February 2009

I've been asked for some photo updates, but in all honesty there's not a whole lot to add. We have furniture in the apartment, but just the "leftovers." It's funny how you complete a remodel and suddenly you have no money to make the project look great with new furniture and accessories. We haven't even bought the cooktop and oven yet simply because it's not needed at the moment. Brad made me promise not to put my plastic roller storage back in my office, but I don't have any other spot for my office supplies, so there it sits, next to my new desk and file cabinet. And the hideous mirror I said I'd never use again is up there. I felt badly that our first guests didn't have anything other than a medicine cabinet mirror, so after they left I lugged up the giant, ugly mirror that I swore I'd take to Goodwill. Well, first I thought I could make it look better by painting it black and then I talked myself out of that cheap fix. No amount of paint can cover up the ugly faux vine-like molding. I need to go with the pricier fix: a new mirror.

And now for some photos that don’t show the final product (which will happen eventually). The space is great. I love it! I simply feel since it’s not done the photos might seem blah.

Day 154

We passed the final inspection on the first try! We can officially move things back into the office/guesthouse and into the garage bays.

I plan on updating the blog as we work on the projects Brad and I left for ourselves. Just because we passed the final inspection doesn’t mean we’re done. I have a list of at least 20 things we need to tackle. Our current top priorities are installing the wooden sun screens on the laundry room, getting Brad’s workshop in order (so we can find the tools ASAP instead of digging through boxes for 15 minutes), putting in a limestone and gravel path from the house to the garage, and moving my office back out to the garage! Hopefully that last one will happen over the extended weekend.

Before, During, and After

Day 144-153

First off, our final inspection is scheduled for tomorrow (Friday the 21^st). This time it’s actually real. I still expect to fail, but at least we’ll be that much closer to getting rid of our contractor! To my friend, HO, you’ll be happy to know that this project has taken so long our contractor is no longer getting paid (not for the past two weeks). We’ve already paid him everything (except for the 10% we hold until the project is done).

Now onto the good stuff…

Note to all Austin residents. Do not use Bryant Electric for your electricity needs. They are slow and don’t seem to mind not getting things right the first time. I’m close to losing track of how many times they’ve been out here, but I believe they’re on try number six. They’re actually working as I write this. So when I said in my previous post they were done, they weren’t. Here are the problems.

• The motion light doesn’t work and the back plate leaves a gaping hole in the stucco. After working on it four times they’ve only gotten the back plate fixed.
• The double light switches for the ceiling fans/lights turn on the same fixture and don’t work on the other. This is fixed, but still odd. I’ll leave it at that.
• They cut the hole for the bathroom vent too long and left a visible hole. Their first solution was to reposition the vent (so the hole ended up on the other side). I hope they weren’t surprised when I told them their solution was unacceptable. Next they used caulk to try to hide the hole. That looked completely ridiculous. Then they cut a sliver of drywall to fill the hole but didn’t tape/float it. Finally my contractor had Lazaro fix the hole and billed it back to Bryant Electric.
• This is the best! Even better than the bathroom vent. They came back to hook up wiring for the tankless water heater (it’s gas, but needs electricity too). To do this they unplugged the dryer and plugged the water heater into the dryer’s outlet! What this means is the water heater, dryer, and washing machine cannot all work together. One has to be unplugged. Genius! To fix this they ended up installing a piggyback-type outlet, so the outlet is about six inches deep. This isn’t good because then the washer and dryer have to stick out six inches. They’re supposed to fix that today, so I can’t wait to see what they do this time.
• They installed another piggyback-type outlet at the top of the stairs. Apparently this is code, but they didn’t ask us about placement. It sticks out so far we’re worried someone going down the stairs will trip over it. Hopefully that will be fixed today. I also think this is the reason for a hairline crack in the stucco about a foot above the outlet.
• They couldn’t figure out how to install the Ikea track lights we got for the kitchen, so I had to fill multiple “mistake” holes in the ceiling.

I think that’s it. It’s quite possible I’m leaving something out. It’s a long list to keep track of. I really hope the next post has nothing to do with electrician problems.

On a more positive note I cannot tell you how much I love our ductless heating and air conditioning unit. It is the greatest thing ever! It’s so quiet I can’t tell when it’s on. I haven’t been able to truly test it since my office isn’t up there yet, but while I’ve been painting it’s been great. The guys who installed it were great too. They arrived with a giant glass carafe of coffee—the drip-coffee kind that’s in the shape of an hourglass with the leather wrap around the middle. There’s something uniquely Austin about that and I love it!

Another positive is that the floors are done and gorgeous. We are so lucky to have old oak floors in such great shape. I’m thankful the previous owner had covered them up with ugly black carpet squares. To fix the hole where the floor heater used to be and where the kitchen wall used to be they simply pulled up all the hardwoods on the kitchen/dining room side and mixed in a few pieces of old with new.

I don’t think I wrote about our picky tile guy, Randy. He did a great job too, but not without a wee bit of drama. He wouldn’t work while anybody else was there, so he put us behind by at least three days. I guess when you’re really good at your job you get what you want. Still, I think it was absolutely ridiculous. To clarify, Randy only did the subway tile in the shower. Brad, my hero, laid the penny tile on the floor. He doesn’t think he did a good job, but I think it looks gorgeous!

I haven't been able to get a great shot of the bathroom. I think my lens needs a cleaning because photos aren't coming out right lately. However, my wide-angle lens seems fine, so here's a better photo of the bathroom using that. Note that I haven't tackled painting the wood trim yet (and the quarter-round hasn't been installed).


