I had an appointment with the builder’s design consultant this morning. Apparently the company that was originally going to supply the cabinetry for all the condo units went under, meaning that I had to come in to see and approve the substitutions. I parked at the station lot and made the short walk over to the office. As I walked by my future building I noticed that my unit had the windows and patio doors installed. Wow, man. That means that my unit is now enclosed and somewhat shielded from the weather. That’s really good news because with the cold weather encroaching upon us I don’t want any delays due to construction people not being able to do anything useful in the skin-numbing winds. That’s pretty much what the consultant told me: they wanted to get the shell up as soon as possible so that they could continue working through winter. Makes sense.

Next to the condo building, work is already well under way on a new recreation centre. I really appreciate the fact that there’ll be such a place just a few steps away from where I’ll be. There’s been talk that the factory north of the community will be torn down and replaced with commercial developments including a bank and maybe a grocery store. God, there’s so much going on around this place that it’s almost unbelievable, you know? I’m completely looking forward to seeing just how transformed this area will be in two years. Right now it’s a tad bleak, but the potential is all there.

Anyway, the appointment was really quick and painless. The original cabinets were labelled as having the stain colour “espresso” but who are they kidding? The colour was basically black. This new cabinet stain colour by the new company is also labelled “espresso” but isn’t black. Instead, it’s a dark brown that’s somewhat warmer than the previous ones. I think this is a great substitution because dark brown is simply more visually interesting. For these cabinets, I was given a choice among a wide selection of handles. For the old cabinets, there was no choice–either I took the ugly handles that they had or just specified them not to put the handles on at all. I opted to not have the handles installed because the specified ones were just damn ugly. In its place, I was planning on just getting these long, chunky metallic ones. I had the image in mind and was determined to have it look right. Well, among the selection of handles for the new cabinets was basically the type of handle I was thinking of. Sure, the sample was smaller than I had imagined, but it had the same aesthetic. And it was free! So yeah, that was one less thing I had on my mind.

One of the upgrades that I signed for was to switch the electrical switches from the skinny ones to the fat Decora switches. For whatever reason, that option suddenly became standard, meaning that the several hundred I paid for that option was going to be refunded to me. That extra $500+ was already basically a sunk cost in my mind so I asked if there was anything else I could throw the money toward. I ended up asking for a cold water line for my fridge. Even with that added though it seems that the builder will still end up refunding me some cash. Really, I have to ask, how the heck did that happen? In effect, I’ve added another option, and they still owe me. Ha!

There are only four months and a bit left before I can move in. I am ridiculously excited!