Getting the owner involved sure sped things up. All of the work that was done yesterday and today (with the exception of the shower doors) could have been done last week: installing the lighting, covering up the hole where the old lighting box was, painting it, and installing two towel bars. The shower door dudes showed up today and did their work. Another guy came by and finished wiring a receptacle near the shower to plug in a towel warmer I’m gonna buy, and sealed and painted an area under the sink. That could have been done last week as well. Tomorrow, they need to tile two areas inside and outside of the shower. The project manager expected the granite guys to install granite there which they didn’t. It will be OK with tile. Everything except for the shower doors should have already been done and should have been on days when no one was here. I told the project manager two things before the project started:
1. He needed to have all of the stuff that needed to be installed like plumbing (he did have that) cabinets, (I postponed the original starting date for the job because the cabinets weren’t in yet), lighting, and mirrors. He dropped the ball. When it came time to install the lighting he found out that he needed to special order it. That took almost two weeks. Fail! When the cabinets came in there were no knobs. I asked him about that three times and it took the owner to resolve that problem. When it came time for the mirrors he forgot or didn’t write down what I wanted. I found out from the owner that it will take three weeks to get beveled glass to my specifications, so, I’m going with framed mirrors instead. I found some with brush nickel frames which should harmonize with the brush nickel faucets and cabinet knobs. They picked them up at Lowes and they should install them tomorrow. If I don’t like them, they’ll do until I find sumpin’ I like. I just want this project finished!
2. I didn’t want to see a day when there was no one working in that bathroom. As it was, due to his fuckups (Not inspecting the granite installation which delayed the installation of the plumbing for the sinks for a week. Yes. One week! Not having the lighting available. Not ordering the beveled glass mirrors. Other fumbles.) there were at least nine days when nothing was done. That did not include weekends. Nine working days. We’re talking almost two weeks. The granite dude should have been here the day after the tile went in to get the proper measurements for the granite. He came two days after. The shower door guys should have been here right after the granite was installed not two days after. With proper planning and scheduling this would have been a 4.5 week project. It will be six weeks if they finish this week and that is only because I got the owner of the company involved. If not, it would have prolly not been finished this week. It’s not like this was a rush job. I started this process in August. He had five months to plan and to acquire everything I needed. Five months!
This is why I put off home improvement projects. They are always a pain in the ass. The next indoor project is either painting the interior of the house or making changes in my master bedroom. The painting actually won’t be too bad. I’ve used that company before and they do a good job, at least on the outside of the house. But inside it’s little things, like having to take everything out of my china cabinet so it can be moved and then having to put everything back in it. There’s some drywall work that will need to be done as well. The other project involves widening the doors in my walk in closets in my master bedroom so they will be roll in closets, putting in hardwood floors, and painting it. Before I do those, I’ll have to recover from this one and pay it off. It’s on my home equity line. The upside of low interest rates. I may even do my outside project before the next indoor project. I want to enlarge the patio in the back and put stone retaining walls around all of my beds.
Why oh why are contractors so hard to work with? I gave this guy plenty of chances to do right. I cut him a lot of slack. It’s sad that I had to go to the owner of the company to get this project finished.