Tuesday, December 15, 2009 - Who Is Babysitting the Contractor?

Every now and then my excitement with this home renovation project is tempered by a dose of reality smacking me in the face. How is it that I can have a conversation with my contractor and come home expecting things to have been completed based upon said conversation, yet none of it is done just quite right?

Last night I laid out a perfectly good lighting plan, put Post-It Notes on roof beams inside the addition to show exactly where things should go, and lights were still misplaced. I even talked to my contractor after sending the plan to him. Downstairs is a completely different story. We told him simply that we wanted two fans downstairs with eight can lights placed around the perimeter of the room. I get home tonight and there are 13 lights in the room. Really? I ask for eight lights evenly spaced throughout the room and you haphazardly install 13 lights?

I would never, ever pretend to be an engineer, an architect, or a contractor. Sometimes I am amazed that I can even switch out an outlet or install molding around the baseboards. But to me it made complete sense to first install the wiring boxes for the fans, and then place the lights after that. It's really quite simple and the math not all that difficult: The room is 24-feet in length. Divide the room in thirds. Come in eight feet from the back wall and place a fan. Come in eight feet from the stairwell and install a fan. Presto, you have eight feet in between fans and everything is spaced evenly. You then run the lights down the side of the walls and you're done.

I work just 10 miles from home and can usually get home easily if I'm needed for a quick decision. But this week has been pretty crazy at work and my car has been in the shop so I haven't been able to run home at the drop of a hat. (By the way, I could probably start a new blog about my car repair debacles, but I will spare you that one for now.) But that is why we have a contractor. He is supposed to be the ringleader managing this whole circus, listening to what I have to say, reading the plans correctly, telling us what we need to buy and when, and striving to get the project done in a somewhat timely manner. But who is babysitting the contractor? I didn't think that was something about which I would have to worry.