Final Cut

When we signed our contract and the price for the contract we had seven pages of architectural drawings and a line by line item contract that was almost 30 pages long. You would think that these items would leave very little wiggle room during the final invoicing part of the process. Oh how wrong you would be. Fortunately for me, I spent basically a year at work doing nothing but arguing over finer points in billing invoices and pretty much knew the process.



Step 1: Go through the charges with a fine tooth comb and compare everything they are charging you to the contract. This step yielded about $3,800 worth of disputed items. The largest was an argument over how much the contractor paid for the tub. Colleen sent them a very explicit email stating how much the tub cost both at an online retailer, or if thy weren't comfortable with that, then the price at Lowes. They chose to get the tub elsewhere and overpaid by almost $2000 and passed those 'savings' on to us. Most of the remainder of disputed stuff was for not reducing the amount we owed for items on our allowance sheet which we purchased ourselves (after the tub incident, we preferred to make purchases when possible). Everything from bathroom mirrors to overhead lights added up to quite a bit.



Step 2: Have a meeting. Experience has taught me that you need to have a meeting with all interested parties on your home turf and talk in generalities about what's wrong. If you get too specific at this stage, they will get defensive and try to hone in on one dispute, tell you why you shouldn't be disputing that item, and then assume all the rest of the disputes are wrong because they disagree with that one piece. Colleen and I had a great meeting with our Project Manager and our Architect in our new dining area. They listened attentively, didn't get defensive, and when it was all over, I sent them the detailed workup of every cent I wanted back.



Step 3: Be prepared to bargain. In Step 1, you really want to ask for the moon. That way, they can counteroffer to save face and you still end up getting most of what you wanted in the first place. Fortunately for Colleen and me, the only thing they didn't really go for was some vague he said/she said items that I didn't really think would fly anyway. They gave us pretty much everything I felt we were owed.



Step 4: Pay the invoice. Unfortunately, the approved final invoice ended up coming at pretty much the exact time that Colleen was paying for the second half of the Beach Week trip (we split a house with about 16 friends so paying for half of it is a big check). It also came just before we got our tax refund. Fortunately, we were able to shuffle enough cash around to get everything paid, but never forget the importance of cash flow.



So nearly 11 months to the day after giving them the first payment, we gave them the last. Now for all the stuff Colleen and I have to still do . . .

Moulding Day

Even before I first put in the great room floor I knew that there was no way I would get to the moulding anytime in the near future. It's a surprisingly time intensive job, especially if you want it to look nice. Also, Jeremy and Duncan had once again agreed to help me. Jeremy with his nail gun, and Duncan with his 'mad moulding skills.' So it took awhile to finally find weekend days we were all free, but the moulding is down now, and it looks great.

I will take this opportunity for a quick analysis of Jeremy and Duncan and why they make such a great team to help with projects. First, they work for beer, which I tend to already have in great supply. More importantly however, is how they compliment each other.

Jeremy showed up to my house first. He brought an air compressor, a nail gun, a saws-all, a miter saw, a Drimmel, and a tool box big enough for a toddler to build a fort inside of. Duncan brought three coping saws, each one smaller than the last. I'm not sure exactly what the smallest one is supposed to be used for, it may have actually been a cheese slicer.

So while Jeremy is measuring and cutting eight foot long strips of moulding and nail gunning them into the wall, Duncan is delicately carving corner pieces and half inch sections to fit in the tiniest nook and/or cranny. When trouble areas arise they tend to both think of solutions in opposite directions too. Jeremy's solutions often require rebuilding large portions of the house, while Duncan is always certain that, given enough time and a sharp enough knife, he could whittle a piece of moulding down to the molecular level and it will fit just fine. Surprisingly, they never seem to argue about these things and really do a heck of a job. If you have construction work and beer, I highly recommend them.

Snowpocalypse 2010

(From an etymological standpoint, Snowmaggedon would more accurately reflect my feelings on the matter, but Snowpocalypse just rolls off the tongue so nicely.)

The snow was beautiful . . .

The snow was deep . . .

Then snow piled on an additional 30 inches a week later . . . and nearly destroyed our brand new gutters . . .

