Weeks 1 & 2 were demolition of various kinds - what few fixtures we had left, kitchen cabinetry, master bathroom cabinetry, flooring, sheetrock, insulation, HVAC ducting, etc. A few things disappeared that we didn't expect - the hallway return air chase (because it was made out of sheetrock) plus the linen cabinet above it, and also the oak and birch wood linen cabinet in the hall bathroom (because we hadn't explicitly labeled it "not trash/keep", we guess).
This is the remains of our master bedroom, bathroom, and closet by Day 4. They waited until all of the walls were out to pull down the ceilings and the nasty 57 year old insulation and various droppings (we'll just leave that description at "disgusting").
We have no idea how many dumpsters-full they have hauled away. Several, we're pretty sure (we know of two for certain). This was at the end of Week 1.
At the end of Week 2, we had our second and third blips on the radar on the same day, this time when we walked through the house on Friday morning and discovered them ripping the electrical out without our go-ahead (we were discussing it with them in e-mail and had not approved as we thought that there were some perfectly fine new circuits installed in 2000 for dedicated purposes that shouldn't be touched), then we walked again Friday night and discovered re-wiring had commenced, and not to either the as-built electrical plan nor the new electrical plan! They had also cut the installed-in-2000, dedicated wiring to our porch downlights and Christmas light timers, which we had explicitly and repeatedly said "no, do not touch that".
They also ripped apart the HVAC system that day, and relocated the return air without asking and installed HVAC registers in the wrong places, basically completely freaking us out. We had already set up a meeting with Dan to go over the electrical and HVAC in the entire house on Monday, so we were confused. And really worried, as they work on the house 6 days a week (Mon-Sat) and we could only imagine how many more things would be wrong by the time Monday morning rolled around!
Dan actually checked his e-mail late that night and e-mailed us reassurances that we were still planning to have the walk-through on Monday morning and that things would be as we wanted and expected them. He canceled their work on Saturday, which was very reassuring.
I had the walk-through Monday with Dan and James from LCI, as well as our architect and his sidekick. Dan again reiterated that his word goes, that the electricians jumped the gun and what they did was on them, not on us and not on LCI. We then proceeded to walk every outlet, every switch, and every HVAC in the entire house. Roy & I had walked the same things Sunday night, so I had annotated plans (would you really have expected anything less?), so the walk-through on Monday went off pretty well, though it did take 3-1/2 hours by the time I was finished answering questions from all of the trades and Dan.
The former hallway HVAC return air chase will be converted into a full height linen cabinet in the hallway (instead of the half-height it was) and they will build a small built-in dresser unit in the middle bedroom (by borrowing an odd section of closet from that walk-in closet to both square off the closet and enable us to install Elfa shelving on that side plus it will create a usable space in the bedroom when combined with the former air chase space).
Next post (no promises when, but maybe in the next day or so when the weather is so horrid here in Houston) will cover the new stuff going on in Week 3. It's pretty exciting to see the house take on its new interior scape with the new walls and doorway placements, etc. They installed the new laundry room door (with operable window!) and new front entry door in the past couple of days. We like them.
