Interior demo clarified

We found out today that the interior demolition (blowing away the back wall/fireplace in the living room) has been rescheduled for much later into construction. Whew. They'll wait until they're ready to connect the new construction with the existing house. My optimism forces me to guess "October".

Poor asbestos guy

asbestos
Originally uploaded by japunto.

I feel bad for the asbestos abatement guy who showed up on Friday unannounced. He didn't really know the details of the gig and J.D. wasn't there yet. So, he did what anyone would have done -- he rang the doorbell. How could he have known that a very hungry and tired pregnant woman who'd just gotten home from a spectacularly lousy morning with her toddler would open the door? From what I gather, the ensuing exchange was not pretty.

J.D. did show up a few minutes later and they went about their business outside. Hope he didn't take it personally.

We are still trying to figure out what the construction schedule means when it talks about "interior demolition" beginning May 1st. We've been told that they wouldn't be doing anything inside the existing house until as late as possible. I'm guessing we just don't know how to interpret the jargon, but we're eager to get clarification on it.

Signed

After an round of email clarifications with James, we signed the contract last night. This means that we need to agree on a start date now. Then, unless we change the scope of the work, it'll be an eight month countdown until it's finished. Let the games begin.

A couple of other things we're doing that I haven't mentioned: James suggested widening our driveway a bit and installing a fence to completely enclose the front lawn. This is great, as it'll really make the front yard more functional and prevent us from parking the front right wheel of the minivan on the lawn. We've really worked up a nice hole there.

We raised a concern about noise pollution in the front two bedrooms. Since the wall seperating the hallway from living room is going away, we worry about it getting too loud in there for sleeping young ones. J.D. said they can add some insulation to the remaining walls and put in thicker doors.

Contract is ready

I've said "we're going to start construction in two weeks" at least five different times by now. This time, I may be right. Our contract with the architect is ready, so we ought to be really starting for real this time.