We're Baaaaaaaack!

Well hello interweb friends and admirers. Yes, this is a blog post, and yes it's been ages since the world has been updated on our comings and going here on 13th st. We probably broke Google's algorithm with our lack of traffic, and for that I apologize.

Real quick update on our house since the last post: we've done nothing. Oh, we bought a new stove. But yeah, I think that's about it. I won't get into the life stuff that we are up to but suffice to say we've stayed busy and the house has been an after thought.

That has changed. Part of us getting busy was, um well, we're having another kid. This little bundle of screaming and not sleeping joy is slated to arrive in July. A - we're pumped. Parker loves babies and is really excited for a 2 year old which is fun to watch. B - it's time to get on to the final chapter of the house (that doesn't involve the words "kitchen", "bathroom" or "dig the basement out and pour a new concrete pad").

So we decided to gut the final bedroom and totally overhaul it with twin closets, (finally) fully insulated walls and ceiling and new windows. Oh, AND I'M NOT DOING IT! That's right, we hired a contractor. Now, I expect that you're a good reader of this amazing blog, so you already know about the nonsense we had with a previous contractor that we poured our hopes and dreams into. It went to shit. Messy shit. So after that shit (it really was shit) we did pretty much all of the work ourselves, and by that I mean I (Bryan) did it all. Well I don't hang or mud drywall and I hired a painter for the last room, but hey I had a spa day or something.

So Merlin (A+ on the name) showed with a couple dudes in a late 80's Ford F-350 quad cab with the name "Le Beaste" stenciled on the side. All vehicles the size of small boats need names. Anyway, the room being gutted has been in the past (in order): my office, our bedroom, our living room, a storage room, my workshop, and a guest room. It's had a life, and it had the scars to prove it. Aside from pulling up the old carpet and painting the floor, we hadn't touched this room since we bought the house. Pictures of the room before and after are scattered throughout this post, but I hope you figured that out already.

The room had a 1960's paneled (then painted) closet that was haphazardly added and added poorly as well. There was a special notch cut out that allowed someone to stick their hand through the hole in to adjust the radiator valve......But we never once complained because it was one of our 2.5 closets in the house, and the biggest, for the first 4 years we've been here. That was function over fashion in a major way. The other walls are covered in layers of wallpaper, newspaper, and then paint. The back window was so bad that in driving rain the kitchen below it would pour water, which happened just the other day. It was time for this room to GO. So in the end we're getting three custom windows, I'm insulating the walls and ceiling, Merlin is supplying proper electrical in there, and a great sense of this being the "last" thing we have to do to make the house really feel like we're in every room.

Before the baby arrives in July, which means this is Parker's room in October-ish, my mother-in-law will probably be residing in it for a few weeks. So it'll be a good chance to break it all in and see if we need to tweak anything before Parker takes over. Right away there's talk about building a bench that spans the closets which will be on either side of the back window. We'll see.

Dudes were off today so I snagged some pics. Tomorrow is framing and electrical, Thursday is something and Friday something else. Honestly, I wasn't paying attention to what Merlin said, that's why Christina is great.

We'll post pictures every couple of days for this few that want to see what is up. And I WILL get a picture of "Le Beaste", I assure you.

Sigh...for those "non-technical" readers in my family....click on the pictures for larger ones.

Bryan

The Fire Meany says: "DIY"

So we have been progressing on the house, but why is it so difficult to actually find someone, other than my now handy husband/contractor, to do any actual work? Particularly with plumbers, what is so difficult to do?

Let me back up a little bit. In May, on the hottest day of the summer, we started our new construction project giddy with delight at the daily work of our contractor. Slowly this fell apart, and we started to see some flaws in the general work quality and accuracy, which ultimate led to him walking off the job. Fine. Great.

Now the coldest day of the year rolls around, and we still don't have heat. 2 new radiators were to be installed as part of the plumbers contract. They have been floating around the house since June waiting for their new home. Tried to get 2 different guys out over the last 2 weeks to no avail. Bryan stayed home on Friday waiting for guy #3 only to have a guy show up and say, "I was just here to fix a leak, I can't do an install". Great. Today I come home at noon to wait for the same company to come again and do the install. Too bad they weren't actually planning to install the radiators, but just to look around and estimate. Great. Now in addition to no heat, he tells me that we have 1/2" rough in work tied into the 3/4" system, which won't get enough water to the 3rd floor to properly heat. Also, Bryan looked at the install sheet for the radiators, and they in fact REQUIRE the 3/4" supply. Great.

What part of this wasn't clear to the first plumber, who we paid specifically for this work? Was the store out of 3/4" copper that day? Did they just not want to spend the extra money? What would possibly make that seem like a good idea?

With any luck, a friend from work will save the day with his relatives who are plumbers, but if not I might just try to conjure the Fire Meany to live in the living room until Spring. I think that would be easier than finding a plumber to show up, do what you expect, and not have thoroughly empty pockets at the end. Great.

Breaking up is NOT hard to do....

So it's been a couple of weeks since I've last vented on the interwebs. Where to start....hmmm...oh yeah, our contractor has officially QUIT. Left. Took his tools. Good riddance if you ask us.

