Hmm

So, an update to my update... where I said Sean showed up with the roofer at 4:40. They left at 5:00. I saw them going down the ladder so I ran out to see what was up.

Sean was already halfway up the driveway when I got out there, so I asked the roofer "How does it look?" He said "Good." and walked away. Then Sean came back and said he'd "give me a full report" tomorrow and that he'd talk to me or leave me voicemail. He did mention that they should probably have moved the vent. I'm not quite sure what to make of that.

On another topic, I started getting quotes for repaving the driveway in October. I had contacted 4 companies, and got 3 quotes. The fourth company never got back to me despite me re-requesting the quote twice (they did come out and measure, I just never heard from them again). The quotes were so far apart (one was in the $2000 range and another was $4300) that I got confused and stopped. So a week or two ago I called another three or four companies and they all came in more at the $2000 end, so I guess the one that was so high was maybe busy and didn't really want the job, but would do it if I made it worth their while. Anyway, I called the "winning" company today and they're going to come on Tuesday & Wednesday of next week to do the work, so that's nice and soon!

A non-update

I just read all of my postings from October through to the most recent one. No wonder I feel like not much has been done for the past six months: it hasn't.

Tomorrow is the 1-year anniversary of starting on this "2-month" project. I am so discouraged. Sean has been promising me all week (since last Friday) that he'd be coming with the roofer to look at the torcheon section that may be leaking. On Friday he said he'd be here Monday or Tuesday; on Wednesday when I called him he said he'd been all lined up to come the previous day but "something came up" and he had to cancel. We're now half-way through Thursday and I haven't heard from him. [Update: He showed up at 4:40!]

On Sunday I sent him a list of everything that remains to be done, although in reviewing my blog posts I think I missed the drain pipe outside (which is preventing the gate from opening all the way).

Some work has been done since my last post: Roger and Joel replaced the toilet. I had noticed a hairline crack in the inside of the tank. After Roger had removed it, he said it was actually worse than it looked so it's a good thing I had noticed it. I'm not sure if they've done anything else... I think that might be it.

I can't believe it's been a year since we started this renovation. In that time, I've gone from being pregnant to having an 11-month old who is starting to walk. I have one week of maternity leave left then I'm back to work. My sister has had her first wedding anniversary. Three sets of friends are engaged and two others are expecting babies. A lot changes in a year! I just wish I could say "we renovated our house" rather than "we started renovating our house".

I was talking to my sister today and she suggested reporting the contractor to the BBB. If he doesn't get back to work PDQ I think that and/or a Small Claims action will be forthcoming.

Work was done today!

It's amazing how much can get done in a short time, when you put your mind to it. Joel and Roger spent the day here -- I thought I heard Sean's voice outside at one point, but I think it was Roger because I never did see him.

They installed the new window in the front of the bedroom so we now have a second egress. They fixed the siding along the side of the house that was too close to the ground (has to be 2 inches of clearance) and put a band around the water tank. Those three things were all found by the inspector last time, so they're all good to go. They've got an inspector coming tomorrow morning so hopefully there isn't anything else inspection-related.

They also put a cover over top of an empty light socket outside, and put a cap over an open drain at the front of the house, but Joel said he's going to dig it out tomorrow and make it more level. They didn't get to the dryer vent, but plan to do that tomorrow.

I didn't bring out my list of things to be done yet - I figure I'll see how the inspection goes tomorrow and go from there.

Happy New Year!

Wow, it has been a very long time since my last update.

The fireplace removal was completed shortly after my last post. We had the paint colour matched and Brooke painted just the area of the fireplace, but it turned out the new paint was just a shade lighter than the original paint, so it was pretty visible. He ended up painting the entire wall up to the edge of a bookcase. There is only about 10cms at the top of the bookcase where the old and new paint colours touch, but it just looks like a shadow, not noticeable at all.

When Mom & Dad were here for Christmas, we put Dad to work and he replaced the baseboard heaters in the living room & dining room, one of the thermostats that was screwy (had to turn it to about the 35° mark to get it the same temperature as the other one), and all of the outlets in the living room so they match the ones in the new part of the house.

Shortly before Christmas, Joel phoned to say that our new window had finally arrived. I didn't write down what day it was that he called, but it had just snowed so between that & Christmas, he said they were going to wait until the weather cleared up to install it. (I have snowy pictures from December 22, so it was probably that day or the day after.)

Fast forward to mid-January. I emailed Sean and he said he was busy but he'd talk to me next week. On Jan 30 I emailed him again and got the same response. On Feb 6 he STILL hadn't called so I sent a snippy email and -- guess what -- got essentially the same response: sorry that you're upset, please continue being patient.

