Happy New Year!

Wow, it has been a very long time since my last update.

The fireplace removal was completed shortly after my last post. We had the paint colour matched and Brooke painted just the area of the fireplace, but it turned out the new paint was just a shade lighter than the original paint, so it was pretty visible. He ended up painting the entire wall up to the edge of a bookcase. There is only about 10cms at the top of the bookcase where the old and new paint colours touch, but it just looks like a shadow, not noticeable at all.

When Mom & Dad were here for Christmas, we put Dad to work and he replaced the baseboard heaters in the living room & dining room, one of the thermostats that was screwy (had to turn it to about the 35° mark to get it the same temperature as the other one), and all of the outlets in the living room so they match the ones in the new part of the house.

Shortly before Christmas, Joel phoned to say that our new window had finally arrived. I didn't write down what day it was that he called, but it had just snowed so between that & Christmas, he said they were going to wait until the weather cleared up to install it. (I have snowy pictures from December 22, so it was probably that day or the day after.)

Fast forward to mid-January. I emailed Sean and he said he was busy but he'd talk to me next week. On Jan 30 I emailed him again and got the same response. On Feb 6 he STILL hadn't called so I sent a snippy email and -- guess what -- got essentially the same response: sorry that you're upset, please continue being patient.

So on Feb 13 we threatened legal action. We gave him one week to reply and said that a lack of a response would indicate that he has broken our contract, and if he then doesn't complete the entire contract by the end of April (when the building permit expires) that would also be a breach of contract. That got a better response. On the deadline day, he replied and said he'll finish all permit work by the end of March, which is even earlier than we said. I spoke to him on the phone this past Friday morning, Feb 27 and he restated that.

While I had him on the phone, I mentioned a couple of issues to him that I hadn't before: the cold spots in the bathroom, and the fact that we asked for the window seat to open in front and he made it open on top. He basically said that he'll worry about the permit-related things first, and the other items afterwards which is fine -- as long as they do get done eventually!

However, since then, we've had two potentially major issues come to light. We had a roofer come on Friday to give us a quote on re-shingling the rest of the roof to match the new section so we don't have a 10+ year old section and a new section, and he told us that the torcheon section of the new roof appears to be leaking and is all bubbled up.

Then on Sunday, Brooke went to check to see if the dryer vent cover was stuck shut as it's been taking longer and longer for the clothes to dry, and he discovered something interesting. The original dryer vent has insulation over it on the inside, and there is no new dryer vent. So either the dryer is connected to the original pipe and it is blocked at the end by the insulation, or else there is new pipe and they never cut through to the outside. Either way, we've been venting the dryer into the walls for the past seven months. We immediately went to Canadian Tire to buy a long piece of dryer hose with the idea of running it through the house and out the cat door, but found something even better -- a kit designed for venting a dryer in a place where a normal outside vent is impossible. So until it's fixed, at least we have this. And the dryer is taking a normal amount of time to dry the clothes now, yay!

I've contacted Pillar To Post, the company that did my original inspection when I bought the house, to find out how much they charge. After the Town's building inspector has given the house a passing mark, I'm going to get PTP to come and do a full inspection of everything and be sure we won't have any more little surprises like this.