Day 94-98

Let me get the tile business out of the way first. I kind of feel like I’ve been working with a used car salesman—by the name of David. In my previous post I mentioned we told David we’d have the tub surround tiled by his tile guy and we’d do the floor ourselves. He said that was too small of a job and the tile guy wouldn’t do it. At that time I said we were thinking about doing the tile ourselves. A day or two later he called and asked what we were going to do about the tile and I said we were definitely doing the tile ourselves. He then said that if the floor’s the only issue the tile guy would do the tub surround. I told him he had already told me he wouldn’t do that, and he said it doesn’t matter to the tile guy. To me this is why the used car salesman comparison fits. I feel as though he was seeing if we’d cave, and when we didn’t then we got what we originally wanted. It seems so odd to me—especially over a tile job.

We found out another dumb twist in City codes. Apparently the ceiling of the first floor has to be insulated and drywalled. We were planning on doing that anyway, but the kicker is that there can’t be any open areas. That means Lazaro and Arturo had to build a frame around all of the plumbing. We probably lost about 6 inches in height along one of the walls. Oh well.


We’re still being held up by the inspection. To get it resolved we had a new survey done on our lot—to prove the second story has not moved. It was only $250 and if David would have told us this was the issue two and a half weeks ago (and that it would take over two weeks to get the issue resolved) we would have just done the survey when the inspector told us to. I still think the inspector was unfair, but at the same time we didn’t know the survey was the issue. We thought the roof was—which is why they wanted a survey I guess. Per my neighbors’ daughter’s advice we will now always get the inspection reports to find out what’s not passing.

On a positive note, the inspector came by today. Hopefully since it was the same inspector that means we’ll pass this time. I was very friendly to him (well, not that friendly). He seemed somewhat taken aback at my pleasant “good morning, sir”. It made me feel a little sorry for him that he’s probably not usually greeted warmly (but only a wee bit sorry).

The laundry room is completely framed in now. It’s pretty exciting. I can’t wait to do laundry out there. I know that’s a foreign concept to my family in Iowa, but except for January and February it’s great to be outside. To Iowans it’s probably balmy in January and February with high temperatures in the 40’s and 50’s.



ACL Fest starts today, so I’m going to forget all about the garage project and enjoy some music this weekend!

Day 90-93

Lazaro and Arturo showed up on Friday (day 91) around 2:00 and got a lot done before day's end. I should also note that they finished the siding at the end of the day of my last post. Friday they started setting the posts for the laundry room. I assume all of the posts are set. Seeing that made me feel pretty good about the project.


Of course I can't not write about the things I feel bad about. Come on, this is a renovation project (officially entering month three, I might add). For example, the tile. Yes, I'm still stuck on the tile situation. Now I'm of the mind that we should install the tile ourselves because it will save us around $1500 in labor. My dream of penny tile might actually come true. If we don't do the best job installing it at least that's on us instead of my contractor and the tile guy. I originally told our contractor we'd have the tile guy do the shower and we'd do the floor and he said, "No, he won't do that. That's too small of a job." I guess we'll do the whole thing. By "we" I mean Brad because I'm not the best tile person in the world--although I do aspire to it!

The fun stuff is starting to arrive on our doorstep. We ordered a great kitchen faucet off of overstock.com (something like 70% off). I also received the bathroom light fixture (although the shade is backordered) and toilet paper holder (exciting). This morning I ordered exterior lights thanks to Renovation Hardware's big lighting sale. We were originally going to order some amazing barn lights off of barnlightelectric.com. They seemed really inexpensive until I figured out the shade and fixture were sold separately. They're still not a bad price, but considering we wrote a check yesterday for the extra plumbing work we had to have done, $89 a light seemed better than $189 a light. So, if you want a gorgeous farm-style gooseneck light, barnlightelectric.com.

Day 87-89

I’m remembering back to the time when David forgot to install two of our slabs on either side of the garage foundation. I believe I said I would have lost all confidence in him if it hadn’t been for the fact that he had worked on two of our friends’ homes and did an amazing job. As of today I’d like to scratch that and say instead that I should have gone with my gut feeling back then.

Here’s the most recent issue with David. We got a tile bid that was almost $500 more than what I expected (from the research I did online and knowing the square footage and price of tile). My online research said the cost of laying tile is between $5 and $10 a square foot. Based on the bid we got from the tile guy he was charging almost $15 a square foot for the floor (and in his defense I did choose a tricky tile, but doesn’t that mean $10?). I brought this up with David and told him how I came to my conclusion (which I’m not sure why I had to defend my argument). He had the strangest response. He said that if we didn’t want to go with his tile guy we could fine our own. He said it would be a pain for him and it wouldn’t be a good tile job, but that we could find a different tile guy ourselves. Our question is: what are we paying this guy for? Isn’t he our contractor? If we don’t like a bid, isn’t it his job to get another one?

We fumed over this all day yesterday (day 88). Not only did he tell me he wouldn’t find us another tile guy, he also used some lame excuses for the price. He said because it was a small job the tile guy needed to charge more. He said on a bigger job there’d be more room to lay the tile out and in a small space it’s more difficult. I understand a teeny tiny piece of that argument (perhaps there’s more cutting), but if you’re laying tile in a larger space you have to buy more tile, so do you actually save any money? And do you really save time, or do you just do less cutting? Anyway, the excuse didn’t fly with us.

As of this morning David has called and said I can either pick out a tile that’s in stock and less tricky to install (because he claims there’s a $100 charge on any tile that has to be shipped) or he can give me the name of some tile guys. There goes my dream of installing penny tile on the floor. If this was in our home I would find another tile guy, but since this is just the garage I’ll save the penny tile for the house and go find something in stock at the tile store. Basically I’m saving money by picking out cheaper tile—instead of getting the tile guy to shave a couple hundred off his bid. It doesn’t seem very fair to me, but I’d rather spend time picking out new tile instead of being a contractor for a tile guy my contractor won’t work with. Ridiculous!

I figured out yesterday that in the past 12 working days (this excludes Labor Day), Lazaro and Arturo have been here 2.5 days. Today marks day 13 of the working days and they showed up around 12:30, so maybe by the end of the day it will be 3 days in 13 working days. That’s about 23% of the time that they’re here. I certainly don’t blame Lazaro for this. It sounds as though David has him working on another job. If this pace keeps up we won’t finish until Thanksgiving—or Christmas! Please, no!

This morning we also got an update on the garage inspections; specifically the inspection that didn’t pass a week and a half ago. David wrote a letter arguing his case (that the second story/roof is grandfathered in) to the next guy up at the City. He sent it last Tuesday (9^th) and has left two messages with him. He hasn’t heard anything. He then asked someone above that guy to look into the issue because until we pass inspection we can’t get our electrical and plumbing rough-in inspections. Until we get those inspections we can’t insulate and we can’t sheetrock. Basically we could be at a stand-still once Lazaro is done putting up siding (which I expect to take a couple days). That makes me wonder…where are the garage doors?! I haven’t asked David about them in a week. Although if I did ask him he’d just tell me we don’t want them yet, but yes, they were ordered.