Friday's Five: The Tao of Mr. Steve

You may remember my list of things we discovered from our contractor, Mr. Joey. But what I failed to mention in that post is that Joe doesn't work alone -- he's got a great crew, led by Mr. Steve.

Steve's job title on his business card is Director of Operations. Apparently that translates to Doer of Whatever Needs Doing. And there's been a lot of that at our house over the past several months.

I don't know if Steve actually has his own Tao (although it was a good movie), but I do know that we've enjoyed having him around. Here are five things we love about Steve...

1. Good advice: As we went through the project, there were at least 8,742 decisions that had to be made. Often I had a strong opinion (I know, imagine that), but sometimes I needed someone else to weigh in. Steve was great about offering advice (like adding an outlet in our coat closet so we can hide the router in there) or sharing a clever solution.
2. Light in the laundry: One example of a great Steve idea? Our motion-sensor light in the laundry room. It's in the ceiling -- the light turns on automatically when we walk in and shuts itself off when we're done. Genius.
3. Fridge box fort: When our new fridge was delivered to the house, Steve was the only one there to receive it. He not only accepted the delivery and checked to be sure everything was okay, he also told the delivery guys to leave the box behind. Then he set it up in the driveway with a door, windows and a sign announcing it as Juni & Pip's new fort. Awesome.
4. Christmas Eve service: Two days before Christmas, our storm door broke off its hinges and dangled onto the front porch. The next day, Steve picked up a new door at the store, brought it to the house and installed it with a smile.  
5. Emergency call: And just in case we were really starting to miss our renovation crew, we got to call them back today. Because my brand new kitchen? You know, the one with the beautiful, perfectly smooth ceiling? Today it had a waterfall in the middle of it, dripping down off the ceiling fan. Turns out our upstairs toilet was clogged and leaking under the floor. After I stopped panicking enough to turn off the water, I called Joe and Steve. Within 15 minutes, Steve was at the house to rescue us. That's him in the photo above. Tonight, we've got a neatly cut hole in the kitchen ceiling (ugh -- although at least it's clean and square -- but ugh) and a brand new toilet in the master bath.