Day 405: Checked Out

Well, we are officially no longer living in a hotel. It was confirmed on Monday afternoon that we would be checking out two weeks after checking in and finally move back into the house with a temporary kitchen and bathroom. With check out happening at lunch on Tuesday while we would both be at work, we spent Monday evening packing up our hotel life and shuttling everything but our toothbrushes and a change of clothes to the house. The containment finally came down on Tuesday. (I know I said last Friday that it was supposed to happen that very day. Long story short: it didn't. Long story to come soon in another post.) We rushed home yesterday after work to meet with the insurance guy and the contractor and found the plumber still working away. There was much discussion on Days 395 and 400 about what temporary solutions we could cobble together, namely for a bathroom sink. We realized on the weekend that it really wasn't something we needed to worry about as getting the house into a "liveable" state would be part of the "emergency service." Since a functional bathroom and kitchen are key to the house being liveable, a temporary kitchen sink/counter and vanity sink were installed yesterday on the insurance tab, just in time for us to move back in. There are many, many things I could blabber on about (and I promise there will be many more posts to come covering the excruciatingly minuscule details that I love to blabber on about :) but I'll keep this one short and get to the fun stuff: photos of the gutted kitchen and bathroom with a few before shots to help you visualize the change.

Gutted kitchen with temporary kitchen sink and counter in place. You'll note that we've started marking out the future plans with masking tape. It's so nice to be able to properly visualize and "sample" the space we've been creating on paper.

Photo taken from the same angle on closing day.

Photo taken from the same angle right before demolition.

The bare dining room wall that will (if all goes as planned) be opened up and replaced with a beam.

Temporary bathroom vanity installed upstairs. Price at Home Depot: $88. The remediation contractor probably has a big stack of these ready to be installed in other "emergency" or temporary situations. Let's just say we weren't concerned about the plumber cutting holes into the bottom and side to get the supply lines in place.

Photo taken from a similar angle on closing day.

This slightly different angle shows the bare floor.

You could certainly say that our willingness to live in a construction zone is being put to the test. But in the two nights since checking out, we've put a solid dent in the two weeks of built up laundry and have already started making all the temporariness a bit more liveable with minor tweaks here and there... and we even managed to squeeze in a celebratory dinner at The Works. Mmm...