Day 15 (Oct 24)
This was the Drama Day! Counters were scheduled to be installed today, and the guys were supposed to arrive betw 9-11am and would take somewhere between 2-4hrs to finish the work. Turns out I had a 1:30 mtg at IBM that was face-to-face. This rarely happens anymore. 99.9% of my meetings are teleconferences to which I call in. So that made for complicated scheduling. Someone needed to be here to approve of the final work, but there was really very little chance I could coordinate that with my schedule. Add on top of that, the installers called in the morning and said they were running behind.

Remember the glitch from yesterday ... the sink? I called Home Depot in the morning and they had it. Getting there (against traffic) wouldn't be a problem in the morning, but getting back home in morning traffic was not something with which I wanted to deal. So I decided to wait until the guys arrived to install the counters. I'd let them in and run up to get it so they could cut the hole out for the sink. That all fell apart when by 11am they had not arrived and I had no update as to when they would arrive. Thankfully our designer, probably trying to win back points she lost in other execution issues w/ the kitchen cabinet order, offered to go get the sink for me. We ordered a cast iron sink. Even between the two of us, it would be too heavy to lift. She's a very petite woman, and I am restricted from lifting heavy things and this point. So she went to HD and had them put the sink in her trunk. She also finally got ahold of the installers to find out they were very delayed. So I left for my mtg and she agreed to be around when they needed to be let in to start on the counters.

After 4pm I called our designer. She was at our house but just about to leave. They guys were installing the counters but wouldn't be done until 8pm! Crazy! So, she left them to work and I came home a little after 7pm to monitor things and sign-off on the installation. When I arrived home I was greeted (more like a smack in the face) by very heavy fumes from the adhesive they use on the laminate. WOW! Luckily I had closed off other rooms in the house and could retreat to the office on the opposite end of our small home. Around 8pm the counters were done. I inspected them and headed out for some dinner.

I think the counters look really nice. Doug and Gary agree. :) They provide a real grounding sense to the kitchen and help balance out the light cabinets and flooring. Here is a photo I took this morning. I was waiting for daylight to take the photos, but we're having all-day rain here ... so the sun is nowhere to be found.