Day 40

Our contractor, David, came over in the morning to go over many details for the garage. We discussed the retaining wall mistake, the Cat 5 cable mistake, doors and windows, siding, stucco, the placement of the washer and dryer, the water heater, the dumpster, and the ductless heating and air conditioning unit. We covered a lot in about 40 minutes. I also let him know we need to see estimates for the cost of various things before we just give him the go-ahead. I think that’s our biggest problem with him is that he gives us a bid and then wants us to OK it within the next five minutes. We'd like to do a little research to make sure the bid is reasonable and that the bid contains exactly what we want.

For example, we got the garage door bid. It was a lot more than we expected, but after doing some research I found that it was a reasonable price as we’re getting semi-custom garage doors. The thing I really didn’t like about the bid was that there was no drawing of what we requested so I’m not sure David communicated what we wanted to the garage door guy correctly. However, he wanted approval for it ASAP—more like he wanted approval an hour ago. In reality I was under the impression he already went ahead and ordered the doors. I guess we’ll find out in a week or so if what is being made is what we really want. Yikes!

We hope everything we discussed sticks with David. I think Lazaro was the one who really absorbed the conversation more than anyone. The whole thing made me nervous because no one was taking notes. For example, David had old drawings of one side of the garage where we initially wanted a window, but in the newer drawings the window is gone. Lazaro had already framed the area for the window and we said that was wrong. I think Lazaro will remember that, but I wanted David to cross out the window on the drawing. I even asked if he wanted a pencil to take notes. He said Lazaro would remember everything. The thing is, I think Lazaro will remember everything, but I’m not sure David will.

One thing we discussed with David that irritates me more and more as I think about it is the dumpster. As I’ve stated before it’s been full for two weeks. I found out in our meeting with David that we pay for the dumpster by the day. So basically we’ve been paying for a full dumpster to sit in our alley for two weeks! To top it off I’ve been asking for it to be taken away for at least a week. Perhaps I’ll fish for a dumpster discount. The good news is once the dumpster is gone, it’s gone for good. Instead of getting another dumpster we’re going to have the scraps put on the new driveway and someone will come haul them away. David doesn’t foresee the need for a small dumpster, so I’m happy our neighbor will be able to park his truck in his garage again.

I’ll leave you with progress photos from Day 1 until now and a photo of one of the almost-framed sides of the garage:

Day 39

We didn’t hear from our contractor about the retaining wall mistake, so we called him again first thing in the morning. He said the foundation crew wouldn’t show up until he was back (the next day). I felt he should have called us and let us know. We were worried we’d have to go out and tell the crew not to continue. Oh well. At least he took care of it.

Framing continued on Day 39. Lazaro and the assistant worked until almost 7:00 P.M. Here are photos of the progress.

Day 38

I talked to our contractor about the Cat 5 situation. He’s on vacation so he hadn’t seen my e-mail with photos of the problem. When I told him what the crew did he said, “That’s dumb.” My thoughts exactly. He said they’d run a new line if they had too. He mentioned it possibly being visible if it would be hard to bury—which I didn’t like. We’ll have to make sure it’s done correctly. We don’t want a wire running overhead from our house to the garage—that’s the entire reason Brad took the time to bury it.

This morning the foundation crew came back to pour the footing for the retaining wall. Guess what. They poured it wrong. There’s supposed to be two feet between the patio and the retaining wall (for a walkway). The way they have the footing poured makes it only one foot, which is hardly a walkway. They also have the rebar too high—which means the wall would be higher than the current retaining wall. Brad left a message with our contractor and hopefully we’ll hear from him before the crew comes back to complete the wall. If not one of us is going to have to go out there and make sure they don’t start on the retaining wall.

When the foundation crew finished up, Lazaro and his assistant started framing the garage. Yay! In the photo you can hardly tell, but it’s there. Really. Our contractor thought it might be completely framed by the end of the week. I won’t hold my breath.

I will sign off with a photo of the overfilled dumpster that was supposed to be gone at least three weeks ago. It’s been that full for over a week and is starting to smell really bad. That has got to go this week!

Day 33-37

On Day 33 the crew came back to work on getting the rest of Brad’s retaining wall out before setting up forms for the next two concrete pours. We didn’t get as much rain as was predicted, so the crew worked all day. At the end of the day the forms for the driveway were in and a bunch of dirt was removed from where the retaining wall had been.

