huh. that's big.

The pergola is finally up, though not finished being painted, and, well, its big. really big. way bigger than we anticipated.

When you see the dimensions on the blue print you don't really get the same feeling as when its finally up and about the size of your house. As daunting as the size of the pergola is, everything is coming together very nicely. They have almost completed work on the dry creak bed but there is still a whole lot more to do before phase one is finished. It's hard to believe that they're going to try to finish everything in the next two weeks. Next up, a lawn!

No you can not stick your hand in the wet cement... and other stupid questions

I'm surprised that had to be clarified, but with a child-like gleam in his eye, it was hard to say no to my husband. Honestly it had more to do with the awkward conversation I'd have to have with our contractor than any desire not to have a hand-print in our new walk way.
Yes, a few days ago, the cement was poured, and then started the most insane cold snap to hit the area in a few years. It was so cold that it actually snowed at our house in the middle of the day with the sun out. This may not seem shocking to most people who live where it regularly snows, but where we live this is almost equivalent to it snowing on the beaches of Hawaii. It just doesn't happen. Luckily the weather had little effect on the fresh poured cement and while it made it particularly unpleasant to have a job that required you to work outside for the next week, some more progress with the laying down the sprinklers in the grass area got done. After approving the design for the pergola with the subcontractor (again) it seemed like things were really moving. Until I got this call from the subcontractor in the middle of the day at work. Kept in mind this is two days after we've already approved the architectural diagram for the pergola....

Subcontractor: "Hi, We were just calling to confirm some details about the pergola before we order it."
Me: "Yeah, sure."
Subcontractor: "So I see you have six polls in your design". Pause.
Me: "Yes."
Subcontractor: "Great. And they are square?"
Me: "No. They're round. Like in the design."
Subcontractor: <sound of shuffling papers> "Well I guess you could kind of say they look round in the design, but I'll go ahead and firm that up as your choice."
Me: "Okay..."
Subcontractor: "Now the color. You wanted maple correct?"
Me: "Oh, actually I didn't right down the name of the color. He just had a block of color samples with no names and we picked one out."
Subcontractor: "Does maple sound right?"
Me: "I don't know. Do you have the colors on your website or the manufacturers website? I can go there and confirm for you."
Subcontractor: "No. Are you sure it isn't maple?"
Me: "It was a grayish color that matched our house. Does that look like maple?"
Subcontractor: "I'm not sure. I really should order this today."
Me: "I took a picture of the color we chose. I can text it to you. Do you think you could tell by that?"
Subcontractor: "Maybe. Why don't you send it to me and I'll call you back."

Now, he never did call me back. I ended up leaving work early to drive to the showroom which closes at 5pm in an especially sketchy section of a nearby industrial area. Confused the heck our of the secretary when i burst in breathless two minutes before they closed, babbling nonsense of "The durawood colors....<pant, pant>... Where are the durawood colors?" Once I explained the entire situation to her, she was very helpful and we did eventually find the color chart...only to discover maple was correct. Hooray. Much ado about nothing!
A few hours later, the subcontractor did text me back saying maple was the right color and he had submitted the order. At least he did get back to me. Eventually. They called again yesterday to say they would be installing it on Monday. I sent the info on to the contractor who seemed surprised by this, so I don't feel too bad. At least they suck with their communication to everyone and it's not just me. Now let's see what shows up on Monday!

Day 55: feeling more finished

Life Size Blueprints

The backyard was initially estimated to take two months and today marks the two month point. Let me show you our finished backyard...

there's the patio and the pergola...

the planter boxes...

and, of course, the grass...

No, of course, they aren't finished, nor did I expect them to be. In my experience, I have found that contracting estimation dates are 25% experience, 25% luck, 45% fixing others mistakes, and 5% acts of god. It seems this is true no matter what the contracting industry. We've been lucky so far that the weather has only interrupted a few days during the construction, the fiasco with the permits only delayed us about a week, and the mighty lizard gods have decided against sending us a wrathful Godzilla.
We're actually at a very exciting point in the construction process: they have framed out all of the cement areas. Now we can actually walk around the backyard and see exactly how everything will be laid out - sort of like a life-sized blue print. I'm very pleased with some of the design changes we argued for - they look like they are coming out exactly how we envisioned. Come Monday, they will actually be pouring all the cement! With most of the underground work completed at this point, it seems like all the next steps will be building the visual aspect, so things will be changing more quickly from here on. Stay tuned...