Shelves & sanding

Yep, that's right. We now have (some) shelves, and they've started sanding. Yesterday Joel built the shelves in the storage room (one small one left to be built) while Sean worked on making the shoe rack open better. It now has a better wheel that probably won't scuff the linoleum the way the original was... but now the hinges squeak.

Today, Joel and Alex sanded trim for most of the day, and Sean put in an hour or two also. Not quite the "all day" hours we were hoping for, but we shall see. I'm keeping track of the hours they spend here to see how it shakes out at the end of the week.

Here's a picture of the cabinets Brooke hung in the laundry room. They fit as perfectly as if they were custom-made. There's actually one more piece that we haven't hung anywhere yet -- the type of double-door cabinets you generally have above a stove.

Showdown

Sean ended up not coming over in person last night, but he and Brooke had a long talk. Brooke gave him a piece of his mind too. At the end of it all, it sounds like we've ended up at a good place - Sean knows why we're getting annoyed and it sounds like he wants to make it right. The two of them (Sean and Joel) should both be here on Monday, and we're hoping/expecting they'll both be here all day every day for as long as it takes to get everything done.

Great deal on cupboards

I had heard of a place called ReStore (run by Habitat for Humanity) that has recycled building supplies, so I phoned them last week to ask if they have any cupboards, and what kind of prices they are. He told me that they did in fact have a bunch, and they were in the range of $20 each. Wow.

So I went in on my own and saw one set that I thought looked decent, and so we went in together on the weekend. There was another set that was better so we bought all four pieces even though we only really needed three of them, but we figured we could probably find a use for the extra one. If not, we'll donate it back. We paid $80 for the set, and it's in excellent condition and is now gracing our laundry room. I don't have a photo of them all up, but here's one of Brooke hanging the first one.

In other news, once again, no one showed up on Monday. I phoned both Joel (finally discovered I had his phone number) and Sean to ask what was going on, and the response I got was essentially Sean was planning to wait for the replacement glass blocks to arrive and then finish everything then. Nice, huh? "Yeah, I'm sure they don't mind waiting two weeks (or more!) for the glass blocks to arrive, because that has absolutely NOTHING to do with painting the outside of the house or fixing the shower, or any of the other 34 things on the to-do list." *SIGH*

So I "suggested" (repeatedly, to make sure the message got through) that really they should do everything else now. However, in the meantime, Sean has taken the roof off the place he's working on next, and so he can't come back to us for a few days. Sounds like it'll just be Joel on Thursday and Friday again. However, we're meeting with Sean Wednesday evening to go over the to-do list. I hope to get a time estimate out of him for the line items... "this will take two hours" kind of thing, so that he sees he can't just give us Joel for a day or two and expect to make any progress on finishing up.

On the painting front, we've now had three painters come in, and the fourth and final is coming tomorrow morning. Two of the quotes are for $2500 and $7000 to fix the paint job, and the third was just here today so will be sending it in the mail shortly. She suggested a compromise and have Sean fix one room and if he does a good job then he can fix all the others, but if he can't then we'll have given him a chance to make it right and failed and maybe he'll be more reasonable about paying someone else to fix it. So we might suggest that at tomorrow's meeting, depending on how it goes. (I'm tempted to leave everything painting-related until everything else is totally finished so if he does walk away, that's all that's left.)

A little more

Yesterday, Friday, both Sean and Joel were here for part of the day. They were planning to install the glass blocks, except for one small problem... they ordered corners but got ends. So they can't actually do that until they get the right parts.

They did fix the laundry room pocket door, filled most of the holes in the grout in the bathroom (I still found one more), and put up the shower heads (although one of them leaks out the side) as well as put up a shower curtain rail because the inspector said we have to have one (we don't want one) -- so I told Sean to make it a tension one so we can take it down after it passes inspection.

A bit of progress

Joel was here on his own yesterday and got through a few items on the to-do list. No one came today though. I'm expecting both him and Sean tomorrow.

