Blissfully surrounded by chaos

Day 2 of the HVAC install is over, the first floor is a disaster with so much pulled away from the walls and out of bottom of the pantry closet (which is how they're getting a vent into the kitchen), but even my hyper-Virgo clutter-hating honey is unfazed by the mess: We're just happy as pigs in mud that this install is finally happening, and walking around like drop-jawed dazed lottery winners to have discovered the wood floors underneath the plywood in the dining room and hallway. As soon as they contractors are done and out of here, we're having a carpet & luan-ripping party; I may even have enough mint that's come up already for our first batch of real mojitos . And hey, if it's a hot day when we want to do all that physical labor, we can run the air conditioner! I'll admit that we are anxious that they may have glued down the luan, which will be a royal PITA to deal with, but we're going to try and see what we can do anyway.

I'm now getting a much better perspective as to why this job cost so much. These guys have worked their butts off, and they've done a lot of work but it's only a small dent in the overall projects - at most, they've done half of the work for the first floor system, and they still have the 2nd/3rd floor system to install, the pipes to run, and the outdoor units to install.

So, so far they have

• made the cuts and installed the "boots" (metal thingies that connect the ducts to the openings) in about 2/3 of the 1st floor register and return locations.
  
• assembled and installed some of the crawlspace ductwork (not sure how much because I'm not crawling under there to figure it out!)
• built a high stand in the basement for the blower unit, and removed the basement window to give access to the crawlspace

I also have to say that so far I'm extremely happy with their work. As long as nothing changes (which I really don't expect it to), I'd be very happy to recommend them to anyone in slower-lower Delaware who is looking for an HVAC contractor! They're a really nice group of guys, too. Nice is always, well, nice.

In other news, I finally got some tomatoes in today, though it will be fun finding out what kind they are. Our Ag department's annual plant sale was last week, and I bought six tomato plants then but left them behind, and so today even though the sale was over, the ag faculty let me take six from their few leftovers, but all had lost their labels so I have no clue what any of them are. I'm not planting much this year - the tomatoes, a few anaheim peppers, and my herbs, though the herbs are all going into planters set on top of my garden bench. The veggies are out by the garage, outside of the fenced back yard, but I like my herbs to be more accessible but they can't go directly into the ground in boydog territory. Maybe this summe or fall I can build a raised pug-proof bed.