C-Day Arrives...and Leaves

Today was supposed to be punch list day, which we might also term Completion Day. Over the course of last week, this became reframed as "punch list for the interior" day. In the event, it was not completion day at all.

Don't get me wrong: The project is very close to being finished (at least inside the house), but every room has something in it that needs completing, tweaking, fixing, touching up, etc. On the instructions of Site Supervisor II, I went round the house - though not the family room/ bathroom/ bedroom end - this morning with a pad of paper and some painters' tape, obsessively opening drawers, looking for scuff marks, and such like; and I sent him a list of 29 items requiring attention. Since sending it, I've spotted two more, but 29 seems like enough to be getting on with for now.

The list includes things like electrical receptacles unfinished, the phantom screens on the office windows being sticky, some minor dry wall damage in the dining room, scratches on the top of the dresser in the master bedroom.... By themselves, nothing major, but adding up to enough work to keep them busy for a few more days at least.

The only rooms that are finally complete are the master bathroom and Deep Thought's room, which were having only minimal work done to them anyway. The guest bedroom looks done, but then you discover that the lights inside the closet have not been wired in. The family room looks done, but then you open the TV cabinet and discover that the shelves where the DVD player and other kit should sit are not straight as the holes for the pegs to hold them have not been drilled at the same level (I kid you not). The office looks done, but the desk grommets need to be secured in place and the screens need correcting. You get the idea.

To say that SS2 is frustrated by the lack of finishing would be an understatement, I think. The cabinet makers reached the top of his hit list again last week, having made medicine cabinets for the guest bathroom that were too large to allow the light fittings to go between them (despite the light fittings having been in our garage for three months). Hubby is also getting pretty fed up with the endless fiddling about that is required at this stage. I am trying to be stoic about it as I have to live with it - and answer multiple questions every hour on all manner of subjects, from handle placement to likely mode of using the windows.

The two big steps forward of the day seem have been having door handles (well, actually finger cups) added to the office doors, which now look rather stylish; and the finalization of the cable man's work on the telephone, ethernet and cable installation. We now have a "smart panel" on the wall in the TV cabinet that should eliminate any need for ugly grommets and wires on show.