...but that's because Matt decided to shift gears slightly, figuring that the sink and toilet are fairly self-contained projects and that he was going to tackle things that are pre-cursors to other parts of the process.
So, that means that over the last week he and I have been slipping out there to hang a door or two here and there, and then later to install the latch hardware. These doors (and their five siblings) have been living in our existing basement for the last year since we purchased and finished them last summer. What a nuisance that was, trying to find room to keep seven doors in an already small-and-packed-with-other-building-supplies basement, but how lovely to be able to just hang them up now that we're ready for them!!
There's one more to install upstairs, and then two in the basement that won't be going in for a while yet, but that's okay, because Grandma doesn't need the basement finished before she can move in! That level is completely our space.
Tonight Matt got the subfloors swept and then wiped down to prepare for any last leveling compound, because the next step upstairs is putting in the cherry floors!
And lastly, despite the "only work on tasks necessary for Grandma to move in" goal, having rosin paper down on the floors of the entry/office landing was too much for Matt, and he's over the course of a few smaller chunks of time gotten that primed, first coat on, and tonight is finishing the last color's second coat. Now when we take up that rosin paper, it will be for the last time! It also means that Matt was able to get another light fixture put in, getting one more thing out of the existing basement and where it belongs.
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| Pictures are always more interesting with people in them, so Owen obliged me by standing up on the stool so I could get him in the photo of the office light fixture. ;) |
Coming up is one last whole-scale cleaning as the concrete finisher will be back on Thursday or Friday to do the last coat of [very stinky] sealer, while the addition is still olfactorally (is that a word?) separate from the part of the house that we're currently living in. After that final coat is on and dry (and not stinky) we can remove the window and wall that separate the two halves of the house. We'll also be ready to install trim, which has been ordered and is ready to be delivered as soon as we say so.
I believe I mentioned it before, but want to mention again how God was right to have us wait for some of these things. Over the last few weeks I am seeing more and more how his schedule is part of the way he is providing for the funds to make this project happen. We have not once had to put anything on hold because we lacked adequate cash flow. The work has been on hold, or super slow speed, at many times, but
never,
not even once because we did not have the money to pay for the next step. God has simply faithfully supplied what we needed when we needed it. I'm not trying to suggest that projects will never be on hold because of funding, but simply that this was specifically an area that God demonstrated was one of the ways he was expecting us to trust him a year and a half ago, and here we are, a year and a half later, with no debt after spending more than five times our normal yearly income on these two endeavors (the addition and the adoption). It's pretty exciting to be sitting here with just over $400 in our checking account tonight knowing that we're not going to be left hanging here at the end. Matt's abundance of work means he has less time to put in on the addition, and more money to do it with. Even the "terrible" news that the sump pump had been left unplugged and there was water in the basement stud cavities ended up being a piece of all this. The water turned out to be a very simple to resolve problem, but before we knew that, we already had an agreement to retain a portion of the invoice, so there's $1200 that ought to have been paid, but isn't, so we're not $800 short in our checking account today. ;) And by this time next week when that work is done, we'll have the money to pay for it.
Wow.
They who wait on the Lord will not be disappointed. It's only me who thinks things need to be done at a certain time.
ps. Matt just came in and says he learned what happens when you try to clean up hastily. You step back into a five-gallon bucket of ceiling paint, soaking your shoe, and resulting in your sock being thrown away. So there, now you know, and you don't have to try it yourself!