A shot of my office and the bedroom (on the other side of the half-wall):

Day 129-143

I've run out of steam for this blog. I can't believe the project is so far behind. Initially it was supposed to be done in mid to late September. Then it was supposed to be done at the end of October. Today it's November 10 and it's still not done. I laughed at my neighbor when she said "aim for Christmas." I responded that it will definitely be done before Thanksgiving. She looked at me and shrugged, unconvinced. I'm starting to fear she was right!

Here's where we're at today. The electrical is done (although not without a lot of mistakes and frustration). The floor guy showed up this morning (he was supposed to be here last Wednesday--and before that the last week in October). The plumbers showed up after lunch, but they're not done. If all goes well things will be wrapped up by Wednesday and we can ask for a final inspection at the end of the week. Having said that I'm sure we'll fail our inspection. I don't know why, but considering the only one we passed on the first try was our insulation inspection, I'm just expecting this thing to drag out another week.

I owe this site a bunch of photos. Most importantly the bathroom. It is the only room that's finished (except that the water's shut off and I haven't painted the woodwork). It has tile, painted walls, lights, a toilet, sink, and tub/shower. It looks great! The tile guy did a great job on the tub/shower and Brad did an amazing job on the floor. I got my penny tile after all. Now if I could just prevent the workers from ruining everything (they already dropped spackle on the grout and rubbed it in).



Here's a photos of the lighting in the kitchen/dining area:



And here are a couple photos of the exterior:





I decided this simply wouldn't be a typical post if I didn't share at least one strange story about the project. The lastest snag is with the garage door openers. They still haven't been installed. The installers came several times to install them and each time left without installing anything. Apparently the support beam on the ceiling is in the way. They decided to lower the track, but since it still wasn't low enough for the chains to clear the beam they wanted to lower it even more. We didn't want this because it would take about two feet off height in the garage away. Their other solution was to cut through the beam and then have someone else come in and reinforce it. No thanks. The garage door people couldn't come up with a solution, so Brad did (typical). The solution was to install side mount openers. Get this: the garage door company doesn't know how to install them (or won't). They're not going to help us. However they sell the openers for 2x what they cost online! And they call themselves the Overhead Door Company?! I think not.

Day 122-128

Note that this is from the week of October 20. Since I’m ready for this project to be over I’m not doing my best at keeping up with the blog. My writing seems to be a perfect reflection of the slowness of the project.

Here’s a somewhat strange story for the final two or so weeks of this project. Our contractor will be gone! He left for vacation Tuesday (day 123) and won’t be back until the 31^st (day 133). Talk about terrible timing. To top it off he didn’t tell us until late Monday morning. He said everything would be fine and we could call him at any time. It didn’t exactly make me feel great about things. He gave us a list of all the things that were supposed to get done this week:

Monday: Prime drywall

Tuesday: Texture drywall

Wednesday: Tile guy, floor guy, and Lazaro (work on trim)

Friday: Electricians and garage door openers installed

Misc: Painting all week, plumbers after tile is done, floor guy back after plumbers are done

David also said Manor and his crew are supposed to come back Tuesday to fix the drainage problem that was created when they put in the retaining wall. That was supposed to be fixed months ago. The ductless HVAC can’t be installed until it’s fixed because the outside part of the HVAC is supposed to rest on the ground they need to fix. And if you recall they were supposed to dig a trench and install the cable they ruined. That never happened, so I’m already prepared to make some phone calls to David.

Here are the things that actually did get done this week:

The drywall was primed and finished on schedule. Lazaro installed the trim. The exterior paint was finished. After calling Manor each day for three days the drainage issue was fixed. That’s it. No floor guy, tile guy, electricity, or garage door openers. The electricians showed up, but they were slow and had to do a few things twice. I’ll elaborate when I update the blog for this week. I will give you a big hint on how things went by stating they are by far the worst group we’ve worked with throughout this project. Even worse than David!

Throughout the week I worked on painting the ceiling after the workers left for the day. I finished up on Saturday and then primed and caulked the trim on Sunday.

Day 117-121

When the end is near it seems that everything is going in slow motion. As of right now neither the drywall or exterior paint is done. The drywall gets its primer coat Monday (day 122) and texture coat Tuesday, and then it will be done. The exterior paint probably won’t be finished until the end of the week. The good news on the paint is that the painters have been thoroughly preparing the exterior, so the end result should be impressive. They even worked on Saturday.

Friday (day 119) the garage doors were installed. We can’t believe they’re finally here. Of course, like everything else, they’re not done. Since we don’t have electricity yet they didn’t install the garage door opener. I need to make sure David remembers to call them back to take care of that. Once everyone leaves then we’ll also stain the doors.

On the drywall front: three odd things. 1) There’s an area that hasn’t been taped floated. It’s about three feet long and we cannot for the life of us figure out why it wasn’t taped/floated and why it wasn’t completely obvious to the drywaller. David marked areas that needed work, so hopefully this will be taken care of. 2) They drywalled over some wiring in the ceiling. This is odd all the way around because we have no idea what the wiring was for (maybe a smoke alarm?) and why they would drywall over it. We have to make sure that we don’t have live wires loose in the attic. 3) Lazaro left some of the baseboard trim on before drywalling started. Now they’re going to have to spend time making sure they do the trim right instead of just tacking it up over the drywall.

Sunday (day 121) Brad and I primed the garage bay walls. We had asked David if this was OK and he said to go ahead with it. At least that’s one thing out of the way. We can’t decide if we’re going to take the time to paint it or not. Right now we’re leaning towards not painting it. It should probably be done, but we have a lot of painting in our future and the garage bay walls are not high on our list of things to paint.