All the boring bits

I did say, in my last post, that it was all about to get boring.  I was right, it really did. But what I didn't realize was quite how time consuming, and intense the boring bits would be. Now the walls are up, it's really just a bunch of pipes and wires, and who really cares about how that stuff? I thought I could just continue dreaming up colour schemes and tile combos, while the 'rough trades' did the boring stuff. After all, we won't be actually laying tile or building cabinets or putting in showers for months yet.

Several incredibly long and intense meetings with the afore-mentioned rough trades I know better. It turns out in order to do the boring stuff they need to know how the interesting stuff will work. Which makes total sense. How can the plumber put in drainpipes without knowing what's draining and from where? And the heat and air guy had a lot of questions about vents which I wasn't expecting but I now see were entirely necessary - if we want to avoid ugly vents in the wrong places, which we do.

Most critically, how can the electrician put the wires in the right place, without knowing what kind of lights we want and where? I did hours of research on lighting this time last year, and thought I was broadly ready. But it took several more hours of online surfing, plus literally six hours of on site meetings, to get to a plan we all understand and agree on. I'm trying to avoid ceilings uniformly studded with canned lights, and achieve layers of light at levels appropriate for each room - but my builder is worried about 'shadows'. I think I've prevailed but man, that was an intense couple of weeks.

We still visit the site most days, but the progress is less exciting and really not cute to look at at.

See?

It's not pretty but it is a hive of activity - all the trades tripping over each other. And there's a bit of banter, like when the electrician gives the heat and air guy a hard time for taking the best spot on the ceiling for his fan. And this guy, representing Plumbing, which made me chuckle.