Two steps forward, one step back

At last, I have good news about the progress of the house!  I'm a little belated on writing about it, but pretend I posted this about 3 weeks ago...  (I mean it, this post takes place 2-3 weeks ago!  Don't worry, I'll follow it up with a more current one that takes place now)  But the permit finally cleared DCRA!!!  Up until now, we've been doing little tasks that can be done without a permit.  Mainly, pulling sheetrock off the brick wall and cleaning up the bricks.  But now, the we have the permit for all the interior work, including the kitchen and bathrooms, so we can get started in earnest!

Finally, the permit is posted in the window!

And almost everything is in, now, too.  After ordering the appliances way back in August, they were finally delivered (Up till now, they were being held in a warehouse till we had a place to put them!).  The tile has been ordered and is on its way, the bathroom fixtures are in, as is the bathroom sink.  Literally, I have everything but the kitchen sink!  And that should be in just after Christmas, too.

The oven,...

...the refrigerator,...

...and the dishwasher are all here!

Of course, there always some snag.  Turns out there's an issues with the cabinets.  Since there's been so much dust, we've left the cabinets all boxed up until now.  Since we're ready to actually do the kitchen, we started opening them up.  The cabinets are a glazed cherry, a nice dark, reddish hue that will look very good with the brick wall and a light colored counter top.  But the doors to just about every cabinet have knots and chips and holes in them that weren't cleaned up before the doors were sealed!  It seems that rather than "cherry," they gave us "rustic cherry," which means that they used a rougher cut of wood to give it a more rustic look that would fit better in a farmhouse or cabin.  To me, though, it just looks like they're bad quality, and wouldn't at all fit in my more contemporary kitchen...  So I have to take that up with the manufacturer and see if they'll fix their mistake.

A gigantic knot in the middle of one of the cabinet doors that I most definitely did not want in the kitchen!

So, I supposed it's better than one step forward and two steps back!  At long last, the house is moving forward!  With any luck, the new target completion date is mid to late February, and I might actually be able to move in by March!