Hard Hats Not Included

When I stopped by the PJP space on Buttonwood this afternoon, I was delighted to see that it looked like a legitimate construction zone (hard hats not included).  Not only are there a wheelbarrow and a ladder in there, this is also right inside the front door:

Remember way back when I suggested I self-contract this whole thing?  Ridiculous.  First of all, I don't own a wheelbarrow (I can't even figure out what they will use the wheelbarrow for).  Second of all, the odds that I ever looked at those architect plans during construction were slim-to-none, so having a special reference table for them?  Yeah, I missed the mark on that one.  Third of all, our main man Glenn needed a pencil yesterday and so he took one of those flat pencils and because it was unsharpened, he took a knife out of his pocket and WHITTLED it to a point so he could use it.  It was impressive and clearly what separates the people-with-construction-knowledge from women-who-lack-patience-and-decide-maybe-they-could-do-it-themselves.  And as a bonus, I can mark "have a friend who whittles" off my Bucket List.

We are using Questec for our plumbing and they were all over PJP today.  I even caught a glimpse of this...

Four gold stars on organization, Questec.  And, you have made us feel very official by having a binder with our name on it.  (Again, I probably would have approached managing the plumbing job with a series of post-it notes.  I hope there isn't a note in that handbook that indicates we are clueless about plumbing and ask a lot of questions, because that would be the awkward truth and I would hate to see it in print).

Glenn and the plumbers were moving all sorts of things around today and apparently tomorrow they plan to cut some concrete and then through the miracle of pipes, we will have functioning sinks and a hot water heater.  Rumor has it, the Ecolabs dishwasher may make its debut appearance later this week and if that is the case, we plan to celebrate accordingly (meaning, with wine...which is really how we celebrate most things).

In non-construction crew news, we have decided to paint the space ourselves in effort to save money.   The theory of it almost sounded fun until people started throwing around terms like "primer" and "two coats of paint" and "scaffolding".  A drywall guy has to come and smooth out the seams in the walls before we can start.  When the drywall was originally installed, the upper 1/3 wasn't taped and sanded and made all nice because whomever did it assumed a ceiling would be installed and no one would ever see the hot mess that it is currently.  And honestly for what it is costing to make it NOT a hot mess, I was prepared to just figure something out and cover it up and/or incorporate it into our look, but the health department has rules against that.  Are you surprised?

So the drywall guy comes later this week and it will take him approximately four days to do it all...and then we can paint.  We've got it planned for next Saturday so that we can coerce everyone related to us by blood and covenant of marriage to show up with a paint brush.  We totally plan to draw straws to see who ends up on the scaffolding end of the job.