The dirt pile irritated me quite a bit. It’s the first time the look of the job site has bothered me. I don’t know if it was because of the memory of our whale-sized pile of dirt in the backyard from the time Brad built the retaining wall or if it was because I felt they weren’t getting rid of things properly. I think it was the later. What they did didn’t make sense. The giant dumpster (that was only supposed to be in the alley for a week to ten days) was completely full and they then put a pile of dirt as tall as the dumpster in front of it. Therefore the dumpster couldn’t be moved until the dirt was removed—and that dumpster needs to be removed! I was all set to apologize to my neighbors the next day, but the next morning the first thing the crew did was move the dirt pile.

Once the dirt pile was moved the crew then put the forms down for the patio—although that’s not quite the right word. My Uncle Bill had a good word for it—probably something French, but since I’m from rural Iowa I think of it as a lean-to.

At 11:00 A.M. the cement truck arrived and the driveway was poured. This was the day (Day 34) Austin was to get the most rain from Hurricane Dolly. It was overcast most of the morning, but didn’t really look like rain. But of course as soon as the driveway was poured it started raining. The crew put up big, black tarps over the driveway and then after the patio was poured they covered that with a tarp. They ended their day around 2:00.

Day 35 was spent clearing more dirt and making way for the new section of retaining wall. They also spread a lot of dirt around in our yard. I haven’t decided if I’m irritated about that yet. It all depends on how it works out. Right now it looks as though they spread it so water will run away from the garage, so I’m pleased about that, but I don’t want the dirt to be so high it interferes with the walkway we’ll put in later.

At the end of Day 35 Brad and I went out to see our new slabs. Since we had rain the day before and the slabs were covered we hadn’t seen them yet. Right off we found something that was NOT good. The crew cut the Cat 5 cable. They also poured concrete over it, so now when they replace the cable (which they WILL) they can’t thread it through a casing. It will have to go somewhere else. And who knows if there were more cuts under the concrete. I sent our contractor an e-mail with photos of the problem and let him know I rely on that cable to do my job and it needed to be fixed. I also let him know the stinky, overfilled dumpster needs to go this next week.

I must say I was not happy about the concrete driveway. I had wanted gravel—which I thought was what we’d have. However, the day Brad and I played tag with the awful plumber Brad and our contractor decided on the concrete driveway. I guess I’ll have to learn to live with it, but I like the natural look of gravel. Perhaps I’ll appreciate it next winter when we get a heavy rain and I’m not walking through puddles.

Day 36 and 37 fell on the weekend, so I have nothing to report. I chose to include the weekends in my day count since we’re living through the mess on weekends. Also, the project was kicked off on a Saturday.

I leave you with a photo of the patio slab and an overall view of the project.

Day 31-32

The foundation was poured the morning of Day 31 (July 21) of the project. I must say it’s a nice foundation. The crew spent a long time grinding/screening it so it looked pretty. When the cement truck arrived I was the only one who jumped up and down and shouted “It’s here! It’s here!” I would say Pig was the next most excited followed by Brad and then Gertie. Perhaps Pig and I need to get out more.

The pouring itself didn’t take long. It only required two trucks full of cement. When the first truck arrived the crew had all of the cement out and raked in probably under 30 minutes: same with the second truck. They wrapped up around 5:45 (the longest day yet) after they spent hours screening the top of the foundation. However, I assumed they got a nice, long lunch break in while the cement set up.

This morning (Day 32) the crew removed the foundation forms and cleaned up around the perimeter. It’s now the cleanest part of the backyard. I went out and thanked them all and said how nice it looked and they looked at me like I was nuts. Apparently I’m one of the few people who get excited about garage foundations. It really does look nice though!

Brad and I then played tag with our contractor this morning because we also had a plumber at our house (I won’t even get into that long story, but just know that we haven’t had hot water in the house since the night before we went to Iowa). While Brad started off with the plumber I started off with David, the contractor. We discussed exterior materials, the pouring of the six-foot slab off the back of the new slab, and getting rid of my heater-from-hell today. David had some design questions I couldn’t answer (Brad drew the design plans—certainly not me), so I went in to take over with the plumber while Brad talked to David.

And here’s where it got good. When the plumber showed me the quote for a new tankless water heater I said no to it. I explained we had gotten a quote for half that and weren’t interested. He then asked to “speak with my husband.” That irritated me. I told him to give me his phone number and I’d have Brad call him if we wanted to consider the quote, but that I didn’t think we would. He then said he could wait around until Brad was done with our contractor—that all he had was time. He kind of creeped me out. I didn’t want to sit there with him, so I went to the garage and announced to everyone “Brad, he wants to speak with my husband!” (Also note that he was eyeing the things on my temporary work desk and it made me uneasy to leave him in the house for even 30 seconds.) Brad said he’d come in in a minute. I went back in and had the creepy plumber ask me questions about where I was from originally and how I came to live in Texas (I must have given my non-native-Texas-status away when I, a woman, turned down his quote while my husband was home). And then Brad came in and I went back out with David. And surprise, surprise, Brad turned the plumber down too. We will never call THAT company again. Austinites, it's Radiant Plumbing.

