The stress builds and you never know what will trigger the tears and/or breakdown. I am at the stage where we have a lot of progress made but are stuck for approx a week now and there are issues. I can't imagine how so many professionals can make so many mistakes. I think that on the whole, the people we have are good at what they do, but that they plunge ahead at times and catch mistakes after the fact. In the past 3 weeks: First: Out of 18 cabs to be delivered, they delivered 5 and told me that it always looks like less when I questioned how little I was getting. It took 4 days to get the rest of my order delivered(and still had some pieces missing, yet they sent me extra cabs). Needless to say, the plumber, electrician, installers, etc... got their schedules messed up by this and I have not been able to get it all back on track. My gc is away on vacation this week, yet he forgot to tell me he was going. Since he went, I don't know who will show up on any day, if anyone. The few subs who have come have not stayed for more than an hour or 2. The electricians installed 2 fans in our screened in porch, the switch for the one on the right was on the left and vice versa. There is a leak in our old laundry room where the plumber charged us $1k to rework all the pipes to bring it up to code. Our island has a back with cubbies in it, so the cab installers put wood under it so that the counter would transition smoothly into the cubbies. Turns out, they put a 1.5" thick piece of wood instead of a 3/4" piece, so it has to be removed, changed out and the fills need to be reworked.. all before the counter guy can install the counters. Since the counter guy can't come, the plumber can't install my kitchen sink.... so the plumber has not come back to install our dw, toilet, icemaker for freezer, install our washer/dryer in our new laundry room on main level and install the propane for our stove. I can understand that he won't come for an item or 2, but there is plenty for him to do without doing my sinks (see below about bathroom sink issue). Our venthood was installed at 27" over our island, but worse than that, they installed it before the island was put where it will end up. Now, they have to uninstall the hood and move it 3" to the side and 3" back. Obviously, they can take that opportunity to make it the correct height. Of course, I had hustled to get the ceilings primed and painted over there and now they will be ripped apart. Our bathroom faucet was bought for a steal as it retails for over $600 and I got it for $65, delivered, on ebay. I took the top part to the fabricator so he could drill the hole for it and left the "guts" at home in its special box. A few days ago, the plumber was here to install it and the box is nowhere to be found. It had been lost among the materials a few years ago, so dh and I are very aware of what the box looks like and I imagine it was not light since it had parts in it, but it appears that someone other than us threw it out. I contacted the mfr (Jado)and it has been discontinued and they can't seem to locate any parts for it. I may have to buy a new one with our budget already at the breaking point. Prior to that: They installed our eyebrow window wrong. I made it clear it does not look like the plan and I do not like how it came out from the exterior. They keep telling me they will fix it when the weather is better, but it is better and now I keep hearing how they are working on other people's exteriors because the weather had pushed their schedule back. We have our old gutters literally hanging off our house and on the ground, yet the gutter guy is nowhere to be found. Just about every light or electric fixture had a wire pulled through the ceiling or wall for it, all had to be moved when we set up the rooms for real. The electrician swears he did not pull the wires through the ceilings (accessible through the attic, so not needed ahead of time). I painted kitchen walls as told and then they moved the outlet for the mw and made a big mess on the wall that I had to repair and repaint. The biggest stressers are money is tight and we have been in the bsmt for 13 weeks and have no definite end in sight. We were supposed to be out by March and yet our main level is a construction zone and my only working real appliance is a wall oven. I have a countertop convection oven and a toaster oven in our temp kitchen in the bsmt, so that is not the appliance I'd want working first! The only bright side is we don't have to pay the balance until the work is done, so the delays are giving us more time for dh to get paychecks before then, but this mess is keeping me from working much and I am on commission, so earning much less than normal. Sigh....

Just saw this. I hope all went well yesterday and you land a great job that you will thrive at and be a blessing to many.

Thanks! It was a very mild tropical storm as storms go. They were calling for lots of rain and high winds. We got the winds but not much rain at all! Not like last year with Igor at all when we lost power for 3 days. No damage, no trees down, no power outages at all. It's still windy this morning but sunny!

Thanks so much Moni...I just painted my fingernails red and I have on a red sweatshirt too. I love that you have taken up our cause. I get to skip chemo this week 3 on and one off is my protocol . I have a visit with the oncologist and of course have blood drawn but that's it. I receive so many nice notes from people here at the KT and people signing my guest book at CaringBridge.