Are GCs actually supposed to go fast?

Here are the pictures descriptions as best I can:

[1]Ceiling of Utility Room; [2]Old Mudroom/outdoor storage (where the new addition will go); [3] Outside area of the same; [4] Kitchen gutted; [5] Kitchen gutted)(what used to be a wall with the fridge in it

I know my life is crazy when our General Contractor is ahead of schedule and we are still trying to pick appliances.

Today our demo is almost completely done, the air conditioning unit has been moved to the crawlspace (hope that works out. . .seems a little iffy down in that psuedo basement) and the footings are already in our new foundation for the addition. . .I amkind of shocked at where we are at in just one week!

We had a few minor issues last week- no power in 3 rooms, unfortunately one of them was my DVR room, then no hot water on Thurs and Friday (thankfully we were out of town for most of it), but all in all we're surviving!

'Before' Pictures: Taken May 12, 2009. . . .

D-Day is upon us. . .

I am incredibly relaxed considering that in 24 hours, we will no longer have a kitchen, or access to a kitchen, and it will be a minimum of four months until we do. Did I mention that with losing the kitchen, I am also losing our immediate access to laundry as well? Yet I admit, I am excited. Ask me again in month, but right now I am excited.

I keep telling Papa Kirkeby that all of our stress, which is mainly focused over the past month, will [relatively] go away once we are just OUT of the kitchen, rather than living our current dual life, trying to pack up every single thing that is in our storage, garage, kitchen, laundry room, etc. and determine what to keep and what not to keep (always a pleasant conversation in our house), and we just have to live through what sh*t we are in. I have convinced myself that once I am relegated to having to only use a bathroom as our only source of cleaning(unfortunately the same bathroom we use for a newly potty-trained three-and-a-half-year old) and cooking on our old dining room table, that the stress level will be less than the 'what to do with what' conversations and constant, every day moving, cleaning and decisionmaking.

Not to mention the animals underfoot: the cat and two dogs that are confused at why their litter box, bed and/or food sources have been moved to areas they are not sure will accomodate. Dude the cat keeps going back to her old bathroom and whining for her old life; and even after I carry her to her new food location and litter box, she runs out, back to the nasty half-bath and sits behind the toilet, crying. I am curious what she will do once there is no nasty half-bath to run to, no more toilet to hide under, from her arch nemisises, Gracie and Ollie. While poor Miss Dude has been with us for a mere three months now, besides the constant food source and attention from no less than 4 human beings that are pluses, she has had to be resilient with the constant pressure of being a presumptive dinner for two, 90 pound creatures. Who, by the way, have not yet determined (1) how to eat her or (2) who gets to try first. And now we are moving her to a new location! She will surely run away come Friday.

However, the 'Kirkebabies' apparently love the complete chaos we currently exist in. Jack enjoys being able to investigate every single cabinet that he has been told 'no touch' for his entire toddler existence and Henry likes watching for 'worker men' here to 'make him a new house.' He explained today that they can 'cut up' the kitchen and the storage room, but they have to leave 'Babee's sleeping room' and his playroom alone.

Our poor, new nanny has walked into the current Kirkebaby chaos, probably thinking it is mainly because of the imminent remodel. . .so I will try to keep her in the dark until after the remodel, when she sees that the chaos is a normal state of equilibrium in our household and she has little choice but to embrace it.