Final inspection complete

It's my 29th post, and I guess it's my last.  We are officially finished with the project in the eyes of the City of Webster Groves -- although we have a long to-do list of minor tasks to accomplish -- and we are starting to feel "normal" again.  Grass seed is starting to grow (largely thanks to Jeff's parents, Ken and Paulette!), our little path of paving stones from the driveway to the front porch is in place, and we are getting used to the surprising views out of each of our windows!

Compared to...

At last, at last

After a mere 83 days, we are back in our house.  Appropriate I guess since the house was built in 1883, but I was really hoping for a couple of weeks ago!  We have most of our power, including to the electric hot water heater, but not including washer/dryer yet.  No A/C, but luckily the weather outside is cooler than a St. Louisan has any right to expect in August.  Hopefully it will be connected tomorrow.  What can I say:  it's GREAT to be back home.

Next up:  getting everything unpacked, repairing some plaster cracks and repainting, and getting some GRASS to grow in this yard o' mud!

Painting of porches has commenced and should be complete tomorrow, so I'll post pictures then.

Plumbing

A bit more progress:  we have plumbing!  (Water only, not gas yet.)  So we are veeeeeeery close to being able to move back in.  If we had power to some of the overhead lights and in particular some of the upstairs circuits, I think we could do it.  The contractor tells me the electrician will be back tomorrow, so we have high hopes that the kids will be able to come HOME from their first day of school tomorrow!  We won't have A/C, but the HVAC guy is supposed to come Wednesday, and it's not terribly hot right now.  It's kind of muggy and stuffy, but we do have a dehumidifier we could run and some box fans.  So, basically, if the electrician comes as promised tomorrow, we're moving back in.  We shall see.

Getting closer -- we have power to the house!

After my griping on the previous post, Ameren did show up around 1pm or so and ran the line from the street to the house.  Woo-hoo!  The electrician had previously added one outlet and two lights in the basement from the panel, so we immediately had at least some power.  Then, remarkably, he came back Saturday and worked for a while, getting two or three other circuits rehooked to the panel.  He started with the most important ones:  the one to the fridge and microwave, and the one to the computer stuff.

AT&T then showed up around 4pm Friday and reran the phone wire from the street.  They also did some work inside to get us up and running (some of the phone wires in the basement had apparently been cut when everything was cleared out around the joists to prep for the move) and tested our router and everything.  So now I am writing this post FROM MY HOUSE!  Yay!  Funny that our first fully restored service would be the internet!

The plumber is supposed to be back tomorrow to get all our water pipes in.  Then he'll move on to the gas lines.  But once the water is reconnected, and assuming the electrician also returns and gets a few more of our circuits rehooked (including a few lights upstairs) then we may be able to get in by the end of the day Monday.  It would be nice if the kids could start off their new school year from our house.  But we'll see. 

Just one new photo.  My contractor and his guys did a great job putting the lamppost back up and even painted it a bit at the top.  Can't wait to see it lit up at night!

The end of Week 11

I really am excited about this project.  I really, really am.  But we are all so discouraged and tired of being out of our house.  It is demoralizing.  We were counting on 8 weeks, and we had living arrangements for 10.  Now it's the end of 11, and unless everything miraculously comes together today, we'll be out another weekend.  Monday is the kids' last day of summer.  Sigh.

It seems like everything that is not essential to moving back in is complete.  The carpenter shows up every day, so the porches are completely rebuilt.  So are the basement stairs.  But it's been tough work to get the utilities back.  The plumber and HVAC guy and electrician are all pretty hard to pin down, and then it turns out one has to go after the other, blah blah blah.  So maybe next Tuesday, or Thursday, or how about Friday afternoon?????

Anyway, here are a few pictures of what's been done lately:

 Laclede Gas technician working on installing our new line from the street.

 Carpentry work to replace some rotten wood.

 Channel dug for new gas line.  I thought I had a pic of the actual line, which is in now, but I don't see it.

 Our old lamppost (scavenged by Osc from the City of St. Louis when they replaced gaslights with electric, then retrofitted to be electric) back up in the yard.

 Basement staircase plus framed walls around it.

Some lovely ductwork. 

Today we are waiting/hoping for Ameren to come and drop the line for our new electric service.  We are supposedly on the schedule, and this is day 10 of the "7 to 10 day" quote, but let's just say I'll believe it when I see it!

A new floor and more

Today, at last, the concrete floor for the basement was poured.  This marks the beginning of the end, I hope, as the utilities can much more easily be reconnected once the floor is in.  Here is a shot of the lovely smooth basement floor...

 ...and an action shot of the stairs out of the basement being poured.

The front porch has now been almost completely rebuilt (see pic below), and we have our exterior electric hookup.  We're hoping Ameren will be coming tomorrow or Wednesday -- or at least sometime this week -- to return our power from the street.  Laclede is scheduled to lay a new gas line on Wednesday.  Tomorrow they are talking about putting the furnace back in its spot and starting to build the interior stairs.  Besides that, a plumber needs to come reconnect the water and gas pipes, and there's also the HVAC.  Oh, and a basement door and four windows.  Should be done by Friday, right???

New Porches

As I mentioned earlier, a lot of progress has been made on the porches.  The entire back porch is new, except for a couple of posts, and has a really different feel for a number of reasons:  it overlooks the backyard, it is several feet off the ground instead of maybe one foot, and it has railings.  Overall, I think it's going to be really nice.

But the really exciting change (to me anyway) is the front porch.  Today they cut away a section in the middle of the railing and moved it over to the south side of the porch, making way for stairs to be built directly down from the front and center of the porch.  (There is a spare post lying there, as well as a storm door on its side, so it's not the greatest picture, but you can definitely see what's planned!)

Bad news is we are looking at the END of NEXT week for sure on being able to move back in the house.  But hopefully by this Friday the yard will be leveled and ready for an attempt at planting grass seed, which we'll get going this coming weekend.  I'm tired of all the mud and dirt!!