Laura's Renovation Adventure

We finally hired someone to help us work on one of our projects. He was an acquaintance of ours, as he used to be our neighbor and his wife works where I work, but in another department. They seemed like nice people and he had been in business a long time, so we hired him to do some drywall work for us and help us round up other trades people to do a bit of wiring and plumbing.

The trades people were fine. We were able to move our washer and dryer out to what was before an unusable sun room. We removed all but three windows, and replaced those. We also put in a new door that actually seals.

Our first indication of a problem was when we came home one day and realized that he had drywalled over a board that had a rotted place in it.

Then, another day, we smelled cigarette smoke in the house, and none of us smoke.

He wanted paid in advance for the work, and, stupidly, I did. There was no final walk through, so that we could complain about the lousy job he did on the drywall. There is tape pulling up. He made joints by the windows. The corners have odd patchy bits. In short, it looks like I did it myself. Actually, my drywall is better than that, and I do not consider myself competent to do drywall.

We've spent most of the month of September cleaning up his mess and trying to patch up the work to make it look right. I am not happy.

People have asked us time and again why we've done all our renovation work ourselves, with the help of my dad and kids. With the exception of skilled trades, every time we've hired someone to do carpentry work, we have been disappointed to the point of feeling cheated.

Three more calls to the lovely people who may or not provide DSL service to PRINCE and SALEM. If anyone in Conway has DSL, shouldn't it be the neighbourhoods at the corner of Prince and Salem?

Neither here nor there.

All this just to go to class tomorrow. Oh, but am I prepared? Not exactly. Because what have I been doing? Trying to get DSL set up.

So Todd has decided that everything inside the house is mine to finish packing and moving. He really is being a baby about this, and is making me crazy.

And gas? Friday. No hot water until Friday.

And the plumbing has problems. How on earth did the home inspector that we hired not bother to flush the toilets??? The house has a home warranty, which is great. Except the owners did not choose coverage for themselves while the process was ongoing, so they aren't covered. And we aren't covered until we sign the paperwork. So our choices are to live with the problems or pay to fix what a home warranty will cover.

But the house itself really is great. If my husband and I don't divorce over this move, all will be worth it.