Al gave me today's update in person; he arrived here in Maryland tonight on the train. He didn't have time to take photos before he left (and Jack was still working anyway), so we'll take some when we get home on Sunday and add them to the bottom of this post. The main thing on Al's mind is that the wastewater pipe, which we dealt with on Day 2 by not dealing with it (we'd decided to do nothing for now and either paint it or box it later if necessary), is sticking out of the plywood far enough that it will overhang the cabinets.
It turns out that leaving the pipe as-is and painting it if necessary was never an option. I'm not sure how we failed to understand this point; perhaps we didn't accurately communicate our intentions to Jack, which caused him to think it not necessary to mention that boxing or moving were the ONLY choices. While it would certainly be preferable to move the pipe rather than box it, given that the box will overhang the cabinets even more than the pipe itself, moving it will likely be expensive, and it could set us back a day or more now that the drywall/plywood is up. (The time to do this work, if we'd wanted to, was while the walls and ceiling were open.) In any case, we spent the ride from the train station talking about what to do. We finally resolved to box it, even though it would probably look weird. I lamented that leaving it as-is wasn't an option, and Al lamented that we hadn't moved it before—or even today, since the plumber was already there fixing the flange and installing the new toilet.
On a more positive note, the tile arrived, and Jack said that the tile guys will be coming on Monday to lay it. He apparently picked out a grout in a color called Pewter, which I think ought to be a good match for our Seaspray tile (which isn't as green as it sounds—in fact, it's gray with a bit of brown streaked through). The new toilet went in without a hitch, the flange is fixed, and Al also had the plumber install a new drain in our shower (the old one was badly rusted). There's also a new drywall ceiling.
