Friday the 13th

This is how our work weekend started last week : (  

Something flew off of a construction truck passing us and whacked our windshield pretty good.  At least it is not directly in front of the driver's view, but it's close.  We were not even out of PA yet, so not a fun way to drive another 6+ hours and then home on Sunday.  Plus it's way too big to be repaired so we need an entire windshield replacement. Of course, that's money we would rather be putting into the Little Beach House and now something there will have to be put on hold.

That wasn't the only mishap we experienced that day.  We left earlier than usual in the afternoon and had planned to stop along the way so that Steve could connect at a wifi spot to participate in an online meeting . . .but his laptop died.  He also realized, half-way there, that his phone charger was not in the car.  How exactly does a car charger even leave the car?  I'm going out on a limb here and going to blame one of the kids for "borrowing" it when they went somewhere in another car.  Fortunately, he could use my phone for the call, but not to access his work email.  He was able to finish everything he needed to do, just with a bit of added stress.

Earlier, before we even left home, there was another hiccup.  The local lumber yard in NC who was supplying our five-panel shaker-style doors for all the internal doorways finally told me that they were having trouble with their supplier and could not even give me a new estimate of when they might be available.  We had ordered them in February and need by April when we take all the kids for Spring Break. Not gonna happen.  How important are the doors for this trip??  Well, a door for the new closet is not a rush, but the master bedroom and bathrooms formerly had 36" and 28" doors, and we have re-framed them all for 30" doors. . . so yes, it's a little bit important.  These doors are not a standard style that we could find at any big box store.  If we don't find replacements before the trip with the whole family, it's not a life-or-death matter, but we will have five kids using the potty behind a curtain and I am sure we are going to hear how happy they are about it.  Mostly it's just frustrating that we felt we were planning far enough in advance (and these doors were not easy to find at a price we were willing to pay) and now we have to start over.  I don't want to change our design plan, so we'll keep looking.

At least we DID paint and get the toilet installed in the kids' bathroom on this trip, so that's a positive : ) 

And we also built and installed the kitchen peninsula.  This was critical because the lower cabinets and peninsula all need to be in place before our counter guy can measure to install the new counters.  So our Friday the 13th weekend seemed to be turning around!  Then, on the way home, we stopped at the stone supplier to make our final decision on the counter surface and found out that they are backed up a few weeks and will not have the counters installed before our next trip. Looks like we are going to have to put down temporary plywood "counters" so that we can hook up the sink and use the kitchen.

Friday the 13th has always been a lucky day for us.  Not sure what happened this time, but we're going to shake it off and keep working.  Have you ever watched those home renovation shows and thought "they must CREATE these problems just for tv" because how could so many things go wrong?   I know I used to question it.  Now I am a firm believer that no matter how well you plan for a renovation, even with time & budget contingencies built in, you're going to run into more obstacles than you allowed for.  All we can do at this point is keep a positive attitude and focus on the end goal.  We know we're going to love this house when we are finished!