Apologies for the non-blogging state of recent times.... and update

Dear Everyone,
We need to apologise for being out of touch recently. So much has been going on that it has been impossible to keep up. I will try and summarise the goings-on of the last 6 weeks or so....
VF

Firstly the construction zone has been just horrendous. Rather trying times for us as we have been trying to live in the midst of it. I will try and post some pictures later in the week (although we do not have too many as one of our builders had taken several hundred ("dont bother taking any because I'll give you a CD of mine when I'm done") and then absconded without leaving them) and they will appear above this post.

As with all old houses (as those who have been through this told us), we discovered things that we were not anticipating. Most things we were aware we would have to do in the next 2-3 years, however what we did not anticiapte was that most of these things would need to be done sooner, not later. The floor replacement was the first thing. We were wanting to re-finish the wooden floor (about 950 sq ft) as the finish on it was not the best (looked like paint/glue/varnish had been mixed together). The finance committee of two met and this member convinced the other member that we really should do it before the furniture came. Unfortunately when they assessed it, the wood had been sanded down so many times, that it would not stand another sanding and so we were told that either we could replace it now, or nurse it along for 2-3 years and replace it then. On close inspection it was indeed starting to splinter, and we thought that it would be better to do it now with no furniture in place rather than wait until later. So the finance committee met again and decided to appropriate the air-conditioning funds to the flooring. And so it happened.... the old floor was ripped up in preparation for a new one. The other thing from the 2 year timeframe that had to be brought forward was the remortaring of the entire outside of the house. The day before the settlement (closing) we were told that the insurance comapny would not insure us. That was a bombshell out of nowhere! I did some fast talking and we came to an agreement that if we provided documentation that we intended to do it before Winter (so that rain does not get in the cracks and expand when it turns to ice) they would insure us but that they would also send an inspector out to check before Christmas. Whew! But now that of course means another non-budgeted project for yet another 5-figure sum of cash. Where will it end???

Amidst the ripping up of the floor, we were having the breakfast bar built (that took about 6 long weeks). I will post before, during and after photos of that once my computer is back from the computer doctor later in the week (not happy about the evil blue BIOS screens I have been seeing and about leaving it at the repair place for a couple of days... but that's another story). Having the breakfast bar built also involved making two doors into one dooway, removing most of the old lathe & plaster wall, putting in new framing and a huge header beam. Then parts of the wall were re-built with new gib-board (dry-wall, gib-rock or whatever you call it). This now meant that we had one smooth wall in the dining room and three that were stucco (as are all the internal walls). So in order to create some uniformity, we had the builders remove the stucco off more of the dining room walls. Oh dear... Huge 2cm wide cracks underneath and BIG holes with chicken wire poking out... So much for the real estate person saying "the walls are perfect underneath, the developer just liked the stucco look". Then the builders said that plastering at this kind of level was beyond them. So we made a 911 emergency call to another builder who knew local plasterers (it seems that they are as scarce as the proverbial hen's teeth) and he brought one along. "Sorry, this is too much of a difficult job, plus I'm too busy" (not helped by the fact we were wanting it started within 72 hours because of the floor underneath where he would be working being about to be replaced). Along came another one, who agreed to it with the proviso that he could not guarantee that he would be able to save the lovely plaster rosette above where the dining table would be (it was threatening rather severely to fall down after 130+ years on the ceiling). So along came Brian and his sons, every evening after work and on Sunday. Amazing! And so cool to watch them work so deftly!

About this time I went to NZ, primarily as I had some work meetings scheduled, but also thankful to be able to escape the chaos that was ensuing at the house. The builders seemed to be on a 'go-slow' track and we weren't quite sure why or what was happening. As it turns out (hindsight is great) our intuition was correct and they seemed to be trying to teach us a lesson - they did not want to change from being paid by the hour to being paid by the job (initially we were happy to pay by the hour as the projects changed so much it would have been impossible to quote/estimate them, but after 6 weeks of this, we were wondering when it was going to end) so they were prolonging the end of projects; plus, it seems that they did not like us "dating other people". Yes, we were involving other contractors - the builder who found the plasterers also has 10yrs masonry experience as well as doing general building, the bathroom guys who can put in an entire new bathroom in 2 days etc. We were anxious to ensure we had the best job done and for the best deal, and we certainly were not wanting to favour B&B who although we had known for a year and valued their work, due to the go-slow, we were no longer convinced that they were the only ones we should get and neither did we need them to do ALL our work. Politics, politics..... oh my goodness. Poor Jamie had to manage them whilst I was away - he worked afternoons the first couple of days I was away and then nights for the week but made sure that he was there every day, often watching over them every 30 minutes or so asking what/when/how/why. This coupled by several VERY stern international phone calls from me (NO, we are telling you, the floor MUST start tomorrow) seemed to result in some progress over the week.

It's amazing how much 'out of sight, out of mind' does for the psyche. Not that the goings-on were completely out of mind, but at least I did not have to see what was transpiring by the minute (see pics....). It wasnt until I saw the photos that I realised that things could actually get worse that what they were!

It was good to be in Auckland and really good to spend time with friends and family. Although there is a limit to what one can get through in a week so my days were rather jam-packed with activities. The weather was a little warmer than in Michigan (and a lot warmer than what Michigan is now - four weeks later!). There is something about drinking a latte sitting at Cafe on Kohi looking across the sparking Waitemate Harbour.... But, it will be even better in February because Jamie will be with me.

