Phase IV? V? Regardless, a new phase begins.

And let's hope this is truly a new phase and not a repeat of previous phases.

Monday crew from New Life Remodeler, Inc. arrived to gather materials and get to work on the upstairs portion of our repairs -- or at least on a big chunk of our upstairs portion of repairs. On the list, officially:

Demolition: Remove Base, Door Trim, Window Trim in Hall and Two end bedrooms.

Finish Work: Install wide base to match downstairs - Rossets and plinth blocks at doors and end windows - owner to provide fluted trim. Install 3 1/2" crown molding in two end bedrooms and down hall. Trim around sky lites.

Painting: Prime and Paint 2 coats each. Hall, one end bedroom, library room and all trim work - one end bedroom prime only - hall painting to go down stairs and to outside corner.

Sheetrock: Refloat sheetrock around skylites. Repair sheetrock in end bedroom window.

Stairs: Install new pull down stairs.

HVAC: Add A/c vent to end bedroom to existing system.

Flooring: 1/2 glue down Brazilian Cherry flooring Hall, Library, two end bedrooms, and closets.

_____

Of course all of that was as of Monday and today is Thursday. Since Monday we have discovered a few things.

For instance: We (owner) can't provide all of the fluted trim as mentioned in the 'Finish Work' section because apparently all of our existing fluted trim we were planning on using is an inch or two short. Apparently we had fluted trim gremlins come in in the middle of the night and shave off a couple inches here and there -- or, if shaving the trim wasn't enough... the gremlins also stretched our existing door frames a couple inches.

We also realized this morning that painting the ceilings is not specifically mentioned in the contract. You know - the water-stained ceilings? The source of all this upstairs woe? Yep. So this morning I'm waiting for the general manager to stop by and 'negotiate' a ceiling painting price with me. Film at eleven.

Other setbacks realized by day four:

1. The gremlin-tainted fluted trim is difficult to find as we discovered after months of searching which ended in us giving up and having it milled. Despite our earlier efforts in explaining this to our would-be contractor - at least 48 hours were wasted trying to find said trim in local lumber yards before would-be contractor reached the same conclusion independently.

2. Our plinth blocks are quite simple and custom made from stair tread or similar material due to the fact that pre-fab plinth blocks have a tendency to not be tall enough or wide enough to work well with our New Orleans style 7 1/4" baseboards. This is another fact disputed by the professionals for the first couple of days who believed that if they showed me the same pre-fab plinth block enough times I would eventually see the error of my ways. Another 48 hours or so of nothing done.

3. The contractor originally wanted to lay the floor as the last step of the project -- which, for obvious reasons, we totally agreed with. However, there was a squabble about baseboard and plinth block installation prior to floor installation resulting in the general manager decreeing that baseboards and plinths would be installed directly on the subfloor while consequential flooring would be 'cut out' around existing trim. I (owner) did not like this plan at all and felt that the trim should be installed with an allowance gap for five thousand reasons in addition to wanting the flooring to be slipped under the existing trim at installation because that's how it's done. Squabble has now resulted in a change of plans including the flooring going in before the trim -- not the happiest compromise.

This week's biggest realization has little to do with the contract, however: I have realized that I completely and utterly despise home improvement at this point in my life. Even the words.. both together and separately in any context are completely repugnant.

I'm thinking carving out a grotto in some remote mountainside and digging for roots sounds good right about now.