Day 111-116

On day 111 the drywallers finished tacking the drywall up. David called for a drywall inspection before taping and floating began (the city has to make sure enough screws are used—aka making more money). We failed. We failed miserably because David doesn’t know the new city construction codes. He had told us we didn’t need to drywall the walls of the garage bays. We thought this would be a good way to save $1000 right now and that eventually we’d put the drywall up ourselves (if we decided we needed it). We also failed because the wrong material was used at the tub surround—and the cabinet next to the tub wall wasn’t covered with anything (dummies). Apparently greenboard isn’t supposed to be used under tile anymore. After researching it online I can't believe a drywall company would actually install it in a tub/shower.

David seemed really angry about the failed inspection. If I’ve learned anything from working with him, his anger is usually a sign that he knows he messed up. This lack of knowledge threw us off schedule by a little over three working days. When you’re in the home stretch that feels like weeks! The kicker is that he didn’t even come to the site to see the failed inspection. He called me and asked me what it said. Looking back on it I should have told him to come over and read it for himself. It’s not that I minded telling him what the inspection said, but I did mind that he wasn't coming to the site to inspect the problem.

David said he’d go down to the city offices and fight the failed inspection. He said he just finished a garage before our project and wasn’t required to drywall the bay walls. And then he added that they might have begun the project before the new codes were released, so they might not have pertained to that project. Duh. Since David charges us for time spent waiting around at the city offices we made the decision to just suck it up and pay for the drywall. We also chose to do that simply because we didn’t want to add any more time to the project.

While all of this was going on we also got the exterior paint bid. Ouch. However, we expected a higher than usual bid because our friend who used the same painters told us they’re expensive but worth every penny. A part of me thought about getting another bid and then I thought about time. I just want this thing done, so time is outweighing money right now. The longer I work with David the closer I get to losing it. I’ll pay thousands to get rid of him.

And that brings me to another David story. This one deals with whether or not we should paint the stucco. We originally chose stucco because we love the natural look of it. We had been given the choice to add a tint to it and we chose not to. When the stucco job was done, Red (the stucco guy) told us we should paint the stucco to protect it. This made us sad, but I found paint that seemed to match. We just wouldn’t have that uneven, natural look we were going for. Then David threw us for a loop and said we shouldn’t paint the stucco because of the Tyvek moisture barrier under it. He said if we sealed the exterior with paint the Tyvek wouldn’t breathe properly and moisture could get trapped. He then asked why we didn’t pick one of the tints Red offered if we were going to paint the stucco. I said because no one told us a tint would offer any protection. Then he said he told us as much and I firmly told him he did not, and why would we choose to paint when a tint would have been cheaper? He then said we shouldn’t paint the stucco because the Tyvek representative advised against it.

Thanks to David, Brad spent part of his morning calling paint suppliers and the Tyvek people to try to figure out what we should do. About half said to paint the stucco and the other half said we shouldn’t. Our decision? We’re not going to paint right now, and if in a few years we see any deterioration in the stucco we’re going to paint then. On another note, we don’t even know if the tint for the stucco would have offered any protection. We definitely don’t think David knows.

On a positive note we have all of the paint picked out (for the non-stucco areas) and the painters started prepping. We’re supposed to get rain this week, so my guess is the exterior won’t be finished before the weekend.

Day 108-110

Over the weekend Brad and I worked on the garage. I was filling in the trench that was created due to our plumbing/sewer problem and Brad was doing some Cat 5/cable wiring. Both projects weren’t very fun, but I wanted to save my bamboo and Brad needed to get the wiring done right. Originally, if you recall, the foundation guys were supposed to doing wiring because they cut the original line. When we figured out we’d never see them again (we at least were reimbursed for the cable) David said Lazaro would take care of it. Bless Lazaro’s heart, but I don’t think he does dirty jobs that involve digging in the dirt. Maybe once a week David would tell Brad to get together with Lazaro to take care of the cable, and each time Brad reminded David he already did. Fortunately since we already had the plumbing trench Brad didn’t have to do much digging (except to get the cable under the house).

Let’s just say I didn’t completely fill the trench in. I just filled in around the bamboo so I could water it decently. Since I really liked the plumbing guys I don’t mind doing a little of their work. Brad did complete his project, so now my office is ready for my computer. Too bad the rest of the office isn’t ready for my computer. I’m ready to get back out there!

Drywall started on Wednesday (day 110). Originally David said it would start Monday, then he said Tuesday, and finally he said Tuesday or Wednesday. He also said it would only take them one day to put it up (not tape/float), but it took them two.

