Official Countdown begins

Well we finally got the signed Unconditional Release of Lein back from Ronnie.  Although we didn't have a lein on this place since we were doing it in cash, it's just a safety precaution in case he happens to get vindictive.  You never know.  It really would only affect us if we were to sell the place which we dont intend on ever doing but that lein might cause who ever we leave the ranch to issues if they should decide to sell.  I hope it stays in the family for a very long time and my deepest wish is that Christine and Justin return to Texas one day and live here.  Rumor around town is that hes gonna file bankruptcy,  dont know which chapter yet.  He got himself into hot water by taking on far too many projects, not enough hired hands to complete the work, too much partying and a lawsuit from another person who's having a home built by him.  I've heard nightmares about the place.  

The granite guys were back to install the backsplashes in the bathrooms.  We can't finish installing the fixtures until the drains arrive.  Because our sinks are thin, made out of copper and have no overflow we cannot use the drains that came with the faucet sets.  We had to order special drains with no overflow....who knew.  I guess this is stuff they teach you in plumbing school.  And I'm guessing this is something new because we had a thin metal sink in the previous home and there were no issues with the drain.  But that was almost 30 years ago so things have changed.  

The painting should be finished today along with the texturing and I'm hoping that they get started on the floors.  We were hoping to move the washer and dryer into the mud room and maybe get at least 1 spare bedroom situated.  If not we will start figuring out the shelf situation in the master closet.  We were given a bunch of ClosetMaid wire shelving and it would be a shame not to take advantage of it.  Of course we didnt get off completely scott free, there were still brackets and supports and rods and holders that added up to over $700 but this gives us the flexibility to change it up if our needs change.  It's a project I am excited to start on. 

The electrician is coming by tomorrow to look at what needs to be done and also the mirror and glass people are coming by to measure my upper cabinets for glass and mirrors for the bathrooms.  

The big thing is getting that second coat of sealer on the floors.  Once that's done there is nothing to stop us from moving in furniture etc.  We've already begun to move stuff...I'm getting the big pantry stocked and figuring on what pots and pans I can move now.  It's really becoming exciting but it's also happening at the hottest time of the year...we have 100+ degree days behind us and ahead of us so doing things very early and very late in the day.  

Water Wall

The mud room is where we have the water wall.  So the mud room has washer, dryer, whole house filter, water conditioner, tankless heater for the water and a utility sink.  It will also eventually have a standing freezer and a spare refrigerator but right now we are just dealing with what we have.  

This was another room that 2as giving us fits because of the way the plumber brought stuff in and connected it. A hodge podge mess for sure.  It's like nobody thinks about how they bring stuff in and how the people who own the home will deal with it.  We try very hard to not have to rely on someone else to fix stuff.  But we also know when we are out of our league and to ask for help.

I didn't take a before picture and should have because it was a real mess but we took it all apart and reworked everything so that it makes sense and we can cut off individual sections so if we have to work on something you dont have to shut the entire system down.

Water from the cistern comes into the house at 1.  Its then sent through the whole house filter.

From the whole house filter is gies into the water conditioner and then if hot water is required it goes into the tankless heater. Once it leaves the heater it goes into washing machine, guest bath sinks, bathtub, shower or utility sink.

Cold water is fed to the other side of the house at step 5.  There is another tankless heater in the linen closet in the master bath.  It will feed the dishwasher, kitchen sink, master vanity sinks and shower.  It just made more sense to have 2 heaters because of the long run the hot water would have to make.  

Some may be asking why we have a water conditioner ( softener) .  The reason behind that is the tankless heats up the water very quickly.  This requires a lot of heat.  We have very, very hard water with lots of calcium and minerals.  When this water is heated up quickly it developes calcium scale and that will ruin the heating elements in the tankless.  An expensive mistake we learned about 28 years ago with our first tankless.  Besides having softened water saves your clothes in that you dont have to use the amount of soap that you would normally have to in hard water.  Saves your diswasher, saves your washer, saves your plumbing fixtures.  It's just a great thing to have all the way around.  

Granite part duex

Granite is here, granite is here!!

Those are our pieces!

And heres what it looks like.

On the agenda this weekend is to try and finish up the plumbing so we can get most stuff hooked up.

Guest bath.  The guys forgot the backsplashes for both bathrooms so they will have to come back. 

If you notice we have what is referred to as a " vessel" sink in the master bath.  It sits on top of the counter.  For a vessel sink you also need a vessel fixture.  Ah ha....nobody tells you that.  So even though I had these fixtures that had a high neck, they apparently weren't high enough so I had to order something else.  I was able to find Kingston Brass stuff that matched but I didnt have a lot of selection unless I wanted to go higher in price.  I already have a bath fixture that's going on Ebay or Craigslist so I'll just add to the ever growing pile.

 Hers what I bought, vs heres what I had.

