Friday, October 3, 2008

WTF

Let's say the 'F' in question refers to the appetizing photo of fudge I posted on Wednesday.

Fudge is the color we selected for the trim of our house. Several of the items on my to do list over there ---> involve preparing our house for sale, selling it, and then moving to a house we both love. There have been a few setbacks. Let me back up a bit.

K bought our house a couple of months before we got engaged. At the time, we'd been together for six years, so I suspected a proposal might be forthcoming. I was involved with the home selection process to a degree--he pre-screened all of his choices in his price range, and we both happened to like our house the best. He's lived there for five years now, I moved in about six months before the wedding (shhh! don't tell Dad!). We've done a lot of work on the house, starting the day he closed. We've painted every room of the house, swapping out the prison-wall grey to lovely shades of sage, yellow, dark green and blue. We've redone the kitchen floor, updating it from a roll of crappy linoleum to nice tile. We've added or changed out ceiling fans and fixtures throughout the house (and still have a few left, actually), and we've upgraded the kitchen appliances to stainless. It hasn't been easy, in large part due to the crappy "work" the previous owners did around the house--in many cases, we've been fixing their half-assed attemts to hold stuff together. But we've done it all ourselves, and our house looks pretty great on the interior, if I do say so myself. I personally have wanted to move for the last two years, but K is finally fully on board and we're slowly moving forward to get it done.

The exterior is another story. We knew that in order to attract buyers, we needed to make repairs--at the very least. We started with siding estimates. We nearly fainted when Sears quoted us $20,000 for the job. After a few other estimates, we decided to look instead to just doing repairs and fresh exterior paint. We didn't want to put more money into our house than we'd get out. So we ended up hiring a company (that came with great recommendations), and also fit our budget better than the other estimates we received.

Unfortunately, the company hasn't impressed us at all, and after last night, we're considering firing them.

I faxed over the signed contract Wednesday, September 24th. I included a note with some questions, and asked the guy to call me. He called me Friday, the 26th. He said his crew was wrapping up another job in the area and would be over towards the end of the day to start powerwashing. He's also drop off paint samples then. Upon arrival at home, I saw that the paint samples were there, but no work had been done. Monday, I called him with our paint choices (fudge! alabaster!) and asked when we could expect to see his crew. He thought they'd start work the next day. To our surprise, they showed up Monday afternoon and half-assed the powerwashing. K took a look around the house after they left, and found some pretty large areas they missed. He left our guy a voicemail. Tuesday, despite the lack of a call back, the crew showed up again and powerwashed again. They left for lunch (when K was arriving home for lunch) and didn't show up again. Wednesday (yesterday), they actually started doing some work. Not a lot, but it was something. I called the guy (who still hadn't called us back) and asked for an estimated date of completion. He thought they'd finish the repairs by the end of the week and start painting next week. That is, if it didn't rain. If it rained, they'd get back to work four days later. No idea why such a long wait was required, but, whatev.

Thursday night, we came home to find that the work that had been done on the outside of the house was sloppy, uneven, and unprofessional. Several areas where they replaced the trim were crooked. Many of the panels they replaces weren't flush with the old panels. It was bad. But, even worse: there are holes in the interior of our house. A big hole inside our garage, and four small holes inside our kitchen. I don't know if their nail guns were set wrong or if they just don't know what they're doing, or what, but we simply cannot live with that type of workmanship.

I walked in the house last night to K leaving a very strongly worded voicemail to the guy. K has decided that he can't be the one to talk to the guy right now because he would only be yelling at the guy and that isn't productive. Not to mention, the guy has never returned a call to K. He's answered when I call, or he's returned my messages. So this morning, I called the guy. Luckily, he answered. I went over the problems, and he had some excuses (including telling me that the damaged areas on our house were more numerous than he originally estimated, so he brought in five extra panels--which, frankly, is not my problem), but he agreed to stop work until he could personally take a look at the areas we are unhappy with. I don't know how it's going to turn out, but I do know it's a total pain in the ass that we shouldn't have to deal with and it's pissing me off.

Plus, KXAN is off the air and I had to get ready to GMA in the background this morning. I'm cranky, and I'm using a lot of an F-word that isn't Fudge lately. (Thought not at all with the guy; as much as I wanted to. Motherfudger.)

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