But did I mention it was beautiful?

Getting Out of the House

Since this really is a blog about the addition and not a general 'The Life and Times of Bruce and Colleen' blog, I won't dwell too much on our Europe trip. But I'll give you the gist and then share just a few pictures because we got some really nice shots.

We started out flying into Geneva where we met up with some college friends of mine and headed to our first major destination: Flaine (pronounced Flin). Flaine is a ski town in the French alps. The snow was good, the scenery was awesome, but the mountain was way too 'natural' for my liking (natural means they don't cut trails, so there are lots of places that are uphill). I nearly killed myself on the last day trying to get some nice pictures, but that's another story. For now, just enjoy the photos.

After Flaine, we spent two days on panoramic trains (basically all glass) and headed through the glaciers of Switzerland to the northern border of Italy. When you are in a train with nothing to do but stare at great scenery, you take a lot of pictures, here are but a few:

Once in Italy we spent about a day and a half in Florence:

And then a few days in Rome before flying home.

Rest for the Weary

With the holidays, the painting, the flooring, and the packing, Colleen and I have been really busy these last few weeks, but I wanted to get a short blog update in before we head to France, Switzerland, and Italy for two weeks. We'll be fitting a lot of stuff into those two weeks, but it should be more relaxing than life has been around here lately.

First, the bathroom vanity is all done. They finally got the new top in and installed the faucets just a day or two later. It looks really nice. The shower enclosure still isn't done and there are a few towel bars to hang, but this sucker is getting really close to complete.

Our washer and dryer were delivered the weekend before last. The dryer had a piece broken off of the door preventing it from snapping closed, but we were still able to use both and did so a lot. You can say I'm biased because I used to work there, but my whole experience with Sears on the product delivery side has been really great so far (obviously the sales experience was good since I hand-picked my sales person). Also visible to the right is our tankless gas hot water heater.

The next big thing, as the previous blog alluded to, was the floor getting installed. I spent better than 20 hours over two days with help from a cast of thousands. It really was a team effort. Snap in flooring is most easily installed by putting an entire row of boards together, and then snapping that row in all at once. This isn't a big deal if your room is 10 or even 15 feet long. However, when the room is more than 30 feet, it becomes challenging. To help, whenever Paul and I (then later Duncan and I, then even later, Jeremy and I) would finish a row, we would yell "Huddle Up" and anyone who was in the house (sometimes as many as five people) would show up to snap in the row. Unfortunately, toward the late night of Sunday, it was pretty much just me working. This picture is me still working to finish those last few rows (you can see the blue underlayment to the left). [Colleen would like to interject that she was trying to help and took this picture while awaiting her next assignment]

Just to really make the project feel complete, after the floor was all done we set up our futon (which I somehow convinced Jeremy to help carry down the stairs). Here is a shot of the new room with the new futon. Take note, some of you may be sleeping on it someday.

I'm hopeful, though not confident, that the shower enclosure and all the little items left on our 'punch list' will be completed when we get back from our trip. We can't wait to move into the new bedroom! Check back with us in two weeks and we'll find out together (I may have to use this space for some vacation pics too).

A-wop-bab-a-loo-bop a whop . . .

Bamboo flooring is done. I'm too tired to upload pictures right now. Coming up with that awesome blog entry title took the last of my energy. Suffice to say, it looks really good. Thanks to Duncan, Jeremy, and Colleen's parents who all pitched in.

Christmas Comes Early

Merry Christmas everyone! It's been awhile since I've put up a blog, largely because I was waiting for a few things that were almost done to get completely done so that I could take nice pictures of them to put on the blog. As has so often been the case, getting things that last 10% done is the hardest part. I'll catch everyone up room by room:

Bedroom:
We had just finished painting the walls of the master bedroom in the last blog entry. Shortly after that at 7:00am on a Saturday, the carpet guys showed up to carpet the bedroom. I won't even get into how unpleasant it is to be unexpectedly interrupted at 7am on a Saturday, because the big problem was that we were planning to paint the trim of the bedroom that day. Colleen, who was also sick, 'greeted' the carpet crew and thoughtfully explained to them that perhaps it would be better if they came back a few days later. They left the rolls of carpet and exited stage left. Five verification calls and three schedule changes later, they showed up again to install the carpet. Below is our new master bedroom and it is done! Well, we need to paint the doors and there is some minor touchup paint work to do, but it is ready to be moved into as soon as the bathroom is done and we don't have the threat of workers walking through our bedroom.

