Mortimer's Mom: Construction Train: Derailed

Remember my new closet? The one I was going to get by raising the roof and adding windows and generally making the absolute most out of our existing house?

Well, it doesn't look like it's happening anytime soon. We have the permit. We have the architect's drawings, heck we even have engineered plans for the beam that is going to hold up the new low-sloped roof.... What we don't have is a ready-to-go contractor....

We had a contractor. A guy we actually really like and who does fantastic work. The problem is, he's slow as heck. He's a perfectionist and he does pretty much all the work himself, he only brings in day laborers for the crap work (like removing the dead rats from under the sub floor when we redid the basement) or when he physically can't do it by himself (when he built us a curved ceiling in our first house, or presumably when he needs to put it this new beam).

Anyhow, when we met him this summer, we were clear that we needed to have permits, but we were very confident we would get the permits in late summer or early fall and we would want to go ahead immediately. In the interim, he took a job fixing a kitchen at a friend's house. It's taking a lot longer than it was supposed to. When we sat down with the engineer and architect a few weeks ago, I sensed that he wasn't ready to start anytime soon, but the rest of the team still felt there was enough time to do the project before the yucky weather set in. Since that meeting, we have been trying to get him to give us an official start date, as we need to store half our furniture and move into the basement.

We now have the permit in our hands and the final plans, so we've been on his case for a start date. Yesterday, he announced he still needed 2-3 weeks.... That didn't sound good to me. After an email exchange, in which we laid out our fears about the late start (which we were hoping would get him to hurry up, confirm a start date or at least reassure us that he could do it before the snow came) he told us he would feel more comfortable starting in the spring.... IN THE SPRING!

I have lived with crooked wallpaper for 6 months, telling myself everytime I go into that room that as soon as the "Big Project" is done, we'll fix the wallpaper once and for all and I can finally feel no stress when I walk around the house..... Now, it looks like none of it is going to happen. I mean, we are scrambling to contact contractors, but this date and time, it's not very bloody likely we'll find anyone qualified, available and affordable to do it....

I know there are people who are going to lose their house to the hurricane, so me bitching about my reno problems is obnoxious. But I haven't had a very good year, I'm under a lot of stress and having a place to hang my pants was going to cheer me up a little....

Comments

MM I am so sorry to hear this crappy news!! You so deserve to have a smile on your face when you hang up your pants. Hopefully someone else will come through or at the very least you'll be able to get some straight wallpaper on the wall. Sending you good design chi and hugs.

Posted by: Bobbi Jo | September 12, 2008 at 11:08 PM