The week went by rather quickly and soon I was back on the big Qantas bird winging across the Pacific. I had chosen a different route across the US so that I had more than 75 minutes to change planes in LA (usually a huge sprint between terminals with my baggage). But unfortunately the connection via Minneapolis/St Pauls to our local MBS was late and then we had bad weather across the US, so I was completely devastated to arrive in M/StP at 9.15pm to find that my connection had not waited 15 minutes and I was forced to overnight there. What a disappointment. The 'very-first-next-day-flight' they put me on was not direct and so Jamie ended up driving the 90 min from Bay City to Detroit to pick me up. But all's well that ends well, and after a nice Mediterranean-style lunch at Pita Cafe, and gathering some belongings from the Berkley estate, we were on our way back to Bay City. I was quite excited to put books in the new bookcase etc. I wondered why Jamie looked at me in a puzzled way but I decided that maybe he just thought I was being a little manic about it. I called the builders and talked about the next projects that we would have them start and asked them to leave their quotes on the bench (counter-top) and we would phone them that night to discuss which ones to commence the next day.

I was shocked on my arrival home to discover that the bookcase was certainly not up to having cookbooks on it, and all the jobs previously in progress were not completed. But at least the floor looked fantastic and the plastering had progressed in huge leaps and bounds. I phoned the builders, but no answer. Left a message about seeing them in the moring to continue the work and talk more about their next tasks.

The next morning, we were happy to welcome the bathroom guys to install a new shower/bath; but were puzzled as to why our usual builders were not there. We were worried that they were lying in a ditch (it had happened before when they ran into a snow-drift last November!). Finally they called back and said no-one would be coming today (by then we had guessed not as it was after 3pm already). Excuses, excuses - but nothing quite added up. We were feeling more than a little confused and the niggling questions we had about the non-completion of work seemed justified.

The next day was packed with action. We awoke to a tremendous "POW" at 3.30am when one of the big front windows blew in and smashed on the new oak floor. It was even more dramatic than then the several times that the builders had left their air-compressor on and it went off in the middle of the night. It was quite a windy night and I had not been able to latch it properly and as the builders had not put back the track after freeing it from it's 50yrs of varnish, there was not much keeping it on it's sill. Thankfully Jamie managed to find a repair place that was able to fix it quickly and cheaply after 8.30 the next morning.
The bathroom guys finished the bathroom and we were quite awed by it (we sat in it and stared at it for over half an hour that night!). It was quite incredulous to have something completed - and so fast!
I had a huge showdown with one of the builders - the head guy - over his lack of professionalism and his attitude. I was also concerned that he was charging us in 30 minute increments, yet I had never seen the three of them arrive before 8.10am and they frequently left by 3.50pm AND we were paying them all for a full 8 hours a day. I informed him in no uncertain terms that we were unhappy about a lot of things (and exactly what they were) and that this 20min a day for three people had added up significantly over the past 7 weeks alng with his 10-20 min phone calls 5-6 times a day. I gave them a list of the jobs that we required completion on over the next 2 days and sent him on his way with a comment that they would be working as 'time in lieu' for what we had already been billed and that we would only pay them on completion the next day. They were not happy and both began stomping around with dour looks on their faces (however we knew they wanted their 5-figure bill paid up so we knew that progress would be made!). But we were very happy that so many tasks looked like they were being completed! Later that evening we were less than thrilled to find that there had been a conversation had by the builder with the bathroom guys about him not allowing them to finish because of some work he was meant to do in the bathroom (him? what was it to do with him?) When the bathroom guy told us this, we were even more furious about the arrogance of the builder and figured that maybe he had seen himself as being in control of this job/worksite and now that we were micro-managing him, he was wanting to take control wherever he could. Who knows???

The next day brought another heated conversation between me and the other builder. He had been stomping around with a very sour face and had not been his usual cheery self. He had pushed past me on several occasions and seemed to be refusing to speak with us. Not cool. I accosted him on the stairs and tried to find out the goings-on. It seems like head-guy brother had fed him all sorts of lies about what I had said to him and implied that we did not like their work and that this one was not allowed to talk to his girlfriend on the phone. I told him how much we valued him and how much we loved his work (this is the one that made the incredible oak breakfast bar that I will post pictures of above soon) and that if I had a problem with any aspect of his conduct, I would tell him just like I am telling him now. You can imagine it: here's me, all 5 ft 2 of me, blocking this huge 6ft 4 guy on a narrow staircase, not letting him push past me to get back up to the kitchen and giving him a piece of my mind. No wonder Jamie soon appeared at the top of the stairs to see what was going on. Luckily he did as he was able to back me up. The atmosphere seemed to relax a little as the rest of the afternoon passed, and everyone seemed almost as nice as pie by the time most of the jobs were finished and it was pay-time. We reminded them to gather up whatever tools they would need for the week as we were going away to Florida for a conference Jamie was going to. But this was not before Mr boss-guy builder and I had another altercation involving a man I had paid to remove the hideous trees out the front of the house. He had gone out and told the tree-removal man "dont remove those trees - they're mine". I informed him in no uncertain terms that I had paid this guy to remove them because he had not bothered to take them out as promised and that the deal we had was that they must be gone before I came back from NZ and yet again, the job had not been completed. This further confirmed our theory of him thinking he was in charge of the site and that we needed to continue to rein him in. Finally, they left for the day, taking most of their tools with them and we decided that we would not be phoning them back to do more work. They did however leave a lot of things (including a big table saw and seats from their van) in our basement, so we figured that they would turn up sometime. All rather sad because we like their work and we certainly have plenty to do and had planned for them to do it (see earlier post). The story is to be continued in another posting....

Meantime, off we went to Orlando the next day. I will tell that story in pictures later in the week. Jamie's mother (Joan, pronounced Jo-Ann) came with us, Jon (Jamies brother) and his wife Andrea and another friend Jody from Colorado. Jamie, Jon & Jody were all attending the conference. The rest of us had a nice holiday!! We had two birthdays during that time - Jamie on Oct 24th and Joan on Oct 25th.