David and I then went up to the second story of the garage to discuss what would be done up there. I met Lazaro for the first time (David’s head remodel man) and also Lazaro’s assistant. He also has a great name, but I don’t remember it. I’m sure I’ll get to know it in the upcoming weeks. We only went over what walls would come out and where the half-wall would be (the existing wall between the bedroom and living room). We also discussed the terminology of the studio/office/apartment. Apparently we have to be careful what we call it. This is another lame City of Austin thing. If we call it a studio or office we can’t have a kitchen sink (strange considering most offices have a break room). If we call it an apartment it can have a kitchen sink but the zoning’s different (with higher property taxes, I assume). Regardless, we’ll have a kitchen sink. And that’s all I will say about the kitchen sink.

The rest of the afternoon the crew spent moving the giant wooden blocks holding up the second story to the new slab so they could prep the next areas for concrete. They also started tearing out part of the retaining wall. That proved to be quite difficult since Brad put a lot of thought into the engineering of the wall. Manor assumed it would come out without a problem. He even went so far as to say he was going to rebuild the wall the right way—reinforced with steel. I hope Manor was there when they realized Brad built it the right way to begin with.

David and Brad decided to pour a driveway (I liked the gravel that’s there, but I can live with a concrete drive). That means there will be new slabs off the house-facing and alley-facing sides of the garage. They also figured out the plan for the stucco. Originally we wanted to cover the entire garage with stucco—until will figured out it’s more than twice as much as siding. However, it’s important to us that the garage looks nice and fits in with our house (brick and stucco), so we opted to do the top with stucco and the bottom with siding. Since there will only be one wall where the siding is partially visible from the house we decided it was a good way to save money and still keep the aesthetic we wanted. What David and Brad worked out was how the siding and the stucco would meet.

It doesn’t sound as though the crew will show up the next two days due to the possible rains Austin could get from Hurricane Dolly. The next step was supposed to be framing the bottom of the garage, but I think they might not do that until the other slabs are poured. I’ll leave you with more photos of the project.

Day 27-30

The project is falling behind again. This time it’s due to the foundation engineer (Jerry Garcia—yet another fun name) being on vacation. He has to check the work that's been done before the foundation can be poured. My contractor is hopeful they’ll pour on Monday. He’s not too pleased the project has fallen behind, but I’m happy he let us know this morning (Day 28) that they will not pour the foundation today.

I said I’d report back on how things went when I told Jason and Lindsay the alley is not theirs. Fortunately Lindsay answered the door. I say that because Jason tends to talk quite a bit and I imagine we would have had to have had a much longer discussion. Lindsay was very gracious about the whole thing. I explained to her what we were told, gave her a printout of the plat similar to what I put in the previous post, and hopefully that will be the end of the alley ownership dispute.

I moved the banana tree so it wouldn’t hide things in the progress photos. The wooden blocks are still in the way, but hopefully those will be gone in a couple weeks. Here’s where things are as of Day 28.

It doesn't look like anything's changed, does it.

Day 19-26 (aka drama, drama, drama!)

I’m not sure where to begin with this entry. While Brad and I were in Iowa for my youngest brother’s wedding not much happened on the job site, but a lot of words passed between Manor Foster (foundation boss) and my neighbors (Jason & Lindsay). I can only give you the information second hand, but I quite enjoyed hearing the stories (very dramatized) from each side. They’re fairly similar, but I must admit Manor seemed to be more honest than Lindsay. The reason I believe this is because Manor owned up to all of the negative things Lindsay said about him while Lindsay failed to mention Jason cursing like a madman in Manor’s face. Should my small-framed, hippie, plant-growing neighbor take on a construction guy? I think not. And here’s the story:

Last Thursday (Day 20) some construction sand was unloaded in the alley to be used for the base of our foundation. Due to a steel shortage the foundation project was put on hold a couple days, so there was no need for the sand until they knew the steel was coming. On Monday (Day 24) the sand was still in the alley (closer to Jason’s house than to our garage) so Jason called Manor and said if it wasn’t moved by the end of the day he’d have it moved. A little background: Jason thinks he owns the alley. Manor said he’d remove it by days end. At 4:45 Jason started shoveling sand and moving it into our front driveway. A guy looking for work happened upon him and offered to help. The two of them were moving sand into the worker-guy’s truck and into our driveway (when we got home Tuesday evening we arrived to a pile of sand in our drive and couldn’t park there). At 4:50 Manor showed up with another guy to start moving the sand. Both sides of the story matched up to this point. The argument that ensued between the two of them also matches up for the most part, but Lindsay (the girlfriend) made it sound as though Manor was the only bad guy. And here’s what I know about the argument. It will be a little stream-of-conscious since that’s how I hear it in my brain. For the most part it’s a bunch of angry jibber-jabber.

