The house of broken cars

Over lunch with Katie, I was telling her about my day yesterday and she said I should be keeping a journal so I decided to share more of the house adventures with you all.

7:00 am Monday
Get up because someone will be coming to cut tiles between 7:30 –8.

8:00 am
Start painting the new wall where the soffit was before they put the cabinets in.

9:00 am
Tile guy shows up. I am now cleaning up my flower bed up because I have decided to deliver my compost soil and mulch myself. The garden center wanted 100$ to do it and I would like to use most of that money to buy plants. I figure it should cost 20$ to rent a truck from the Uhaul and 30$ in mileage and gas. Whoohoo.. 50$ to spend on pretty plants.

10:30 am
Tile guy leaves????

12:00 pm
At garden center realizing that I have too much soil and that I will be making 4 trips instead of 2. Hmm that will definitely cut into my gas budget and make my day really long.

5:00 pm
soooo tired.... I unloaded 4 pickup loads of compost and mulch one shovel at a time and I am exhausted. I probably only managed to save about 20$ off the delivery charge, but I also saved myself a lot of work by being able to shovel the stuff more or less where I wanted it. If they had delivered it, they would have dumped it in the yard and I would have had to haul it to the flower beds. The electrician is still at the house doing random electrical jobs. I am asked to approve his work. He has not put in a switch for the dishwasher, just wired it. He also has not put in the outlet into the wall. This outlet was the main purpose of the job and the contractor forgot about it. Now the electrician has to go back to the hardware store to get more supplies. I head off to return the truck, expecting the will be almost done by the time I get back.

6:30 pm
I had this plan of coming home after I returned the rental truck and giving Max a bath because he had been playing in smelly compost all day and then shower because I had been playing in smelly compost all day. No electrician……

7:30 pm
I have given up on the electrician and decided that they are not coming back. Of course, when I go upstairs to shower, the electrician comes back and throws a monkey wrench in my plan. Apparently he ran into a curb and screwed up his van very badly. It kept over heating and that is what took so long.


8:30 pm
Job is done. I am exhausted and just want them gone. I approve the job even though there is a small part of my brain saying that something is wrong, but I am not mentally capable of figuring it out. The electrician asks to borrow my phone to call the contractor for a ride. No one has a phone in the group. Apparently the contractor came down the drive way and then turned around for reasons only known to himself. When I called him, the first thing I said was “The guys are waiting for a ride.” Now they are waiting out front for the contractor to come pick them up and are leaving the van out front. Just like the island of broken toys on Rudolph, somehow we became the house of sick people and broken cars. Every truck that has come along with this job has broken down and I won’t go into the ailments of all the workers.


9:00 pm
Well, hopefully they are all gone and I can shower and go to bed now.

I spoke too soon. Just as I was about the head upstairs, the door bell rang. The contractor never came back to pick them up, even though I called him and told him that they were waiting for a ride. They waited outside for a half an hour before they asked to use my phone again to call him. He wouldn't come back to get them. They had to leave driving a van whose radiator won't hold water. They won't get far and none of them have a cell phone. Uggh! I feel so bad for them that I almost offered to drive them home myself, but at least the van is gone.

9:30 pm
Showered, but Max is still stinky. Finally putting my tired self to sleep.

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8:00 am Tuesday
Up and at em. Hmmm… hair is interesting since I went to bed with it wet.

8:30 am
Had caffeine. Brain beginning to function. Still no contractor.
I now realize what was nagging me about the outlet. It is too low and below the level of the counter. I will not try explain what is wrong in any detail, but I feel that this is definitely something that the contractor should have been attentive to and given some direction to the electrician about. The outlet can’t stay there. Ugghh!!!

11:20 am
I head off to lunch with Katie. Still no contractor.

1:00 pm
Back from lunch and contractor and company finally show up. So much for his early start. He thinks he will get everything done today. Not likely…

5:00 pm
Work is commencing but at a slower rate than the contractor expected but about equal with what I expected. I have made them a to do list and adopted the hovering technique. One of the guys points out that the out let the electrician installed for the microwave is in the wrong place. Again, another thing that the contractor should have known. So half the work the electrician did yesterday will have to be redone. Now I am just shaking my head.

7:00 pm
They have left with promises of coming back early. But they haven’t really left because they are still standing in the driveway talking… probably about me and I am sure it is not fluffy nice stuff either.

Anyone want to place a bet on whether they will show up before noon tomorrow…