Hardscape starting

It's dry and sunny today so the place has exploded with people.

Mike the Pool Guy is in the pool drilling more holes in it.

Someone from the hardscape company is demolishing an old built-in seat under the redwood trees (concrete and planks). To do this they've had to move some of the tree protection fencing - shh, don't tell the city.

I got home from volunteering in the school library this morning to find a counter top salesman in the kitchen measuring up. I liked the way that he just said hi and carried on. Luckily I've got used to meeting strange men in my house. After he'd finished, we had a conversation about Corian versus manufactured stone versus granite. He thought manufactured stone was the way to go: a bit greener, plus harder than granite and a lot harder than Corian. He also thought that removing and replacing the existing counter top was a bad idea. He thought the shape of the current counter top left something to be desired: the overhang by the cooktop will always be prone to splitting in the heat, the breakfast bar area isn't properly supported (should be 6 inches deep, not 8 inches without support) and the bull nose at the edge of the counter top allows liquids to run into the top drawers (which it does).

The guys from Jim's Bunch are working away outside like maniacs. They appear to be putting sheathing on the roof joists on the office/laundry side. Over the weekend, in between rain showers, I took a quick look at what they'd been doing and it seemed that they'd started to install the ceiling joists there. Putting some kind of roof on the new additions would be a good thing. Everything looked pretty mucky after all the rain we had this weekend.

Can't see any action on the bedroom/bathroom addition. I wonder if they're waiting for foundation work?

We found a problem with the wall in Deep Thought's bedroom yesterday. It could be a leak, but we think it more likely that they nailed the tarpaulin to the sheetrock on her wall, causing it to splinter. Doesn't look like a big deal, but I'll be pointing it out on Thursday.

We got a very large invoice for an installment payment on Friday. Waiting for our architect to say we should pay it.