Thursday, September 3, 2009

Searching for the light

It's been a painful and dark few weeks on the Sandlin remodel. We have been waiting, and waiting, and waiting for our plumber to appear from the wilderness to finish the last 5% of his job and let us get reinspected and begin the sheetrock. I guess we should have known he was trouble when on the first few weeks he claimed he couldn't work until he got more money because there were so many supplies required for the job. And then there was the crazy story about his cousin getting run over by an 18-wheeler. Then child custody issues. Then some other plumber showed up to "help Chris out." Funny, but he always managed to appear Friday at 3:00 pm for a check and a beer.

He's spent the past 2 weeks dodging phone calls and outright lying. I think he might have a serious pathological problem. Turns out I have the power to fire him. Got to lob that threat twice that week. And really wanted to follow through, but Tom was super antcy to get him to just finish the last 5% of the job and not loose any more time getting a new plumber lined up for the permitting. I drove by the house on Wednesday night at 9:30 pm and he was there trying to finish up. Of course he didn't have any lights....serves him right the lying sack of pvc pipe.

Sigh...

...we sort of passed inspection on Thursday--10 days after the initial inspection failed with just 2 things to fix. Of course the &XX**$#@ plumber STILL has things to fix. But we have the go-ahead to start putting up sheetrock everywhere but the laundry room.

All this delay has put Tom in a bit of a financial pickle...but I can't do much until this part of the job is done and the bank inspector signs off. Tom and I had our first very heated conversation yesterday. I think we're back on the good foot today (the bank released some money so he can make payroll), but it was a dark day yesterday indeed.

Everyday I give myself some degree of solace by looking out my beautiful kitchen windows. And six months from now I'll look out these windows while in my beautiful kitchen, enjoying the sunlight, looking at the outdoors (hopefully without the resident sawhorses and random mound of concrete)....and not even thinking about the plumber working in the dark.

So, for now, enjoy the view and look forward to a sunnier outlook next week.



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