I think it will be just fine but I would have rather had what we picked out first.  Sometimes you just have to know when it's time to say Uncle.

Walking A Fine Line

I have an old Ipod Nano.  I love it.  Yes, it's old and outdated but it suits me just fine.  I also have a bluetooth speaker that I use with it sometimes and headphones.

I was gonna try and organize my cookbook collection this past long weekend and sometimes I think better with music and sometimes I just like the quiet.  

So I took my Nano, speaker and headphones down and got everything somewhat organized and I still have more to do but its shaping up so that I can find stuff pretty easily.  Anyway, it took all weekend and I just left everything there. 

Tuesday arrived (Monday was the 4th) and the woman who is doing the touchup painting arrived.  I went down to let her know that the water was disconnected to the inside ( we have our well guy coming to put in the water conditioner) but I put a bucket out by the faucet and she could use the toilet but shed have to get water and out it in the tank in order to flush it.  She did not speak much english but I was pretty sure she understood. 

So I go down after supper, she left about 3:30, and my Nano, speaker and headphones are not where I left them.  So I start to search the house, casually and then more thoroughly as I'm not finding them.  Maybe they are on the porch? Nope.  Oh, maybe Bob picked them up and put them in the back of the mule... not likely but I'll check...nope...in the vehicles...nope, back down to the house once again to slowly walk through and look in fridge, freezer, microwave, dishwasher, utility sink and both showers....nope, nope, nope.  So I had no choice but to send a text to her supervisor and ask him if maybe she thought they belonged to someone and so she took them.  He assured me that she had worked for them forc10 years was a great employee and could I be mistaken.  So I said, well I've looked everywhere and it's not here.  There were 2 people down at the house today, her and me.  That's it.  It didn't grow legs and just walk off.  He said hed send her a text and ask her about it.  

I heard nothing from him till the next morning and he said her story was she was picking it up for someone who had been fired earlier in the week.  " Eddie" itcwas supposed to be his.  Only problem is...."Eddie" was never here.  I will give her the benefit of the doubt that she did not know whether or not he had been here BUT I know that he hadn't been here, he knows he wasnt here and her supervisor knows he wasnt here.  So when she gave him my Ipod and speaker he knew that it wasnt his. 

The Ipod was returned on Wednesday but first some reason she couldn't get the speaker.  Her supervisor assured me that she would have it in Thursday but that didnt happen.  Apparently " Eddie" is avoiding her but her supervisor assured me I would have it Friday if he had to go and get it himself.  Which he ended up doing.  

The fine line you walk here is that you have 95% of the facts.  It was in the house.  It is yours.  Only 1 person could of taken it.  Why would you take something that they had not described to you in detail and if you'd looked at the playlist you'd have seen there was nothing that could be considered Tejano music, in fact you probably weren't even born when most of these songs came out.  Why would you take something that's mildly expensive and not ask the homeowner first?

You also want the person who's working in your house to do a good job, so you know shes taken it but you dont know why...its a real conundrum and so you walk this fine line and question yourself the whole time.

I think she was honestly trying to do a good deed for someone who was less than trustful.  The story to me is still a little sketchy but I have my stuff back and that's all I was after anyway.  I will however keep my eye on my stuff a little more closely now.  I'm glad we are at the end of this poll project and the few subs that are remaining we know very well.  

Just go away!

We had not gotten our release of Lein by Thursday  June 30 and that old familiar feeling of something is up kept nagging at me.  About 7:30 am..ish Friday a flurry of text messages came through.  This was unacceptable, he wasnt paying for appliances ( even though he told us he would), no ceiling fans, no lights etc.  Send me a revised bill and I will see what you owe me, send you a bill and when you pay me...I will sign the lein.  O.K. asshole, you want to get down to the nitty gritty, we can do that.

So I sent him an email that said hed been paid X amount.

We had paid, cabinets, paint, trim and granite.  So that left him X amount but he had not reimbursed us for anything yet and that bill taking 25% off the top for difference in quality ( pretty generous I think), left him 13K in arrears.  Even if we went 10K over budget he was still 3k in arrears.  But we would call it even and if this was not good enough then our next communication would be through our lawyer.  Crickets since then but it's a holiday weekend and I'm hoping we get signed paperwork in the mail on Tuesday.  Then I can let out a sigh of relief.  

Apparently this happens all the time and rarely is the GC in the right.  All I know is that we entered into this in good faith and he has constantly let us down.  Very little communication and very little transparency.  I cant tell you how many times I requested a budget sheet to know what I could spend on what and then just gave up.  If we went over..so be it but I always shop with a budget in mind and also bought early, long before the price increases began.  Never was there a phone call, text or email that said prices were increasing quickly and price he quoted he could not sustain.  He can make all the excuses he wants but he wouldn't be in this position if hed done the house in the time frame he quoted us or at least in 12 months at the most but we are at a year and 6 months...very poor planning and a very sorry business model.  

