There's nothing like a couple of good contractors

While we were both dealing with the Flower Show, our contractors have been making progress.  Actually, they are almost done.

Our plumber has been wonderful.  We are excited to announce that we now have heat throughout the house and running water to all but the 1st floor bathroom and laundry room.  He got the 2nd and 3rd floor radiators up and running a couple of weeks ago, finished the baseboard radiators in the addition after that.  On Thursday, I arrived just as they finished up with the under-floor radiant heat for the rest of the ground floor.

The radiant heat is fantastic, it heats up quickly and is really comfortable at relatively low temperatures.   We are looking forward to walking around barefoot on a warm floor.  For now, it helps dry the floors when we mop.  We get nice dry stripes where all of the water lines are (sorry no photo yet).  The rest of the water should be up and running this coming week.

Simultaneously, our general contractor has been working on a laundry list of random jobs.  He too should be done this week.  Here are some before and after shots of what he's been up to.

Before:  The Cellar Stairs

Unfortunately you can't see the big crack across the entire width of the top step.  Maybe it cracked because of the sketchy supports?

After:

Before: Laundry Room Floor

After: Laundry Room Floor 

Porcelain 2" hex tile and soffit to enclose the water lines. The fin pipe floating about is a baseboard radiator that will be placed on top of the soffit and covered.   Apparently the tile was really fiddly to work with because they weren't properly spaced on the mesh.  It needs a good clean, but we're really happy with how it looks.

Before:  Front Porch

Rotten columns and peeling lead paint.

After:  Porch with a new paint job, as well as new gutters and columns (still to be painted) 

In addition we no longer have a door opening six feet above the stairs in the third floor stairwell.  We have a solid wall there now.  We'll figure out another way of getting furniture up there.  We also have a new ceiling fan in the dining room (we'll figure out lights at some point) and new railings where required.

On our end, we really haven't gotten much done.  We have started several things haven't finished any of them.  We'll update again as we complete some of them.

Update on the nasty fridge:  The township picked it up last Friday.  We're glad we cleaned it out since we were required to take the doors off.