Lindsay’s story: Jason & Lindsay were planning on having a party Friday but had to cancel because sand was in “their driveway” (the alley they think they own). I never knew sand in a driveway could cancel a party, but OK. When Manor showed up Jason and another guy were putting sand in a truck. Manor ran up to him and got in his face and started yelling. Jason laid out what the problem was, but Manor looked like a monster who was going crazy and that scared Lindsay. She thought Manor was going to hit him, so she got between the two of them. Manor then yelled over Lindsay to Jason, “I’m going to lay you out!” Lindsay said she was going to call the police and Manor said that was fine with him. Then the sand was moved down the alley by Manor and his worker. She repeated the “lay you out” comment several times.

Manor’s story: When Manor saw a bunch of sand in the back of some guy’s truck he assumed they were stealing it. That angered Manor and Manor told Jason he needed to pay him for that sand if he was going to take it. Jason started cursing at Manor and told him he wasn’t paying for (insert curse word here). He then continued cursing and said Manor was supposed to move the sand by the end of the day. Manor said he was there before 5:00 and said he’d move the sand. Jason told him how dirty the jobsite was. Manor said if he wanted to see a dirty jobsite he’d take him to one—that this one was clean compared to most. Jason yelled at him about getting sand in his potted plants. Manor told him he had two months to move any plants he thought might be in the way. Jason then starting telling him he owned the alley. Manor said he doesn’t and that the alley is a city easement. Jason said it’s not, said he had a plat map to prove it and got in Manor’s face. Manor then said he was going to shove the alley (or maybe it was his plants) up his (insert curse word here). Manor said he’d call the police and Jason said that was fine with him. Manor said the police would side with the person who was having their property stolen. Then Manor and his helper started moving the sand further down the alley.

After all of this drama I left a message with my contractor. He called this morning (Day 26) with yet a third story—that was basically the same, but in his story Jason threatened Manor with a shovel. I’m not sure I believe that, but I do believe both parties were anything but pleasant.

Manor called me to apologize a few minutes after I spoke with our contractor. When I told him I understood that Jason could be hard to take but that he couldn’t threaten my neighbors with “I’m going to lay you out” he said, “I never said that. I said I was going to shove the alley (or plants?) up his BLEEP.” I found that somewhat humorous.

Thanks to this mishap we now know the truth behind the infamous alley and who owns what. Lindsay was very neighborly and gave us their plat map which we then researched. We could see why they thought they owned part of the alley. On the plat it states that “one-half of the alley vacated at 1106 Fairmount” is part of the plat. “Vacated” is the key word. A City of Austin person returned our phone call and told us that the alley is owned by the city, but that the vacated alley is owned by Jason. That language doesn’t make sense until you look at the entire block’s plat map instead of the individual plat map. In the photo below you can see that the green part is the current alley (shared by four neighbors) and the yellow part is where an old alley used to be (before being resubdivided in the 1920’s). Jason owns the vacated alley. I recall being told about the block being resubdivided when we bought our house, but since the old alley didn't run into our property I never thought the info would be useful. I simply thought the plat person was having fun telling me the history of our block.

So there you have it. Jason doesn’t own the alley and hopefully his knowledge of that will prevent further problems. I’ll let you know what happens when I inform him of this.

Above: A photo of the evil pile of sand and another of where it used to reside (in the sunny spot in the second photo). Note that there are probably at least 50 pots of vegetables in Jason's front yard.

As for progress. Today the steel was delivered and they laid it all down in preparation for the foundation being poured Friday. Since I was told it’s not being poured until Friday my guess is they won’t be here tomorrow.

No photo of the overall garage today. I realize I need to move the banana tree so all of the "progress" photos don't look the same. Instead here are some shots of the foundation preparation. The evil sand is under the black tarp.

Day 13-18

It’s been a week since my last entry because we left the country for the 4^th of July. It doesn’t sound very patriotic, but my company gave me two days off and I wanted to take advantage of that time with a beach vacation to Mexico. We chose Isla Mujeres off the coast of Cancun.