So on Feb 13 we threatened legal action. We gave him one week to reply and said that a lack of a response would indicate that he has broken our contract, and if he then doesn't complete the entire contract by the end of April (when the building permit expires) that would also be a breach of contract. That got a better response. On the deadline day, he replied and said he'll finish all permit work by the end of March, which is even earlier than we said. I spoke to him on the phone this past Friday morning, Feb 27 and he restated that.

While I had him on the phone, I mentioned a couple of issues to him that I hadn't before: the cold spots in the bathroom, and the fact that we asked for the window seat to open in front and he made it open on top. He basically said that he'll worry about the permit-related things first, and the other items afterwards which is fine -- as long as they do get done eventually!

However, since then, we've had two potentially major issues come to light. We had a roofer come on Friday to give us a quote on re-shingling the rest of the roof to match the new section so we don't have a 10+ year old section and a new section, and he told us that the torcheon section of the new roof appears to be leaking and is all bubbled up.

Then on Sunday, Brooke went to check to see if the dryer vent cover was stuck shut as it's been taking longer and longer for the clothes to dry, and he discovered something interesting. The original dryer vent has insulation over it on the inside, and there is no new dryer vent. So either the dryer is connected to the original pipe and it is blocked at the end by the insulation, or else there is new pipe and they never cut through to the outside. Either way, we've been venting the dryer into the walls for the past seven months. We immediately went to Canadian Tire to buy a long piece of dryer hose with the idea of running it through the house and out the cat door, but found something even better -- a kit designed for venting a dryer in a place where a normal outside vent is impossible. So until it's fixed, at least we have this. And the dryer is taking a normal amount of time to dry the clothes now, yay!

I've contacted Pillar To Post, the company that did my original inspection when I bought the house, to find out how much they charge. After the Town's building inspector has given the house a passing mark, I'm going to get PTP to come and do a full inspection of everything and be sure we won't have any more little surprises like this.

Painted the baby's room

Brooke painted Charlotte's room today. It's a soft pink, very pretty! It is called "Prelude To Pink" and can be seen here (colour #8699)

The paint is still wet, but he thinks it might only need that one coat. The doors (closet and room) need to be repainted eventually as they're kind of beat up, and I imagine he'll do the baseboards at the same time.

Fireplace progress

The fireplace insert was removed on Tuesday. It really is a small job! They were only here for maybe an hour. They took it out, filled in the original fireplace with insulation, and nailed some 2x4s vertically into the hole to frame it, and attached drywall. The drywaller came the next day and did the first coat of mud, and the second coat on Thursday. He came today (Saturday) to do the third coat, but the second was still wet so he's coming back tomorrow or Monday.

It's kind of funny; it looks like someone whited-out the fireplace and mantle.

I want to replace the baseboard heaters in the living room & dining room now. The new ones in the TV room are so much better, it's amazing. You turn on the thermostat, and the room is warm in about 5 minutes, and too hot in under 10. In comparison, the old ones take an hour or so (or at least it feels that way) to make the room comfortable. I just hope we don't need to do anything beyond changing the baseboard heaters (and probably the thermostats) themselves... hopefully the wiring is good as it is. (Hey Dad, wanna come do a project for me?) :)

Let's start a new project

Just for fun, we're going to start a few new projects. The reno still isn't complete (99% and holding) and we will obviously not be hiring the same people... but our first small(er) project is to remove our fireplace. We've already had the propane company come and take away their tank that we were renting for $80 per year, so we're saving money already.

We've had three quotes, two were around $400 and the third was $1160. I want to wait for one more place (the ones who did our flood restoration; we were extremely happy with their work) and should hear from them on Monday. Of the quotes, one of the cheaper ones and the expensive one were over the phone, the other cheaper one was in person so I think I'd go with him since he really knew what he was quoting on, not just guestimating based on what I said on the phone!

Update on the smell

Joel came by last Friday (Oct 10) and installed a/another P-trap in the bathtub. After they had run water last time, the smell came back within a day or two, which shouldn't have happened if there was a trap and that was the problem. So far so good and it's been just about a week. If it does come back, the other thought is it could be related to the vent.

Plumbing issue might be minor

Sean and Joel came by today and checked out the sewage smell. When I had tried sniffing the various drains in the bathroom I didn't feel that it was any stronger in one than another, but Sean said it was stronger coming out of the bathtub. Since the tub and shower are separate and I haven't used the tub in about a month, he figures it was just that the water in the P-trap evaporated. He checked to make sure it wasn't leaking (via the fan hole in the ceiling of the bathroom downstairs) and it sounds like he's going to call a plumber anyway to ask, but he sounded pretty confident that's all it is.

As for painting, he's refunding us half of what we paid for painting -- so $400. Brooke will do what he can, and we'll hire a professional painter for the tricky parts. We wanted Sean to pay for half of the professional painter, and he didn't want to pay anything, so we compromised. After Sean had left, Brooke said something to the effect of, "Well, you know you've had a successful negotiation when no one is totally happy."

