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We’ve passed the home stretch – we’re down to only 4 things left for the contractors to do. The painter has more to do but I’ve told him we’re calling a stop at the end of this week. That should take complete the kitchen/breakfast room/front hall. The other things will happen later. I need a break!!!!
A lot happened during my writing hiatus. The chairs for the bistro table came in, the backsplash was installed – it is SENSATIONAL, the broom closet was built, the range hood was installed, all the little things that needed balancing and patching and adjusting were balanced and patched and adjusted. 
The under sink bins for garbage and recycling were installed. The lighting under the cabinets was installed (which includes zillions of electrical outlets along with the lights). The walls were painted and the wood was stained and I ordered art work for the kitchen. 🙂
Four things left to go: the radiators, the cold water filter under the sink, deck lights, and the CORRECT hardware for the pocket door. *grin* There IS hardware but there was a little goof and the wrong hardware was sent out instead of the specially-picked oil-rubbed bronze hardware Don had gotten to match our faucet. 🙂
The delay in the radiators is an amusing story. Kenny (the head plumber) called one of the places I’d found online and spent several phone calls chatting with the company. It turned out that despite their photo, they don’t have radiators that are floor-mounted, they are all wall-mounted. They can do the floor mount but it is a special order as opposed to out of standard stock. Kenny gave them all the specs, they were working out all the details, and then he gave them the shipping address. “Oh, we don’t ship to the US” they said. *laughing* Turns out he’d been talking with Canada the whole time and had not realized it. So he started over again looking for what I wanted. I hear that he did indeed find some (I saw a picture) but it’s unclear how long it will take to get the correct size and then get them installed. 
I know from my experience back in March, when I had to get a new furnace (or whatever it is called for hot water radiator heating), that once you install the radiators, you need to then fill them all with water. Then you need to bleed off any trapped air, and make sure they are all heating up. This is a whole day process. I hope they make it before the cold weather returns, or I’ll have to spend my entire life curled up on the rug in front of the gas-log fireplace.
The cold water filter under the sink was another case of miscommunication. Don came by one day and I went through my list of “open items and can we still do’s”. They had removed my cold water filter when they did the demolition way back in May (remember that?). I told them that they could toss the one that was there, we could put on a new one when we rebuilt everything. I mentioned this to Don and showed him what I wanted (some $30 thing you can get at the big box stores) and he said “oh, no, you can’t do that with your faucet”. What do I know, right? He showed me the kind of faucet I need to get and they’d drill a hole in the counter for it. Later when I tried to explain to my husband why I could not put in the cold water filter as we’d had before, I realized I had no idea why it wouldn’t work. I could see exactly where it would go under the sink. I found the installation instructions for what I wanted online, sent that and a picture of the pipes under the sink to Don, and asked why it would not work. 
Don is a professional. He does things the CORRECT way. From his perspective (and undoubtedly from MANY people’s pov) you do NOT put the filter on the cold water for the main faucet – you spin off the filtered cold water to a separate faucet, and then use the unfiltered cold water for whatever you do with unfiltered water. I HAVE filtered water and ice in my new refrigerator, which is also one of the reasons why Don was confused about my desire for a water filter on the sink. For many years now, many many years now, I’ve had a filter on the cold water, and every time I run the cold water I get filtered water. This is great if I am filling the cats’ automatic water fountain, or if I am filling a pot to boil pasta or whatever. But yes, it IS a waste if I’m pulling cold water while I’m washing dishes or some other rinsing activity. Many people think that is wasteful. I understand that perspective. 
MY pov is that it’s much easier and cheaper to stick the filter under the sink on the cold water, change the filter every 3-6 months for some nominal cost, than it is to install a whole-house filter or make a hole in my gorgeous counter or any of the other correct approaches. 🙂 Result – waiting for the plumbers to put in the under-sink filter on the cold water when they return. The cats will appreciate the clean tasting water.
I have no idea what will happen with the deck lighting. I put this change order into the plans back in July, and nothing happened on it. I walked around the deck with Don a few weeks ago and explained what I wanted, and he said he understood and it would happen. Last time I saw the electricians they knew it was happening (that had not been the case on prior visits). It’s happening. But I don’t know what it will look like, when it will happen, nor what it will cost. 🙂 All I DO know is that I have a working switch in my kitchen that will turn on the deck lights once they exist.
So what do you think – is my kitchen sensational or what???
Friday was a full house – the electricians and Tom returned. The rest of the cabinet hardware was installed and the spackling completed. The broken tiles in the front hall (from the old radiator) were removed. The workers were kind enough to bring in the 2 huge, heavy boxes with the bistro table – they were in the garage. And it DID take 2 people to lift one of those boxes. I’m very grateful they were kind enough to do that as my husband and I would have struggled and one of us would probably have gotten hurt. 
I think I’m fairly solid on them now but I do sometimes miss and use a ceiling fan switch instead of a light switch. All of the high hats are LED lights with dimmer switches. At the start of all our discussions, I told the electricians I did not need to have a ceiling fan with a light, so they did not need to put in a switch for the light, only the fan. Of course all of the fans I liked had lights. I said fine, I don’t care, you don’t have to worry about it if it can’t be hooked up. Apparently ceiling fans now all get operated by remote controls, and a remote will over-ride anything on a switch. I have a working light on my kitchen ceiling fan. It’s so much nicer than what was there before that I could see myself using it. But it’s a halogen bulb. Given that the LEDs can all dim, and they are much more energy-efficient than the halogens, that light may not get much use. 
The fan, however, has been running since it first had power. It will probably be on non-stop until November. 
Friday night when all was calm and quiet, my husband and I stood in the kitchen, loving it. We started playing the “where shall we put x?” game. “What goes in this cabinet?” We agreed that we would put the roll-out garbage can under the sink, along with the recycling can, which has been under the sink all the time. If I ever hear back from the foreman about the custom work in the broom closet, I’ll let him know. 
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