Granite

We picked out our granite for the kitchen a while ago.

This is what we picked out.  It's called Patagonia.   Loved it immediately and we were told it was Granite.  It is listed as granite on the website..still is as a matter of fact.  

We met with Granite by Design ( the fabricators) last week when the slabs arrived in Kempner.

Apparently this is not granite it is Quartsite.  Which can create an awful lot of issues with cracking, flaking etc.  We were crestfallen because we were so happy about our selection and had seen nothing similar..

It was a real statement piece.  But the owner of Granite by Design said we would not be happy with the final product.  Hed already found cracks in it and areas where they had epoxied it together and said he could not guarentee that it would hold up.  We were certainly disappointed but know when to say when.  He suggested we look around the yard to see if there was anything that would strike our fancy but we had also planned to go into Austin to look once again at Midwest Tile cause they have a lot of different slabs.

As luck would have it, we found something called Deep Burgundy.  The colors are very close to what the sandstone is on the hearth and in the masterbath.  This picture does not do it justice as it's much deeper in color and richer looking.

We are on schedule for next Friday, July 8th for install.  Although hoping someone isnt ready who's already on the schedule and its sooner.  

Moving in Appliances and a surprise

Bob and I decided to start moving in some of the heavier appliances because most of them are in the kitchen and once installed they really wont be in anyone's way.

We also had help from our good friend Keith and his son Tyler.  Both bodybuilders so that was a bonus.

Got the stove in place.

Sub- Zero Fridge/Freezer drawers

Fridge and dishwasher.  That is the heaviest stuff and it's now all in place.  The fridge and the drawers get panels that match the cabinetry but our cabinet makers are on a much needed and well deserved holiday.  The panels can wait until they come back.  

Bob and I also decided to go ahead and put the handles on everything so we did.

Here's a close up of the handle.

Heres a picture of the jig that Bob made so that the handles are in the same place on every cabinet.

And heres what it looks like.

Now for the surprise....

Last week the painters were supposed to be back to clear coat front and back doors and the side door gets painted 2 different colors.  1 color on the inside and another color on the outside.

They were not there on Tuesday and they were not there on Wednesday and so I was curious but they have always been reliable so figured that they had something pressing.  Bob had to go into town to the Hardwear store and just happened to run into Corry who is the supervisor over the painters and Bob naturally asked him when they would be back.  Corry replied, " in a month maybe...if we get paid".  "You haven't been paid?"  "No", Corry replied.  Bob then asked if we could pay them to keep the job going.  And Corry said he would have to talk with his boss.  So long story short...our GC who had just gotten a draw for 12K from us to pay the painters had not paid them or only partially paid them.  This is not a good thing...this can be classified as a very bad thing.  So Bob told me and we sat down with our Excell file where I keep all the expenses and draws and figured out how much we'd paid Ronnie.  How much we had paid toward stuff and were to be reimbursed for and what was left and what work was left to be done.  And Ronnie didnt have enough left to finish the work he had left to do and even though we are very close to finally finishing we didnt see him working any harder to make that happen.  So Bob called him and essentially said....you've had this much in draws, we've paid out this much minus 25% for difference in quality and you have this much left to finish the job.  Can you do it?  We are offering you a win- win situation here.  This gets a house off your plate, and more debt and we finish it out.  Bob said to think about it and get back to us.  But he answered right away saying hed sign an unconditional release of Lein.  I got busy and called all the subs and found out who had been paid and who had not and paid them and have signed receipts with PAID IN FULL, written on them.  And the subs have been wonderful saying that they would make sure we are well taken care of.  Cookies and brownies and care for their well being and making sure they know how much we appreciate them goes a long way.  Next morning there was a flurry of text messages from Ronnie about stuff he was not paying for but we still had an Ace in the hole in case he tried to pull that one and it was to hit him with a bill of our own...

For example: Welder used as a generator for 2 months, several tanks of gas, weld plates for house and porches, consultant fee on how to attach the uprights to the weld plates since the wood framing was done first.  Labor for 5 -  8 hr days @ $55 an hr on installing the wood burning stove pipe and stove pipe materials, same with range hood, the list goes on and on.  But I felt like if I answered any of those text messages that he would gain the upper hand and so for once in my life I remained quiet and that strategy worked because he finally acquiesced and said if we paid the painters, the trim and the granite, we would be about even and he'd sign.  We printed up the form, stuck it in an envelope along with a SASE back to us so hed have no excuses on not getting it back.  We feel like a great weight has been taken off our backs.  Theres not much left to do and  we have all the proper people in place to do it.  A couple of them still work for Ronnie and they will have to do the work on the weekend but if they are making a fair wage then I doubt that there will be any issues.  Granite is supposed to be here next week.