The Rant

You may have thought that this blog is my rant anyway, but I just needed to spew a bit more…I know we’re not special in this experience, but could anything else go wrong? Since the beginning, we had these issues:

1. Our contractor, George, does not communicate. And when he does, it is extremely poor (2-5 words at most at one time). He responds to only 1 item per email (even if the email has 4 questions). He doesn’t follow up. He sometimes does not return calls for 2 days! (so much for our communication meeting where we outlined what our expectations were and he responded with his commitment!)
2. The initial dig was delayed due to the fact that the building permits were not secured. Again this was made all that much worse because of the lack of communication. He’d say we’re starting Tuesday and no one would show, and he didn’t communicate why nor did he return calls.
3. Even though drawings were done in February, the beam was not an issue until he was ready to order them, which delayed the process a couple of weeks. Then, when he finally ordered them, he then set out searching for installers! In all fairness, the group he usually uses really went wacko with the installation price, so George had to scramble to find someone else to do it (however, had he done this in February, perhaps the delay would not have mattered)
4. Beams sat on our front lawn for a good part of 5 weeks until the final (basement) beam was installed.
5. We had Wil, the lead carpenter, then Harry, lead number 2 and now Todd. We’re actually quite nice to the guys, so I am not sure what happened with the others (actually, Will left for another contractor). George’s keen management style handled the changes very well…mentioned about Wil and nothing after that! Todd didn’t show up until sometime during the week of June 4rth. And we actually ended up with best choice for our lead!
6. Beams were installed June 15 and 29th. Yes, there had to be much preparation done to receive the beams, but honestly, we’ve known about this since February, could they not have prepped during the month when they were deliberating about the beams?
7. Kitchen fiasco…it took George nearly a month to finally get a kitchen manufacturer (one would have thought he may have done this before once or twice!)
8. Cad guy arbitrarily decided to move a wall and not show it moved on the final drawings. The kitchen guy noticed that his actual measurements did not match the plan measures. We had to scramble to revise the drawings to fit into the smaller space!
9. Kitchen guy measured the site 2 times, dishwasher had to be moved. There is not enough room on the left of the sink so we moved it to the right of the sink. Third time he measured, the dishwasher moved back to the left.
10. Todd measures everything. He really thinks about how one thing might affect another. I am very glad to have him on our project. One day, he noticed that the window was in the wrong place…actually 6 inches too far to the left (maybe this was the dishwasher problem). It seems that the framers did it wrong months ago. He was about to move it, and decided to consult the kitchen guy as the kitchen was 90% built. Kitchen guy confirmed that he made the kitchen to fit the reality and not the plan. Fwew! Window placement drama averted!
11. After many meetings about how particular we were about the windows, they are finally delivered. They are wrong. I don’t even want to go into this again…makes me so mad I am afraid I will burst something!
12. Now my worst fear is that the kitchen is wrong, and we had the counters made (5 weeks lead time) to fit the kitchen, so if that is wrong, then the counters are wrong!

So when I ask if anything else could go wrong, I am not kidding!

PS at least we’re keeping the LCBO in business. Wish I had stock in it!