Weeks = Days

So after my last post, we decided not to send that email at all (but it felt good typing it) and instead wait and see what happened. Brooke went out the next day and bought some paint, as we had decided to just finish painting ourselves, and hire someone to do the tricky bits. (We had previously got 4 painters to give us quotes and they ranged from $2,500 to $10,000 for the whole job, so we chose the $4,000 quoter.)

After he got back with the paint, we heard from Sean who said that it was actually only going to be one week. So that was a definite improvement, but we decided to go ahead with painting anyway.

Joel came by on Saturday briefly and filled the holes in the grout in the shower that we had pointed out a few days before (and hadn't used that shower since then) and then off they went out of town.

Today, Friday, Joel called around lunch time to say he was back and could he come by in the afternoon. He spent a little under two hours here finishing up some odds and ends, like making the gate outside swing the other (more logical) way, and putting in the countertop above the drawers in the bathroom. I didn't mention that we'd done our own painting, but just asked him to do "everything but painting".

We'll be meeting with them on Monday so we can re-address this issue then.

Another thing that has come up is we've noticed a bad (sewage-like) smell in the bathroom a couple of times. Cross your fingers we don't have a major plumbing problem. *Sigh*

Please excuse me while I scream

Yesterday, Joel arrived around 9:00 as he has been doing faithfully for about three weeks. I left the house at 11:00 and returned around 2:00 and he wasn't there, but he often goes for lunch pretty late so expected he'd return. Nope, and he didn't show up at all today until about 5:00. He spoke to Brooke (I was making supper) and after he left I asked Brooke what he'd said.

He and Sean apparently are going out of town for several weeks, and they'll get back to us when the new window comes and finish up then.

I was so mad when I heard that I was ready to file a claim in small claims court on the spot. Instead we've drafted an email to Sean and haven't sent it yet.

Stay tuned...

Blinds

We have blinds now, and I love them. Which is nice, because it turns out that blinds are expensive! We went with cellular blinds downstairs and pleated upstairs.

The blinds on big window downstairs can be opened from top or bottom, or both.


The tall skinny window upstairs is the same way (top down bottom up) but all the other blinds are just normal.

The glass blocks now have grout. In fact they have more grout than shown in this picture which was taken yesterday, but I didn't take a picture of it today. The black things at the top are shims holding the piece of wood tight up to the trim while the glue dries (I assume). Today those are gone and it's all filled in with the grout.

A week of paint

Joel was here pretty much all week painting inside. It's looking better, but I don't think he's done much around the wall/ceiling line, which is where it is most noticeably bad. I think it's improving, though.

We had a meeting with Sean on Tuesday and he said that everything should be done in, get this, six more weeks. But that's including the time it takes to order a new window for the bedroom. The building inspector decided that the window that opens at the top currently needs to open at the bottom, so a whole new window has to be ordered. It makes me mad because it was built exactly how it was shown on the plans that they approved -- why didn't they catch it then?

The blinds people called this week and our blinds have arrived and will be installed on Monday.

Work was done this week

Since I posted on Tuesday, the rest of the glass blocks were installed (although the wall isn't done yet; there is still grout to be added, and a 1-cm gap at the top to be filled), the towel rack was hung, and the drawers were remade. They are now in a box, essentially, so the drawers themselves miss the edge of the door trim.

The flooring guy came and fixed our lino (the joins were poorly done) but I forgot to remind him to put a piece on the lid for the floor safe. He was also supposed to trim the join in the carpet but didn't have his special carpet-trimming scissors so is going to come back anyway. The lino looks great now, anyway!

Outside, we now have a gate. It's kind of interesting how they did it - we asked for the gate to be able to open 180 degrees so we could swing it right back out of the way the way we did with our original gate - we never closed it. He went us one better and made it so the entire fence opens. So there's the gate part, which is attached to the house by a hinge, and then all of the rest is attached to the big fence with another hinge. The hinge on the fence is the wrong way around though, as it swings out into the driveway (and would hit the car) rather than swinging flat against the other fence, so I will ask him to switch that around next week.

They started fixing the interior paint today, too. First coat of the entry hall was done. It needs some sanding though as it's pretty rough looking yet.

Finally a start on the glass blocks

So, no work was done on Thursday or Friday last week, and none yesterday as it was a long weekend, but today a few small items got picked off the to-do list (like hanging the toilet paper holder; seriously, how hard was it that they put it off for this long?) but they also started on the glass blocks. The plan is to finish them tomorrow, and our bedroom will finally have all its walls in place! The glue is pretty smelly, though, so I'm taking the baby to sleep in the guest room tonight.

Joel also tried to put up the drawers in the bathroom, but it turns out he forgot to account for the trim around the door. They couldn't open so he took them away again to adjust them. In this picture you can see the drawer slider things on the wall. (And our toilet paper holder!)

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.