Bathroom:
The bathroom has had a lot of work done to it. The tile was installed and the flooring were both installed a few weeks ago. As I alluded to before though, it's the last 10% that is holding things back. Even though I sent a warning email to our project manager not once, but twice, telling him that the tile guys were going to tile over the access to the tub plumbing and motor, nothing was done. The result was that they had to cut out tiles that we had just paid to have installed. Ultimately they will have to create some kind of access panel to replace those tiles. Early this morning we saw the first attempt at that panel and it was a feeble attempt. I had a conversation with the carpenter and I think we are going to find a better solution to that little issue. Since this is Christmas, this little story has to have a happy ending. In this case, it was that the plumbing was all done! Our early Christmas present was getting to try out the tub last night. I have to say, it was pretty awesome. Our tankless hot water heater definitely did the trick and the inline water heater in the tub (it heats the water as it recirculates in the jets) is fantastic.

There are a few other things around the bathroom that still need some work. Our bathroom counter was ordered with the faucet holes in the wrong place, so that still needs to be replaced and the faucets installed. The shower enclosure needs to be done as well. The contractor for that spent all of last week and most of this week not returning our calls, so that is still in the very early stages of what will likely be a few weeks long process.
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Greatroom:
Not much happened in the greatroom for a long time, largely because the contractors are done with that room and Colleen and I have been trying to get paint done elsewhere. Finally, Colleen got to lay down the first coat of paint in the greatroom only hours ago. We are hoping to get the walls painted over Christmas, the trim over New Years, and the floor in the weekend after that. The goal is to have the room ready for entertaining in time for our Super Bowl party. That would be a pretty simple task except for the fact that Colleen and I are headed to Europe for two weeks. Such a tough life . . .

And it was Good

One of the great understatements of all time is after God creates the first light he steps back and thinks 'this is good.' I mean, if I had just created light out of nothing I think I'd be just a little bit more excited than that. I'd be calling all my friends and saying 'Hey, you know how it's been dark since before the beginning of time and all the sudden it's light now? That was me! Isn't that awesome!"

Almost all of the remaining lights in the addition were installed today including the pendant lights over the counters. To say that Colleen and I thought the lights were 'good' would be a huge understatement (but probably not as big as God's).

We have also been able to gather the waters under heaven in one place. By which of course I mean the sink now works. Somewhat less miraculous than God's third day on the job, but an accomplishment none the less.

p.s. Happy 5 month anniversary to the Addition!

Ups and Downs

We had a couple of good weeks there in a row, but this week was back to the more typical up and down cycle. It ended on a great note with us hosting the traditional 'Friends Thanksgiving' here on Saturday and Sunday.

The Heat is . . . On (do do do do do, do do do do do!)

Early in the week the thermostat was installed so we were blessed with heat in the entire house for the first time in a long time. Apparently the installers cranked it up and turned on the 'emergency heat' feature to make sure it was warm when we got home. Since I had also already closed some of the vents, this basically made it 85 in some parts of the house and 60 in others. Since then it has evened considerably. The air handler is also very quiet which was a bit of a concern. The programmable thermostat looks like it will be great, but it looks like it will take three hours to program correctly and we haven't yet put in the time.

That Sinking Feeling

As you may recall, our counters were installed the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and our stove and microhood have been here for months. We were really hoping that we would be able to get the plumber out here to install the faucets and the stove. Well, he did . . . sort of. The stove and dishwasher are sitting in their spots and the sink faucet was installed, but he didn't leave himself enough time to get into the crawl space to hook up the drain or the gas line, so none of it actually works yet. So close! This was especially unfortunate with the party this weekend. We put some flower arrangements in the nonworking sink to keep people from using it so at least it looked pretty.

