Our contractor worked for five weeks, which is three weeks longer than estimated. The entire time was spent without shower facilities and nearly two weeks without a toilet.

Over budget and over patience, we suggested that the contractor's job was done. Oddly enough, after paying the final bill, he is asking for more money. I feel that it is unreasonable for me to pay for his forgetfulness, but his forgetfulness will probably also spare me from payment.

What is remaining should be easy for the two of us, but we find ourselves repeating much of the complete work. Here is a partial list of things that the contractor should have done, or should have done right:

• install door knobs properly
• install all of the trim (not just most of it)
• plumb the pedestal sink such that it does not leak
• install a lights to code
• clean surfaces before applying caulk (so that it does not fall off)

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Construction on the bathroom starts on or near May 17th.

We are now the proud owners of several hundred pounds of tile. Moving even the individual boxes was a challenge which we our soar arms and backs are sure to remember for days to come.

This step was both exciting and scary. Unless we apply the breaks, we will have a whole new bathroom in less than four weeks from now. What will it look like? Here is the contractor's diagram:

I ran some cat5 from the living room to the office this weekend. It was a good opportunity to get acquainted with my attic and to learn a little about the construction of our house. I took a few photos to share with my contractor.

This series is taken from the access hole in the hallway. The photos start at North and rotate clockwise.

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Now that the weather is improving, I have started thinking about what I can do to the back patio. The previous owner who flipped the house extended the roof creating a nice covered area. The green outdoor carpet is clean and easy to maintain, but not our taste. I drew up the following diagram to help us visualize the space with different flooring.

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Branwen and I have decided to move forward with a whole-bathroom renovation as our first significant project. Towards that aim, we created new floor plan.

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We have moved into our new house in North Portland and are anxious to begin improvements. While I was following the home inspector, Branwen was measuring the dimensions of every room. After several hours with QCad, we were able to create the following floorplan of the entire house:

In a different layer, I made rectangles representing our furniture. This allows us to layout all of our furniture before mode day.

We bought a house!!!