So, we now have bolt caps on the toilet, and the window sill is finished in the bathroom; the downstairs hall closet door closes, the laundry room door opens (although noisily and with a bit of resistance, it's still not hung quite right) and the drain in that room has a cover on it so we won't lose things down it so easily. The TV room has a door knob.

The electrician was here yesterday and the day before as well, so now the control panel for the in-floor heating works, there's a timer for the fan in the bathroom, the doorbell works, and the light switch that was located in the middle of the hall is now at the end where it belongs. This last, though, means the drywaller has to come back, of course, but he had some other patches to make anyway, such as repairing the two holes in the wall in the laundry room where the cable and phone wires were left hanging out, and several outlets have too-big holes cut around them that the face plates can't cover, etc.

We had a lady come out to our place a couple of days ago from the blinds company and measured the windows and helped me pick out the blinds, and I gave them the go-ahead to order them today. I wanted to have a couple of days to change my mind, and didn't change it. So those should arrive in their store in 3-4 weeks, and then they'll schedule the installation date.

I think we're okay again

Sounds like things are going to be okay after all, whew! Except for the fact that they're out of town this week so only Joel will be here on Thursday and both him and Sean on Friday. So not too much will be happening this week! The electrician is coming tomorrow, though, to finish off his stuff.

Everything's gone sideways suddenly

Not much has been done this week. They painted on Tuesday outside, and at the end of the day told me they'd be back Wednesday to finish. No one came by at all on Wednesday.

On Thursday morning, Joel measured the closet in the bathroom in order to build the drawers, said they'd be making them at Sean's place, and that they'd return in the afternoon. I gave Joel a list of everything that still needs doing -- about 40 items -- and included a statement that we're not happy with the paint job so far and want to split the cost of hiring a professional painter to come in and fix it. Sometime later that day they dropped off the fence gate, but didn't install it and didn't come in or announce themselves or anything. On Thursday afternoon, Sean sent an email (which I didn't see until today) stating in part that he just thinks the paint job needs touch ups and that he "will not participate in hiring another painting company." In one part of the letter he says they will get to the to-do list "once the balance of our materials arrive" and in another part that he wants to "resolve these issues before the balance of the work is completed."

Judging by the fact that they didn't show up today, either, I'm a little worried. We're at 95% complete here, and he's already been paid (slightly) more than the original quote. We started a letter in response to his but haven't sent it yet. I'm getting the impression that his nose is out of joint over the paint issue, which is kind of silly.

Yesterday, before receiving his note, I called three paint companies to come in and give me a quote on how much it'll be to fix it. One came over right away and quoted $2500 on the spot, the second came today and will deliver a quote this weekend but says to expect it to be in the $5000 range. The third company hasn't phoned me back yet. The two that came in were both pretty much on the same page - it can't be fixed with touchups, it needs to be fully repainted to look good.

We're home!

We are finally home. The reno isn't totally complete, but it's close enough. Our first night back was Sunday, August 3.

We spent most of Saturday afternoon making a big dent in the pile o' stuff in the dining/living room, including moving the dining room table into the new "TV" room. Since we haven't ordered blinds yet, we don't want to put the TV in there just yet. It looks quite nice with the table -- coordinates very well with the laminate. There is also one arm chair in there at the moment, though I think we'll probably move that back out eventually.

On Sunday we realized we couldn't do too much more with the pile until we got some shelves in our storage areas, so we went to Rona and bought some pre-fab, and also had a 4x8 foot board cut into a bunch (eight?) more shelves. On Monday (holiday) we got the hardware to hang them up with, but we haven't actually done that yet. Brooke spent a lot of time setting up the closet organizer in the walk-through closet, so that's now ready to be loaded up with all our clothes.

Since I'm going to be here now while they're working, I'm going to ask them to concentrate on the upstairs now and make sure it's 100% done so I don't have to worry about them wanting to come in there to work if we've had a rough night and want to sleep in.

P.S. Today they are finally putting the second coat of paint on the outside of the house.