Here are some photos of the beautiful hotel we decided stayed in (the view from our room and two photos of the pool):

And here is a photo of why we heard banging and saws and whistles starting at 7:30 AM every morning (even Saturday) and did not relax one single bit on vacation (click on the photo to see it larger and notice the construction next door):


Apparently we can’t escape construction. However, it seems we would have had better luck escaping it at home—not that that’s why we went on vacation. I simply can’t believe our dumb luck. The good news is they stopped around 12:30 every day. The bad news is waking up to construction doesn’t get you off on the right foot. Even going to another beach to escape the noise didn’t help. And the really bad news is that the workers liked to whistle and stare at the women in the pool. They made no effort to try to disguise their stares.

On the home front a lot of progress was made, but the photos don’t do a good job of showing that. They started laying the forms for pouring the foundation yesterday. It rained yesterday afternoon and there’s a 50-60% chance of more rain today, so I imagine nothing will happen today.

Manor Foster was over checking things out this morning and he said they’d like to empty the dumpster today, but if the dump is too wet they shut down. He also said they definitely won’t pour concrete today due to the rain (originally this was the day it was supposed to start). I can’t complain because we desperately need the rain. I also can’t complain because this is my first work week morning of quiet since June 23rd.

Day 12

In the previous entry I wrote about our first on-site annoyance. Today we had our first contractor annoyance. He didn’t read our foundation plans. Our foundation bid (which we only received today—even though he’s had it since the beginning of June) did not include the additional 6’ slab we want to pour in the backyard; or the slab for the entrance to the garage bays. Last night he said he didn’t know about them and then this morning he said he knew about the patio slab but not the entrance slab. We always thought it was a little strange he had the raising crew put the wooden blocks where they did—in the way of the new slabs, but we assumed he had it under control. Why would we think he hadn’t analyzed the plan our engineer made and that he, the contractor, passed on to the City to OK?

Today we’re feeling a little deflated, to say the least. For us the biggest issue is that he contradicted himself. I’m trying to stay away from the word “lie,” but I’ll admit it keeps popping into my head. If we didn’t know about the great work he’s done for two other couples we know (and more people that those people know) we would definitely feel as though this guy was trying to pull one over on us and we wouldn’t have any confidence in his ability to be a good contractor. I guess the silver lining is that we do know he gets things done and the work that’s done is good, but he’s really going to have to stay on top of things in order to regain our confidence in him.

Now that that’s out of the way I can move on to the progress that’s been made. The demo crew showed up this morning and demolished almost all of the walls and started jackhammering the floor out. The dumpster didn’t show up today but will be here tomorrow. Right now there are piles of cinderblock all over the place.

We found an old newspaper tucked between the two floors. It's dated February 2, 1949. We assume the garage was started in 1949 and finished (or at least put on record) in 1950.



And finally, I must mention the name of the demo crew lead—Manor Foster. Yet another fantastic Texan name. I thought he’d be about 70, but he’s probably closer to 40. He took over his dad’s business, just like Junior Brown did. He’s a really nice guy too. His team will also pour our foundation and frame it.

Before and After, Day 12:

Day 7-11

The first on-site annoyance has happened. On the 7^th day there was not rest. Instead someone from the demo crew parked a trailer in the alley and blocked my neighbor’s truck—on a Friday afternoon. To clarify, this is a dead-end alley. You can only get in and out from one direction. I called my contractor and he cursed and then apologized. He said he specifically told the lead not to block the alley. I’m sure this is true and it was someone other than the lead who parked the trailer, but what type of person knowingly blocks someone in? I’ll tell you what type. The type who wears sunglasses like these and leaves them behind:


And to prove my knowingly-blocks-someone-in point, below is a photo of the trailer and my neighbor’s truck. If you stand where the trailer is you can definitely see the truck. Also, it’s not as though he just backed in and left. He and a few other guys (as told by another neighbor) unloaded a bunch of their materials and then hung out for a little bit.


The trailer wasn’t moved until Saturday morning. Fortunately my neighbor didn’t need his truck Friday night. When they moved it they replaced it with a Bobcat. It barely fit on our side of the alley, but cars and trucks can get through.

As of Day 11 we’re still at a stand-still. I had hoped demo would begin today. Yesterday our contractor let us know our plot drawing was holding up progress. The plot changed since we bought the house (the second garage was removed, our driveway was shortened, and we added a limestone patio). Our contractor failed to note the driveway was shortened, so the issue the City has is impervious cover. We’re at 33% impervious cover and the City only allows 40%. Our contractor has to prove the driveway has been shortened otherwise I imagine we’re close to 40% impervious cover. He sent photos to the permit person yesterday, but until they respond we can’t do anything. It’s frustrating since this is a short work week. We hope demo can still start this week, but we won’t count on it.