Saturday, February 13, 2010 - Close, but So Far Away

Workers arrived at 7:30 this morning to hopefully finish up all they can do at this point before the floors are installed. It has been a busy week, but a frustrating week.

Everything was supposed to be wrapped up either Thursday or Friday of last week, or Monday of this current week. All three days came and went, followed by four more days of failing to complete everything. Friday, however, was the day our frustration boiled over. The invoice we received from the contractor for our fifth of six payments, contained an $800 charge for building out the bathroom in the basement, a charge we had been told would be "$150ish." When we first discussed this part of the job with the contractor, we were willing to pay up to $500. When we learned it would only be $150, we were ecstatic. Obviously, we were not so overjoyed when we saw the bill. We certainly want to be fair about it, but our contract says all additional charges need to be in writing, and we did not receive anything in writing for this. That is a battle that will play out over the next couple of days.

The biggest battle came when Cara called me in tears Friday afternoon after she arrived home. After being told we could paint, and spending a good 50 hours painting everything on the main level, they decided over the past two weeks to slam every piece of wood and equipment into the freshly painted walls. So when Cara arrived home, they had decided to patch everything...and not so neatly. There were five or six dozen patched spots throughout the addition, including about a dozen on the focus wall of our stairwell, that combined we spent a good 10 hours painting. That was pretty much the last straw for Cara, and I let the contractor know it.

He offered to re-paint the wall for us and I vehemently declined the request. Cara is done with them touching any wall in the house.

I say that was the biggest battle, but I may be wrong. The most heated disagreement has been about our leaking walls in the basement. All along we have claimed that if the windows were caulked and wrapped properly, we would not have water entering the house. The contractor really downplayed the whole issue and said it had been resolved. We told him to take the drywall and insulation off the walls under the windows and prove it. Guess what...the block walls were wet. So he brought in a colleague who specializes in wet basements who said that the water wasn't coming in from the under the basement, and since the water wasn't dirty, it wasn't coming from the backfilled dirt around the exterior walls either. His conclusion was the same thing we have been complaining about for weeks...the windows. He said if the windows were properly caulked and wrapped, there would be no issues. DUH!

So with half a dozen workers on site this morning, I sit here watching them rip out the wall in our living room so they can wire our front porch light. It is one of two rooms we thought would remain untouched in this whole process. Now the only room not destroyed in one way or another is the kitchen. I have promised Cara I will guard and protect that room with all my might since it was just remodeled a couple of years ago.

At the end of the day today, all interior work is supposed to be done so the floors can be installed next week. I find it hard to believe they will be done with all of the mile-long checklists that I have sent them throughout the week, but we will see. The floor installation, sanding, and staining process will take a week-to-10-days to complete. Then the contractor's crew will come back to finish the trim, finish the exterior painting, grade the backyard, finish all of the little remaining items, and clean the whole place, inside and out, before leaving us along for good. I am optimistic for an end-of-the-month completion. Cara is much less optimistic.

I can see the finish line ahead, but I have sneaked a peek at it before and somehow seem to be unable to get any closer to it.