Yippee, we passed our electrical inspection! Since we failed it a month ago, Bob the electrician came out and dealt with two wires that he had purposely left exposed for Phase II. One wire was for a closet door switch that would’ve required carving out a big hole in the door frame (which would’ve been a pain and weakened the support for two heavy doors which I bought from the local salvage yard). The inspector gave us a green sticker–what am I supposed to do with that?
Jose from Guatamala is my man! I found him in the aisles of Home Depot, where he was cruising for work (the hungry guys sit out on the curb waiting for a job). He doesn’t speak much English, but he has been coming regularly for a month now and has repointed much of the powdery mortar in the basement, helped me haul to the dump all the branches from the tree felling two months ago (man, I wish we had a compost facility around here–it pains me to throw all this stuff away that I could’ve recycled or composted in Boulder), and cut and lifted many boards of sheetrock overhead as we have re-rocked the guest bedroom and hallway ceiling. By laminating the new, 3/8ths” wallboard right over the old plaster, we save a heck of a lot of demolition work and dust.
Not that there is any shortage of dust! I’m sanding the plaster in the two refinished rooms now. We’re on a mission to have these done within two weeks; floor refinishers come in early February. As I wrote before, a renovator must be able to say “that’s good enough.” It is so easy for me to sand, then see an imperfection, put some more mud on it, have to sand again …repeat cycle. Professional sheetrockers are in and out on three passes–amazing. Inside corners of the wall are the hardest. I mud one side, and come back the next day to do the other side. With three passes per side, that’s six passes per corner. Then I nit-pick imperfections and want to make another pass. Meanwhile, the hours click by.
Another huge success: a week ago we blew in 23 bags of cellulose insulation. 
Emily mastered the art of dumping bags into the the blower machine, while I manned the spray hose. Amazing to think that in 100 years, no one took the time to insulate! Now we have about R-40 in the upper “crawlspace.”
On a completely different note, some plumbers continue to think they can charge $95 to come by and give me an estimate. No thank you! I have had a hard time finding three plumbers to give me bids. Some can only show up in the middle of the day (hello–aren’t most of your customers at work?!). Oh, and most never work on Saturday. Interestingly, I found a site named renovationexperts.com last Friday. Three plumbers had called within 48 hours, and Master Plumber “Pete” from Jiffy Plumbing already stopped by (and quoted me a price two hours later. Meanwhile, Nohrs Plumbing sent an inexperienced guy who still hasn’t given me a quote two weeks later!)
Steve and Emily's DC Renovation 