Our contractor stopped by the house today to deliver his final bill for the siding work. It was supposed to be cheaper than his estimate, since we decided to cover the existing siding rather than having it torn off. However, I opened the envelope and discovered that it was about $1400 MORE than he had estimated. I was furious. I called him to ask what happened, and he said, "I dunno. I guess that's what it cost us." Looking over the breakdown, it appears that he is trying to mark-up the labor for his subs by another 100%, so that's about $700 worth of the overage.  read more »

I admit that the title of this post is a little out of character for me. But I've reached that point where my patient frustrations are giving way to sailor-born colloquialism. And I need to vent to somebody. So please bear with me for a little while...  read more »

The general contractor just asked me if I had any earplugs. He was joking, but he may as well have been serious. Although I rejoiced at the sound of boots on our roof this morning, the stapling and hammering is getting on my nerves this afternoon. If my home office hadn't been damaged when the tree fell on our house, I'd be working in there. Instead, I'm sitting in the living room with the laptop, right beneath the noise. I'm hoping that nobody comes crashing through my ceiling. I'm glad that they're working so hard, but it is certainly difficult to concentrate.  read more »

This morning, I am working to the lovely sound of boots on my roof. Normally this would probably drive me crazy, but today I am smiling. After the last contractor blew us off time and time again, it is such a relief to have a crew show up when they say they're going to show up (7am) and to actually get some work done.

So I think it is going to be a good day. Heck, any day that I drag my butt out of bed this early and actually feel optimistic about something is a good day in my book.

After a bit of splitting hairs with our insurance adjuster, we finally have both an accepted estimate and a roofing contractor. They are supposed to arrive tomorrow to start tearing the old roof off and get the new roofing felt laid down. Can you believe that the morons who installed our current roof didn't even put roofing felt underneath? It is amazing that our roof hasn't been leaking all over the place.  read more »

This morning, I we awoke to the sound of our phone ringing at what I like to refer to as the "butt-crack of dawn". It was our new general contractor, calling to see if he could swing by the house early. That's a BIG change when compared to the the last contractor, who would schedule work and then blow us off time and time again. He would sometimes call and claim to be "on his way" and then show up three hours later. What a joke. I am glad to be rid of them. And this new guy seems honest.  read more »