Really? Now?

Things are progressing at lightening speed here in kitchen remodeling land. So far every contractor I had previously spoken to has shortened their predicted lead time by as much as three weeks. Everybody, that is, except the floor people. When the electrician came to look at the kitchen 10 days ago he told me it would probably be three weeks after he gave me his bid before he could come out. Last Wednesday I received the bid, mailed the deposit on Thursday, called Friday morning to tell them they should have my deposit and to please put me on their schedule. We didn't feel any pressure to have the kitchen completely gutted last weekend because I knew it would be at least two to three weeks before there would be any electrical work. That's why we spent Sunday reorganizing instead of gutting. Well, that and our muscles hurt so bad we could barely move.

Monday morning at 8:00 a.m. my phone rings at work. It's the electrician. I'm thinking, cool, I should get on the schedule in plenty of time to be finished before the end of the month. But what he says is, "I hear you called Friday and wanted to be put on the schedule. Can we come out this morning?" I'm speechless. "uh, uh, well, uh, um, really? now?" ... I'm thinking, holy cow! the kitchen's not completely gutted but I can't tell him not to come out. So I explained what was left to do, two very nice electricians came out and began working. That meant Monday night Dean and I were up until almost midnight on Monday pulling out the ovens, the center island and cooktop, the sinks, and anything else leftover. Honestly it went so smoothly I still can't believe it. No plumbing disasters, strained backs, broken bones, cuts, and not even any arguing. I think it helped that I let Dean be the boss and I was in charge of cleanup, and added muscle when needed.

So now the electrical work is completed until it's time to finish up after the cabinets are in and backsplash is tiled. In the meantime my drywall guy called and came out yesterday to look at what needed to be repaired and textured. When I called to set up the initial appt. he told me he was book for about three weeks. Guess who's coming tomorrow to begin drywall work?

The only glitch in this whole process so far (knock on wood) is the plumbing and that's only because we didn't get a piece of the floor replaced last night. Otherwise he would have been out this morning putting in the gas line for the stove. I should explain that we would have had the board in except it wasn't until it was all measured, cut and the area trimmed and ready that Dean discovered Sutherlands had grabbed the wrong thickeness of board when they cut a smaller piece for us and by then it was past store hours. I could hear that bad, bad word all the way in the basement when the thickness problem was discovered.

The wood floor guys told me they were booked for eight weeks but they juggled things around and I'm on the schedule in only six short weeks. So instead of six weeks of worrying about and/or trying to get the electrical, plumbing and drywall work done before floor time, it looks like we'll be sitting around twiddling our thumbs for six weeks. I'm not complaining though. I wouldn't mind sitting down and twiddling my thumbs for a while.

Here's the lastest visual representation of our life.

And my temporary kitchen.

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Really? Now?