Properly Appraised and Making Progress: It's Official

Mysterious activity outside the house today by a bunch of Spanish speaking guys I've not seen before. They seem to be trimming the stucco back from the exciting shiney flashing. Well...ok.

Damien the Irish Concrete Guy has been here with his crew reforming around the walkways in the front yard. They demolished the incorrect concrete yesterday and cleared up today, new rebars, new forms, touching up and tweaking. Damien spent twenty minutes with a leaf blower - no exaggeration - creating a big cloud of dust, apparently making sure that the front door step is completely clean. I now hesitate to step on it at all. Damien tells me that the concrete will be poured for sure tomorrow (unless it rains, which it is not forecast to do). By the time Hubby returns from his trip to Baltimore, there should be hard concrete upon which to walk to the front door. Whoopee doo!



Inside, the office is really starting to take shape. Two of Jim's Bunch have been working all day installing the cabinets. We have four cabinets with lateral files, the desk tops, and book cases. It's actually looking like a room at last. We also had two people over today to give quotes on the wood floor for the office and the bedroom.



At lunchtime the appraiser from our insurance company popped by to have a look. I got a call yesterday to say he was coming, so I was able to ask Site Supervisor II to make sure that the fire extinguishers were in the right places. The fence that the appraiser had asked to be erected between the front and back yards was not there, but he could clearly see the men working away on the concrete forming in exactly that place, so that did not create any issue. My only worry is that when the job is finished, the appraiser will insist on pushing our house rebuild value over the magic threshold ($1.5 million) at which the insurance company will require us to install sprinklers and an alarm system. When he came out to do the appraisal in September, before our work started, he valued the rebuild at $1.45 million.... That was before we added the kitchen remodel and a bunch of other stuff. Luckily, this figure doesn't include the pool or any of the hardscape.

Writing another check for the house remodel work today. So far we've paid just over $400,000. This time round, we even have the money in the back account already! Nice.