It all started so well. The guy was nice, showed up on time, and really started off well. It was pretty exciting as you can see in our early June entries. But like a ball of yarn with rusty nails in it, things slowly unraveled and became a dangerous pain in the ass. First off, in his quote there was only one sub listed, and that was the plumber. Christina in fact met the plumber, but that was the owner...not the guys that did the work (again, this is in a previous rant I posted so I'll refrain from rehashing). So then the weirdest thing happened; more and more subs showed up! They multiplied, like little late to work, throwing trash everywhere, moody Tribbles. Where was Captain Kirk when we needed him!?!?!

The electric subs screwed up half of the lines and lights by not following the plans Christina made. Again, this is in a previous rant, so I'll move on.

Oh, a footnote to all of that. We got a bill from the contractor for a combined $4,250 for OVERAGES from the plumbers and electricians. I'll say that in the line items, about $600 from the electricians that were from increased scope, and that close to $1,000 from the plumbers was because what we wanted was more than the "standard" bathrooms that they do. What?

So in early July I got this bill and called our contractor to hear a great defense of the overages. In so many words, I was told that the subs probably billed us for overages because we (Christina and I) are a pain to work with. That we change scope (like I said, it was for one thing...an extra outlet for a window AC) and that the subs had to redo work the entire time. Note that last part, it's a running theme.

After talking with him and looking at the work I took up the position that we'll just pay the money and move on. Christina was pretty pissed about the entire thing and REALLY pissed that our contractor wasn't keeping overages under control from HIS subs. I blindly argued a slightly different position...I was wrong now. I see that.

Anyway, next up were the drywall subs. Ok...whatever. The guys took almost 6 days to hang the drywall, and then brought in ANOTHER guy to tape ans mud the entire space. Not only did that guy take 4 days to do his thing, but he only applied 1 coat of mud (and sanded) to the entire space. Crap work. But hey, no overages!!!!

The drywall ended in the middle of July. After that Christina and I were now seeing some issues with the place. First off, all of the framing that our contractor ACTUALLY did, was off. Our main closet was finished to a length of 5'11" (speced to be 6'), and two linen closets finished to 22" (speced to be 2' even). What this means is that we cannot get any standard out of the box closet system as they come in 24" spans. Our fault I guess, we should have put the dimensions on the plans. Oh wait...that's right they were on the drawings, all of them.

The windows that were ordered for us were in fact NOT the custom Andersen windows that we had specified and that were in the contract. They are stock Andersen 400 series and so we waited close to 6 weeks for standard windows that can be ordered and delivered in less than 2 weeks. They were also ordered without hardware. We were quoted for custom Andersen 400 windows with hardware. We were ripped off. But by the time we had waited 6 weeks, endured torrential in the bathroom downstairs, and the hallway, and dining room, any windows were an improvement

Anyway, as I write this I'm getting tired of the nonsense. I'll boil it down to the fact that we created an "Action Item" list for our contractor that included items still left to be done (per our quote), items that are in progress, and what I called "items of concern". The last set of things included the closet dimensions as well as the lack of adequate framing around the windows that were put in. This resulted in an additional $650 during the stucco work to put the brick back in the wall. Totally unacceptable items.

Also in that last list was our stack plumbing that has been incorrect and a point of drama since the plumbers did it wrong to start with. Refusal to do anything about it was raining down like...well...I don't know. I was going to say my fists to this guy's face, but this is a family friendly blog.

Anyway, with this "Action Item" list we wanted just to talk and do a walk through with our contractor about the items. But the funniest thing happened during this; he stopped answering our calls! He must have been thanking God for caller ID on cell phones, because it helped him avoid acting like a professional and talking to his clients. After about 2 weeks of trying to get ahold of him (and I did once where we scheduled a date and time to do the walk through, where I think he lied about a family emergency to not have to show up) I got an email.

It was THE email. The "I can't work on your house...I'm losing money when I go there...I can't keep redoing work" whine-fest. It was all crap. He just decided that he didn't want to deal with us and do the work that we expected and that he PROMISED us. Sounds like a contractor in Philly alright.

The best part to all of this is that the guy has the cajones to tell us that he has not paid the plumber or electrician and that we are responsible for amount due to them. The amount he owes them is like $5,500 while the last payment to him was to be $4,600. See a problem there? But if you're paying attention there are a few problems here.

1. We have only the final payment to make to him (obviously that isn't happening) and the amount he owes those subs are more than we owe.
2. That he is saying we in essence have to pay 110% for 80% of the work. Not happening
3. That we have to pay the subs to finish the work and in effect we'd be paying them TWICE
4. That he paid himself before his subs.

Homey don't play that. At all. Not happening. He has threatened that if we don't settle up with the subs that we'll get a mechanic's lein on the house. I'm going to skip the legal stuff, but if he isn't smart to pay them himself we're not going to pay a dime.

At this point we've done a little back and forth with Christina using her great friends in the architecture and commercial contracting world to really do a number on all of this. I'm playing the bad guy and I'm fine with it. In fact, with this stuff I'm loving it.

Don't even get me started on the upside down mismatched window sills that were installed. I think that was the breaking point, both for us with the contractor and for the contractor when we requested they all come out. But at least I was able to buy a new table saw over the weekend to do the sills! SILVER LINING INDEED!!!

The sky's did seem to part a bit today, and we have a stucco contractor that has been great and sent over a friend of his that might just be able to help us out of this pickle. Stay tuned, hopefully for more pictures of complete work and less rants, but then again it would not be called "working on your house" if it was all easy........