Blue Skies

Despite another rainstorm last night -- just as Josh was biking home from work, of course -- it turned out to be a nice, sunny day today. That meant the stucco guys were able to make some more progress. They knocked most of the old paint off the chimney so they could coat it to match the new stucco.
There are only two guys who specialize in applying the final textured coat, so it's not going as quickly as the initial layers, but they got a lot done on the back of the house. That cardboard box on the ground is protecting the condenser for our air conditioner, which was just installed this morning. Rob said it was quite a challenge getting it into the back yard, since both sides of the house are blocked by scaffolding and there's a huge dumpster in the driveway.
The back of our house is a patchwork of colors now. They are holding off on stuccoing the back porch until the door is installed. The back door and the window for the master bath won't be arriving for a couple weeks, so the rain isn't the only thing holding them up -- but it certainly isn't helping! The weather is supposed to be nice again tomorrow, but then we face another week of scattered thunderstorms and rain. Ugh.
Inside the house, Rob was meeting with Cindy to finalize the measurements and other details for the kitchen cabinets and bathroom vanities. He also measured the enclosure for the tub in the master bathroom for her so she could get us a quote on the Silestone for the tub deck, vanity, and shower bench.Cindy told me that when the cabinets are delivered, she'll go through them with me piece by piece to make sure everything arrived as ordered and in good condition. It's gratifying to have such detail-oriented, conscientious people working on this project. Rob asked me to come by tomorrow afternoon so I can decide how our window sills should look. He ordered a couple different styles and will do a mock-up around one of the windows so I can see which one I like better -- or if I don't like either one, he'll pick out some other options. Is that normal?

Oh, and my new Arlington County recycling cart arrived yesterday. This electric blue beauty replaces that little yellow bin in the background. The county has expanded the list of recyclable items that will be collected, and they can all just be tossed in this giant cart without needing to be sorted or broken down.
This gives me one more thing to look forward to when we move back into our house. In our apartment, we have to lug everything to a dumpster (for trash) and a series of recycling bins nearly a block away. I'll be happy to go back to having to remember to wheel my trash and recycling carts out to the curb once a week.