Come and gone

Hard to believe we've been in the house a month already, although in many ways it feels like we've been here forever.  Last week the builder came back from holiday to finish the last little bits--you know, painting, tiling, bricklaying, plastering, carpentry, etc.

He was here for three days.

The most embarrassing bit was the plaster in the living room.  When we were planning the house, we talked about moving the TV to the other side of the room, but the electrician "didn't touch TV cables." (!)  Instead he referred me to someone who, like most of the people we've met on this project, came to the house to give me a quote, and then disappeared.  By the time I chased him down, the builders had already put down the flooring and it was too late to do anything, so the TV was stuck.  Of course, I could drill a hole on the other side of the bay window and reroute the cables myself, but that was crazy and in any case I didn't have the tools.

Then the builder went on holiday and left his tools here, including a heavy duty hammer drill and collection of long masonry bits.

To my credit, I did spend quite a bit of time figuring out the best way to route the cables.  However, at no point did I question whether I should do it at all.  In addition, I drilled from the outside, and if you've ever seen a bullet exit wound, you can imagine what that hammer drill did to the new plaster.

I did clean up but apparently I missed some dust on the sofa, and when Jess got home it didn't take her long to track it back to the large hole hidden behind a giraffe and covered up by a piece of paper that read, "Sorry, will fix soon."  Well, the builders fixed it and it looks just fine.  However, Jess doesn't like the TV on this side of the room and wants to move it back.