Come Hell or No Water

Determined to host parties no matter the state of the addition, Colleen and I hosted our second 'in construction' shin-dig this weekend. The 'Friends Thanksgiving' is a lot like any other pot luck Thanksgiving get together only it's with friends instead of family. We put some cardboard and our brand new area rug down in the greatroom and used a projector to make a 104 inch screen on the wall.

Additional Accumulation

The addition saw its first snowfall this past weekend. I'll leave you with a few shots of the addition in its blanket of white.

Paint by Numbers (Painting: Day 4)

Days: 4

Pizzas: 2

Parents Roped into Helping: 3

Beers: 15 (estimate, probably low)
Gallons of paint: 14
Square feet painted: 6160 (440 sq ft per gallon); 0.14 acres

Square feet of ceiling: 2714

Painters tape applied: 1620 feet; 0.3 miles
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Holy crap am I tired of painting. On the bright side, we did actually accomplish all of our goals. Every surface that is going to have a light installed on it has had two coats of paint (and a coat of primer) applied to it. We actually have some significant painting yet to do, but this certainly got us most of the way to the finish line. The only thing that we still need to paint in order for the construction company to finish their work is the trim in the bedroom and bathroom which should be more of a one-two day project. The bathroom is done, the bedroom is done, the great room ceiling is done (so . . . much . . . ceiling), the closets are done. Eventually we need to finish the greatroom and repaint the stairwell and the guest room, but let's not dwell on that right now.

Painting: Day 3

Today was productive, but not quite as productive as we had hoped. I can certainly say it was not from a lack of effort though. Here's a quick recap: the bathroom and two of four closets are completely done; the master bedroom is primed, taped, and ready for its first coat of color; the greatroom is half primed (we ran out of paint). Tomorrow the bedroom will get color and the greatroom will get two coats of ceiling paint.

Colleen's dad took the day off from painting to hunt. To fill in for him, we brought in my mom. We got quite a few pictures of her today, but none of her face. I think that's because she spent almost every minute here facing a wall putting down tape or paint. That's her on the right (guess from which side of my family I got my height).


Our electrician was here working hard for at least 8 or 9 hours and still didn't get everything done. Again though, there are some highlights: the kitchen and master bedroom are completely wired (including our awesome new ceiling fan); elsewhere all of the switches and outlets are in, but few of the lights have been installed. The lights that are installed look pretty sweet. Hopefully our electrician will be back again soon to finish up.

Painting: Day 2

What better way to celebrate with your family on Thanksgiving than by making them do manual labor? Colleen and I put together some lofty goals this weekend and to meet them all, we needed some help. The electrician is due out tomorrow to install the electrical sockets, switches, and lights. Since lights are annoying to paint around, we wanted to get as many of the ceilings painted as possible before he arrived. He'll also likely install the vanity light which means we'd like to have the bathroom painted. And in the great spirit of 'while you're at it' we decided to try to get primer up in the great room and the master bedroom. Colleen's parents have been a big help the last two days and my mom is due to show up tomorrow.

So far we're doing okay on our goals. We have at least one coat of paint on all the surfaces that lights will be installed on. The kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom ceilings are done, and we hope to have the bathroom wall and one or two of the closet ceilings done by the time the lights are installed tomorrow. See some highlights of the fun below.

With no light, painting at night involves worklights and creepy shadows.

Paul powered through the entire ceiling of the great room in one shift.

Rhema performs what has become the least favorite activity: cleaning the walls.

This was just as comfortable as it looks.

Count(er)ing Our Blessings

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Before I get into the new addition news, let me just say that Colleen and I have a lot to be thankful for. Clearly we do some whining on the blog, but it would be a little boring if every blog entry was 'Things are Great!' We really are blessed just to be able to do a project like this and it has been a great adventure. Moreover, we are truly blessed because we have such great friends and family to support us (some of whom are literally helping us out right now). Okay, enough sappy stuff, let's get to the news!

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At last update we were priming the kitchen in prep for painting. We got that all done (except the ceiling) and it looks very nice. It's a good thing we got it done too, because Tuesday was a very counter productive day. Usually that's a bad thing, but not this time. A small army of guys showed up to install our counters on Tuesday. Because we got Corian, the largest section was all one piece (a big selling point for us since it means no seams for water and germs to collect). I was at work, but Colleen got a great shot of the counter when it was still vertical.

