The House

Ellie and I are back in Mississippi to deal with THE HOUSE (dum dum DUM!). Although the agreed deadline had completion sometime in mid-April, the house is NOT FINISHED. The house is not close to finished. The house has no finished walls (it was and is gutted). This is a bad thing, especially when you come down for the purpose of installing a kitchen (walls are required for this) and flooring (also good to have walls first) and finding renters (again, walls handy). The good news is that the porch expansion looks AMAZING, and the other improvements we made alongside the repairs are making a big difference. The house is going to be beautiful, if and when it is ever finished. The bad news is that the contractor and his crew seem to enjoy the porch as much as we do, and they have set up a comfy lawn chair surrounded by evidence of much cigarette smoking. Given that I am a staunch non-smoker and even more importantly the fact that the house is all BARE WOOD and insulation, I am not amused. I may have to invite an alligator or two out of the bayou to help me deal with this problem.