To scrape or not to scrape, that is the question

We are still waiting for the steel to be fabricated and delivered. This is putting us _way_ behind schedule. Apparently the hold up was the wait for the structural engineer to get the revised plans to the steel fabricators. It's interesting... we tried to cut down on the cost by taking some steel out of a place that didn't need it. However, doing so, while saving a bunch of money, has increased the delay. My guess is the delays will wind up costing us money, so the net net won't be much savings. (I think if we'd had a contractor during the all important structural engineering phase, we'd have caught this much earlier and wouldn't have incurred the delays.)

When we met with our contractor this week he pointed out all the places where our house isn't true. The walls aren't quite at right angles, the boards don't run level, etc. I think in retrospect, we might have been better just dozing the part of the house we're remodeling. They've already had to reframe one of the exterior walls (which I don't think they'd been planning to do), and they're going to have to do something about the variation in the run of the floor. I found myself getting a bit depressed at the quality of the crackerbox we live in. There's no question it will be a better house when we're done; I just hope that the poor quality of the existing house doesn't compromise the end result.