rehashing the contractor debacle

2006-07-12 - 10:07 a.m.

Oh, contractor update:

So I spoke with S yesterday morning, when I called to find out where the painters were.

I think he really is mad at us. He's mad at us for funnelling the job around him (which is really what we were doing). He's mad that he did all the grungy bits (porch -- which he did wrong, and attic) and now T comes in and does a beautiful job with trim.

I think he's going to be okay about it, actually. He's always said that T is doing a beautiful job, although he also always points out that T is really slow (which is not true, actually). And I think he'll be conscientious about getting his subs back to finish up their little pieces.

But his feeling are hurt, and he blames us for being slow with decisions. According to him, that's what's slowed down the job.

Not the month that he was gone, but the fact that I didn't pick the cabinet-maker cabinets until -- whenever. To which I reply, in my head, I would have gone with Swedish Conglomorate cabinets had I known that I was too late picking the others -- I would have been fine with that, actually.

And the fact that I did not pick the colors for the wall until Monday.

So I talked to both K and my brother about this, and they both agreed that he's nuts. And I actually believe that they would back him up if they really thought my slowness had held things up, so the fact that they think he's nuts really does mean that he's probably nuts.

And T seems to think he's nuts too, as does the architect.

So I think he is probably nuts.

But I do still feel sort of badly about the whole thing --

And yet yesterday, when he told me sort of sadly about how he was going to come over and remove his job box (because the house is NOT SECURE -- probably because we elected to retain the lovely old antique glass windows, now fully operational, thanks to T., rather than replace them with expensive modern things which we don't want and can't afford) and take away all the old crap he wanted to muck around in our garden with -- like we have time or money to be thinking about the garden -- I was intensely relieved.

I think partly he's just really bad at organizing jobs -- he was very late getting us an estimate, and then it wasn't even a real one. (His lateness meant that he's been working T and M, which actually works to our benefit now, in getting rid of him). He was terrible about keeping us up to date with what was going on. If I had known a week before the tile people were coming that they were coming, I would have bought the tile myself so that the right tile would have been there. But he didn't tell us. He may have had a schedule in his head, but we certainly never knew what it was.

And partly it was that we had different visions for the house. He wanted it to look new. We wanted it to look like itself. He thinks T is spending too much time repairing all the trim. He'd spend that money putting oak floors everywhere. I'd much rather have all the old stuff fixed -- trim, windows, doors. He'd like us to spend money on some ultra-modern shower door and stainless appliances.

Anyway -- I am certainly learning a lot. I would say I hope I never have to use what I've learned, but actually -- there's more that could be done.

But not for a while, I'm afraid.

Heh heh heh.


Well partly, too, we've never done this before. It's difficult to buy a house and know exactly what to do. I would certainly do it differently if I did it again -- I'd get a decent contractor lined up, even if I had to wait for him, and I'd have a better idea of what was entailed, and I'd get a timeline and stick to it.

I also confess to a certain satisfaction that he is now a little bit in the lurch -- he was stringing us along and counting on doing our job after he'd done all his others, and now -- sorry! we've gone elsewhere. Makes me feel like I may be a nice person, but I'm not a total chump.

Oh well --
But I think it's going to be okay --

Sigh.

out of print - new releases

find me! - 2008-02-12
where I've gone - 2008-02-07
Where I've gone - 2008-02-05
where I've gone - 2008-02-01
New - 2008-02-01

Diaryland

design by simplify.