Nashville spent Friday bracing for a snowfall, with predictions ranging from three inches to as much as a foot of the frozen stuff. We settled on about four inches of snow and a little bit of ice on top of that. But as I sit inside the relatively warmth of my home, staring at my addition shrouded in white, I can only ponder all of the things that still need to be completed with the addition.
1. Gutters - The contractor finally thought it was a good idea to put gutters on the house. A little late in the game for that, but better late than never, I guess. So the addition has been up for weeks and weeks, yet he decides Tuesday to finally get estimates. When they came to install gutters on Wednesday, the gutter guy asked the contractor if he wanted to paint the trim on the house before placing the gutters on the house. Duh...another oversight. So they spent all day Wednesday and Thursday painting the trim, then couldn't understand why the gutter company wouldn't install them on Friday, just hours before the flakes started flying. Can't wait until the icicles and snow starts to melt to see what new leaks appear.
2. Porch railings and caps - Wish I could say I looked out on my front window to measure the snow on my new front porch, but the railings all around the porch, the hand rail on the stairs, and the post caps are all still M.I.A. I thought I heard someone say the contractor measured the length of the rails incorrectly. Seems to be a re-occurring theme, doesn't it?
3. Paint - Certainly would be nice to finish painting inside the addition, but it is way to cold for the paint to be spread efficiently and for it to adhere properly. Why is it so cold in the addition?
4. HVAC - The new HVAC unit has been installed and hooked up to the ventilation system, but no one has flipped the switch. Why has no one flipped the switch yet?
5. Electrical - Nothing electrical in the addition is ready to go. The HVAC, thermostat, lights, light switches, outlets and everything else that should have a surge of power are currently absent of such. No lights, no heat, no patience.
6. Tile - Our tile should be firmly in place now, but this has been another point of frustration. A delay on another job pushed the start of the tile job back to Tuesday. An illness pushed the job back to Wednesday. They installed the backer board Thursday and showed up on Friday before being scared away by the snow. They asked if it was okay to work this weekend if they could get by. I hope they show Sunday, because they were not seen today.
7. Wood floors - The wood floors aren't done because the floor guy did not want to finish the floors only to have every other sub-contractor screw them up. Good move on his part. The floors have been scuffed, scraped, and soiled.
8. Doors - Interior doors still have not been installed and the back door still has not been installed and insulated correctly. The trim around the doors is still being installed, but they are screwing up the trim in the existing house. We have asked them to put up new trim in the addition that is different from the trim in the existing house. But because they have no foresight whatsoever, they threw away all of the trim they removed from the doors and windows of the existing house. Now, they can't find the same stuff to match what we currently have. The stuff they are using is about 3/4-inch too slender. Guess they had no idea that they might have trouble matching trim that was 50 years old. I went dumpster diving and salvaged some (but not nearly enough) before the dumpster was pulled early last week, but I am not going to tell that to my contractor. I'm going to let him sweat this one out.
9. Retaining wall - The retaining wall and concrete pad outside the back door are still non-existent. This, coupled with proper grading of the yard, would go a long way in keeping the water from coming in the back door. My contractor spoke to the sub-contractor who did the brickwork about doing job, and that's a good thing. He did very good work and I trust he will get it done quickly and correctly. Just don't know when he will start.
10. Cabinets - We went out of our way to paint one wall and the ceiling of the now-expanded family room in our existing home first so we could get the contractor to re-hang our cabinets...which would allow us to start moving some of our stuff back to where it belongs. Six days later and the cabinets remain covered in dust on the floor.
I think what would make me happy would be in my contractor would start looking at this project as if it were his own home. There is nothing I would rather see than him walking through the house with a clipboard writing down everything he sees that needs to be completed - the chip in the frame around the bathroom door, installing the door at the bottom of the stairs, fixing the bent nails and setting the others in the trim around the windows, installing the electrical on the front porch, picking up and installing our lights, cleaning up trash, finish painting the porch, installing the final can light downstairs, and on and on and on. Is it too much to ask him to be as picky as we are?
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