Thank you for all the good advice. Checking about the contract independently, checking with the bank, and staying focused on the goal, which is indeed to get the builder to follow the contract and stay within itemized sums as agreed. And as a first step, getting someone who understands the game from the inside and can tell me what to track and how. All of this makes sense and is very helpful. What I really need from them is (a) their itemized budgets for each of the line items so I know what my choices are (my original request) and (b) to keep their cost overruns out of my allowances. If they continue to stonewall and refuse to give this to me, and if they continue to claim that their cost overruns belong in my allowance line item, then we are in serious trouble. I agree that if this is the way they do business it will likely continue in the same vein, so we will have to have someone watching them like a hawk. Worst case scenario, they build the basic house without any upgrades and we lose the allowance. That would be financially preferable to not getting it finished - and they're working on a narrow margin and may want to get out of this contract (pre-upsurge in prices) if we give them an excuse. On the other hand, if I do upgrade it allows them to make a little money back, so hopefully it is in their best interest to do the right thing. Maybe they always try to confuse and/or intimidate the woman and will back down if it doesn't work. Regardless, I no longer trust them so will have to hire some sort of contractor accountant to track all of this. Thanks again for the support and wisdom!

Contractor just left. He asked to see the pictures I had so we went through them...day-by-day. He is no longer arguing with us about it. Remember the shower drain pipe we had to re-route? Well it turns out the hole left behind when the drain pipe was removed is just big enough to fit the "blower" in, so the Contractor will be blowing insulation in today or tomorrow. We had another bay that I cannot prove one way or the other about the insulation b/c it originally had a board in front of it so we cannot see how much insulation there was...but the picture I have from the end of the day that the board was taken off shows very little insulation...and that's where we have water pipes to our tub going through. The Contractor scoped it today and there isn't much there, so he's going to go ahead and cut a hole in the ceiling and blow insulation into that bay as well. That particular location will be covered by upper cabinets & crown molding so neither of us is worried about getting a "perfect" patch...as long as it's decent looking and not too obviously different from the rest of the ceiling. Yes, it would be wonderful to have a perfect patch, but in the interests of keeping things going and fairly pleasant, I'm willing to compromise with this since it won't be seen. As to acknowledging our Contractor's frustration...I've assured him that I know that most of the issues have not been his fault and I told him today that we really appreciated that he went ahead and did our tile floor despite the stop work order, etc. I've tried to identify positive things as well when I find a problem to help keep things running somewhat smoothly. Thanks for the moral support! Hopefully this problem will be resolved quickly (no more 8-9 weeks of no work!)

Yea, I hope you finally get your kitchen. A temp sink isn't a big deal - you can order a laundry sink from Ace hardware for $25 with free shipping with in store pick up (we got this one a few weeks ago and it is nice as I hated the old concrete one). And, we got a pull-out laundry faucet from Home Depot (really cheap but works and has the hose hook up). So, if you have all the plumbing in place, all the need is a new sink, faucet, and drain fittings and they can do it all under $70 or so (in less you have the sink and faucet and can make a mini wood stand for the sink). Our project cost us more as we reworked/redid a lot of the plumbing and copper and those fittings add up.

This is Margie. I got her from the "North Shore Animal League." I've had her for years, and she's my very best friend. Well, Joe said. We had 3 identical dogs and the third went missing. It looked an awful lot like yours. That's impossible, Gomer stated. I bought and paid for her. They were "Absolutely Fabulous" there. We've been together for so long, that "As Time Goes By" she is more and more a part of me. They then wondered if Margie was stolen from them, but ended up at the "Long Shore Animal Rescue." Regardless Margie belongs to Gomer and he couldn't wait to get to "Mayberry" to be among his "Friends" again.