Long and winding road

No pictures this time, just general musings about The Project.

It's been.... crazy and nerve-wrecking. Original timetable said that we would be more or less finished 3 months ago. But here we are, still unfinished. And there as been more delays as we get closer to the finish. We were supposed to get our new stairs in 2-3 weeks, but we were told yesterday that we will get the in December. Hopefully in the first half of December. So that delays our moving-time, since we obviously can't move to a second-floor home that has no stairs to it.

The good news is that the renovation-company is almost done. There's still few walls to paint, and they are out of there. After that it's just finishing the surfaces, finalizing the electric-work (that can't be done before we finish painting the walls and receive the cupboards in the utility-room) and the like. Some things will be postponed in to indefinite future. Things like balcony (hopefully next summer), heat-pumps (hopefully next fall), fireplaces (god knows when. Assuming we can get them at all) and kitchen (ASAP). reason being that we are way over budget, and I need to focus on things that are absolutely essential.

So, am I disappointed? No, not really. Of course I'm annoyed by the extra expenses, and I wish we could get more finished. But looking at the place, I can't really be all that disappointed. It's shaping up to be a really great home, and I can take joy from the fact that it's going to get even better in the future.

So why are we over budget and behind schedule? Basically, this is a old house with history (during Winter War a Russian bomb fell close to the house, seriously damaging it) we are dealing with. Had this been a "normal" house things would have been a lot smoother. But this place was about 20cm crooked, and it took a lot of time (and money) to straighten it. Oh well.

I still laugh at articles telling of "easy kitchen renovation!", or how modern homes are built like huge jigsaw-puzzles: just snap few parts together and move in. Takes few days. Our project is a polar opposite of that. We are now on day 311.

The funny thing is that we haven't really had any horror-stories to tell. You always hear stories of crappy workers, moisture-issues, accidents and the like. We have had nothing like that. Our workers have been top-notch, we didn't run in to any negative surprises (apart from the fact how crooked the place was) or anything like that. Things have been really smooth, all in all. Slower than anticipated, yes, but smooth.

But yeah, I'm quite tired.