Day 99-107

In the previous post I mentioned the city inspector dropping by. My hope was he was going to pass our framing inspection and we could move on to drywall. Well, it was the plumber inspector—not the framing inspector. And once again we didn’t pass. Apparently there was low gas pressure. The culprit was a nail in the line. That’s since been taken care of and we passed both the plumbing and electrical rough-in inspections. Because we passed both inspections we were able to start insulating.

Now for the framing inspection. I ran into the inspector the day he came to check up on the situation. This was the jerk inspector who wanted to test our smoke alarms in the house (I don’t know if I wrote about that guy, but I know some of you know who I’m talking about). I was a little worried since it was him, but I was friendly and so was he. He asked if I knew where the survey was (which was supposed to be with all of the other paperwork we have to keep posted on site). Our contractor said he had put it with the paperwork, but I couldn’t find it. Fortunately the survey company sent us copies, so I ran into the house to get the survey. When the inspector looked at it he said, “This is the wrong survey. I need a tent survey.” I told him what I gave him was the survey my contractor ordered and asked him what a tent survey was. Apparently it was to resolve the whole issue about the roof being too close to the property line (or too high—I’m not sure which). The inspector obviously felt sorry for me and started asking the questions that should have been asked a month ago (by my contractor). He asked if the second story had been moved. I said we lifted it up and put it back down in its original place. He said that meant it was grandfathered in—if I could prove it. I took him to the stairs that have always remained attached and cemented in the ground. He said that was proof enough and that he’d waive the tent survey. This was great news (even if we did fork over $250 for the wrong survey and had the project put on hold for three weeks). We don’t have to do any alterations to the roofline.

I called David to let him know what happened. He got a little worked up on the phone and said, “I told them to do a tent survey! And why didn’t that inspector grandfather the second story when I asked him to?!” His reaction irritated me quite a bit. For one, he saw the survey as soon as it was done. If he had ordered a tent survey I would think he would have caught that the survey he received wasn’t a tent survey. Either he didn’t order a tent survey or he didn’t look at the survey when it was done. Take your pick. I went with that he didn’t order a tent survey—my second point. I never once heard David call it a tent survey. And as you can see in my previous entries I never called it a tent survey either—which to me means he never called it one. I got out the paperwork in the garage and the inspector definitely wrote “tent survey” on the failed inspection. At first I kicked myself for not noticing that, but then again, am I the contractor? No!

I think I need to lighten things up a bit. I ordered penny tile online for the bathroom floor and it’s already here. It was about 40% less than the quote we got from the tile guy. Granted it’s not the same tile, but it’s as high of quality as what I had picked out. It was my second choice at the tile store and I think it was only $1 a square foot cheaper than the original tile I picked out. For only 33 square feet that would have only saved me $33. Instead I saved $300! Yes, I love a bargain! Considering I can’t get any discounts on the work my contractor has done I figure I should make myself happy by finding high quality finishing pieces at low prices. Too bad those things are only priced in the hundreds instead of the thousands. I'd rather save on the thousands.

Drywall is supposed to start soon. The dates have already been slipping, so who knows if it will be done in the next week.

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.

Day 83-86

I had a talk with David about the windows. In all honesty, the mix-up itself was not a big deal. For me the big deal was that he didn’t take responsibility for the mistake and said it was our fault. I’m just not thrilled with that at all. When I spoke with him I said something such as, “What’s going on with the windows?” He restated the mix-up was our fault and I said it wasn’t and I had read through our e-mails to figure that out. He said he had too and couldn’t figure out why we changed the window size. Instead of telling him I had the e-mail to prove it I just said he should have given Lazaro the window order so he would have had the correct sizes. After I said that he told me it wasn’t a big deal anyway. (I agree, but why can’t he take responsibility?) I told him it was a big deal to us because of the time we’re being billed to have it fixed. He said something along the lines that it took Lazaro ten minutes to make the window openings smaller. I said he had been working on the windows for a half day the previous day and three hours that morning. David said he was doing other things to the windows. At that point I said goodbye and went back to work. He knew I was not happy with him.


Day 84 started and ended in about an hour. Hurricane Ike was on his way, so the day before I asked if David would install the metal support pole that had been in our garage the past couple days. I said I knew Austin would probably be fine, but just in case Ike made a turn I’d feel better having the support in place. Lazaro showed up, installed the pole, tidied up around the site so things wouldn’t blow away, and then left.

Below is a photo of the lovely metal support pole and all the stuff we moved into the garage in case we got winds from Ike. Included is our neighbor's scooter.