7 - 20 Januar (Days 70-79) Almost Finished

The pace of work has slowed to a crawl--not because of contract issues or any such thing.  Things are slow because there is so little left to do--which is a good thing.  The Punch list is done with the exception of two minor issues.  The gutters are up.  The new blinds are up.  The only things that remain are the shower enclosure in the bathroom, the Audio Visual system, and those nagging punch list items.

The interior clearly has Starbucks' paw of approval.  There are plenty of sunny spots that happen to fall on soft carpets.  Perfect for a dog to relax.  The landscaping is a different issue.  Now that the work is essentially over and we can reclaim the work site.  It time for irrigation, drainage, sod and plants.  I feel my Spring being fully occupied.

The shower enclosure really should be complete except . . . when they brought the glass out last week, they discovered that they had manufactured the panels upside down.  Because the walls are not absolutely plumb (off by 3/8" over 6'), the glass had to be cut slightly out of square.  Sound OK so far--just turn it upside down.  Not so easy.  The glass panels were drilled to support towel rods.  Once you flip the glass, the towels rest on the floor.  Off to the scrap yard with those panels.  New install date is Wednesday.

We placed the final order for the A/V gear.  Only one problem.  Two of the speakers that we want are back ordered because of weather delays FROM ENGLAND.  Everything is scheduled to be on hand on 29 January with a 31 January install date.

And of curse the punch list.  As expected, it is real minor stuff.  One item is simply cleaning up the debris from the stucco job.  The other issue is the damn plastic plugs that cover up the screws in the exterior door.  Watching the door installs on this project has been like a Marx Brothers movie.  The supplier says we have the doors--then we don't have the doors--then we will install the frames with dummy doors so that work can continue--the the dummy doors (both of them) swing in the wrong direction--on the next attempt improvement is made--only one door swings in the wrong direction--then dummy doors are installed but the real doors are waiting to be found--then the real doors arrive missing the infamous screw plugs--then the screw plugs are found and someone drives all the way up from Jacksonville to install $1 worth of plastic plugs--but they are the wrong size.  I think that we have been installing doors since before the time of Rome.  It should be perfected by now.  But on the other hand, if this is the biggest issue that we have outstanding, we are in pretty good shape.