It took them about 3 hours to install and they look great (again, please ignore the floor).

We've spent much of the last two evenings shelf papering and putting dishes in our new cabinets. It's extremely satisfying to finally be reversing the flow of stuff by taking it out of storage and putting it into the kitchen. We are doing lots more painting over the holiday weekend and quite a few things are slated for next week. We should get our appliances and sink faucets installed. I'm hopeful the thermostat will finally be installed so we can get some heat in the addition. Also, our tile is due to be 'produced' on Monday so it might arrive before the end of next week.

Optimal Prime

As you can see from the picture below, we officially started painting today. Colleen is busy priming the kitchen for paint and I'm (supposed to be) washing the walls of the master bedroom and taping them in prep for painting.

Just because we are painting, don't think the addition is done, it is just to the point where painting needs to happen so that other things can happen. In the case of the kitchen, the counters are due to be delivered soon (about a 50/50 chance of having them here before Thanksgiving). The bedroom ceiling has to be done so they can install our light fixture so that we can get our plugs and switches installed (so that we can do more painting).

On a general note, it is not often that things go more or less right for a few weeks in a row, but we are definitely on a good streak recently. My November 7th post made some bold predictions about things that I hoped would get done, and nearly all of them are done or on schedule: The cabinets are in; the countertops were measured last Monday and due in soon; the grading was done despite the heat pump; the vast majority of the trim has been finished; and Colleen and I are in fact painting. Hopefully that momentum can continue for a few more weeks. Lots of important stuff is due in soon.

Cabinets!

In the up and down excitement of building an addition, this is definitley an up day! About half of the cabinets are fully installed and the other half are sitting where they will eventually go. They look really nice and everything fits perfectly (so far). I'll let the pictures do the talking (please try to ignore the half painted walls, dirty floor, etc . . . just focus on the cabinets).

Happy 4 Month Birthday

I like the format of my blog a few weeks ago where I basically do lots of mini-blogs. Mostly I like it because it's easier on me, and ultimately, that's really what its all about. So hold on to your seats, here we go again rapid fire style . . .

Tile Death Do Us Part

(New favorite blog title). Seven weeks ago Colleen and I went to the flooring place and picked out the carpet for the bedroom, the vinyl flooring for the bathroom, and the tile that will go around our shower and tub. For the tile, Colleen wanted something in a beige marble look and I wanted something in a white marble look. I think beige looks dirty, she thinks white looks like a museum. We found a white tile with beige veining which satisfied us both and we were very happy for that.

Four days ago I got a call from the flooring place saying that they had just gotten word from our PM to go ahead and place the order and that our tile was backordered by six weeks. The irony is of course that if the order had been placed when we picked it, it would have already been here. Anyway, they asked us to come in and pick something else out. So Thursday, Colleen and I headed back into the show room certain they would not have anything else to satisfy us both. The bad news is, they didn't; the good news is, she caved so we are getting white marble:-) The other bad news is that the next day we got a call saying that this tile was back ordered by more than three weeks! By this point, we were tired of picking tile, so basically we are just going to have to wait a little longer to finally use our shower and tub.

Making the Grade

So you loyal readers out there may remember that the rationale for not having heat the B and B Party was that they couldn't put in the heat pump until they had done the final grade. This made sense to me since the heat pump should go about two feet above where the ground currently is. The current date for grading is Monday morning. In a little twist however, the heat pump has already been installed. Unfortunately the thermostat has not. What this means is that the heat pump is in the way of grading AND not providing us any heat. Awesome. I'm anxious to see how they do the grading now since they are going to have waaaay too much dirt unless they uninstall the pump, move it while they grade, and then reinstall it (see the weekly update picture below).

On Deck

Our PM says that not only is grading scheduled for Monday but that our cabinets are due to arrive Monday afternoon. I find this fascinating based on the current state of our kitchen: the old washer/dryer plumbing is still installed, there are huge sections of undrywalled wall and ceiling etc. Anyway, Colleen and I are packing up what is left of our kitchen this weekend so they can take out the old and put in the new. I'm hopeful that the new cabinets will be installed within the week and the counters within two weeks of that. I'm sure in three weeks I'll be rereading this blog thinking, "I was such a fool."

