Before and After (Part 1: Before)

Who'd have thought this scruffy-looking place (as depicted in the pictures we took before starting renovations) could ever amount to much? Especially when the work, which was supposed to take only 3 days to complete, was unnecessarily dragged out by our unscrupulous project manager to about 11 weeks in the end, completely obliterating my hopes to have it ready in time for the World Cup?

After lots of nail-biting and hair-pulling, it finally got done in the end, and although we missed the soccer crowd by about a mile, I'm certainly glad it doesn't look like this anymore:

Before Renovations 1

Before Renovations 2

Before Renovations 3

Before Renovations 4

Before Renovations 5

Before Renovations 6

Before Renovations 7