Lucky week 13 starts today, and hopefully it’ll be the last full (uninterrupted) week of work on the house. We’ll likely have odds an ends to finish up, and might have a whole week of work in the following weeks to come, but things seem to be winding down. I’m hopeful that Dave’s work, Brad’s work and Team Plumbing’s work can get mostly done during this week. We’ll see how far we get. Until then, enjoy the spoils of day 60 (+)!