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Although I haven't been told this specifically, I think they are going to do the final trim work in the great room and bedroom sometime soon. This will allow Colleen and I to paint which will allow them to put in the flooring. At this point, I don't know when all the addition work will be done, but I do feel like I can see all the steps lining up to get it done, and that's exciting.

Glimpsing the Future

The addition hosted its first party this past weekend! B and B Party XII was a big success.

Our PM did get a cleaning crew out here on Thursday and they did a heck of a job (they even cleaned the windows for crying out loud). I also took the day off to help turn the addition from a construction zone into a suitably hospitable environment for 35ish people. It was actually great to see the place (mostly) cleaned up for just a few days and get some hints of what it will be like when it is all done. For the first time ever we took the plastic down between the kitchen and the greatroom. The greatroom is definitely a great room to hold a party. Just think what it will be like when it has electricity! The new bedroom got its first use. We slept five guests in the new bedroom (and two in the guest bedroom, and one in the living room). Here's one picture of the master bedroom. Notice how big it looks even with a king air mattress in it. I'll post some more good addition pictures as I get them and have more time.

In other addition news, the tub arrived early Friday morning and was dragged upstairs today. It still isn't inside it's little box yet, but they did put some cement backerboard around it where it will go so that it can be tiled once its in. Gutters were installed Friday. I have a feeling that we could be getting our new cabinets this week, but our PM has been MIA since Wednesday, so it's a little hard to tell. Stay tuned. . .

Days of Rain Without Leaks: 1

While dryness has an awful lot of utility, it didn't quite seem in the spirit of the Lost Utility Tracker. You can blame it on the rain, but I blame it on the roofers (and if they mind, they can bite me).

While Bruce slept soundly Monday night, I was awakened by heavy rain. After a long consultation with the angel on my left shoulder and the devil on my right, I dragged myself up to see where we needed buckets THIS time. [I know those of you with kids are already thinking this is NOT newsworthy.] I spent about ten minutes with a flashlight upstairs and downstairs checking ceilings, walls, closets, outlets, and light switches, all of which have previously had water dripping/pouring out of them. The only dampness I found was a couple of slightly dark spots in the ceiling that I was almost certain had been freshly spackled that day and just hadn't fully dried.

I crawled back in bed and eventually stopped thinking about the wet spots and the beads of water that could be forming at that very minute. When we got up in the morning (and I explained to Bruce why on earth I was on my tiptoes poking at the ceiling in my pajamas), the dark spots were either smaller or gone. And after a full day of rain yesterday, our buckets remain dry!

Something's Done! (almost)

The retaining wall is (almost) done. It's all done except a few capstones and it looks really nice. The stairs (hats off to Colleen for the finding that idea online) look nice and create a convenient volleyball court access. Once it's landscaped I think what could have been an eyesore will really be a unique feature of the house.

Party Time?

Come hell or high water, B and B Party XII will be held here on Halloween. As that day inches ever closer, I look around me and think: 'Oh crap.' Most of the house is covered in dust, the rest of it is covered in plastic. The greatroom has a dozen sheets of drywall laying on the floor, three boxed up appliances, and enough random construction paraphernalia to open up your own hardware store. The new bedroom (a great potential crash place after party) is looking a lot better, but now that the roof is still leaking it's hard to tell what will have to be torn out and redone. Our PM has assured me that his guys will be sweeping up and cleaning up on Thursday, but he's assured me lots of things in the past.

If the weather holds out and the retaining wall really is all done on Sunday, the final grade should happen early next week. The goal was then to get the heat pump in and running pre-party. While that is still a possibility, I would no longer call it likely since there would be at most four days to build a base for it, have it delivered, installed, and working correctly.

Fortunately, cleanliness and heat are not two things that are required for a successful B and B Party as previous years have clearly demonstrated. Still, when I look at the room pictured below my first thought is not: Let's Party!