The Continuing Emotional Roller-Coaster That Was Week 9

TUESDAY

This was a pretty bad day, filled with anxiety. The builder and the VP/co-owner came by the house for a walk through, and my wife happened to be there. At their request she showed them a few of the things that we had concerns about, and pretty much one by one the VP either suggested the problems were either somehow our fault, or else not something they needed to address. Paint the windows - these metal windows should have never been painted in the first place. Yeah, that was probably done 35 years ago, and they are a part of the living room... He also suggested that they were not going to do anything to replace the drawer fronts, since the architect's drawing was "faulty" (apparently, by not being to scale). We had hoped that the VP would step up and be an advocate for having a nice finished product, but he seemed to be extremely dismissive, defensive, and argumentative. Needless to say, my wife was convinced that they were ready to walk off the job and call it done, and she was really upset. I called the VP and talked with him in general terms, and he seemed to be much more reasonable. But I spent the rest of the day feeling nauseous and anxious, much like my wife.

We spoke with the architect's PM, and he indicated that he intended to get by the house in the morning to put together their punchlist. He also wasn't very reassuring, especially when he kept saying what "you" needed to do to get the
builder to address things. I told him that we were expecting them to provide a lot of assistance in this phase.

The architect had been asking for the builder's punch list, but had not yet received it. I was talking with the builder about our punch list, and he was asking for a copy. The architect and I had talked about holding off until we gave a combined list to the builder, but it was pretty clear that the builder really just wanted to know what was on the list so he could get to working on it. And he seemed to be getting frustrated that I didn't want to send it to him. So that night we sent our big list to the architect and the builder.


WEDNESDAY

The architect never made it out to generate a punchlist.

The appliance guys never showed, which was a big deal to the builder. He was expecting to have the appliances installed on Wed, finish his HVAC and mechanical on Thurs, and have the City's final inspection on Friday.

They addressed a few minor items that had been brought up Tuesday morning, and began working on replacing some of the boards in the living room and kitchen that were marked up.


THURSDAY

Finished the flooring, though they didn't repair everything that we had asked, though most of those issues were in the laundry room, and it didn't seem nearly as bad as they seemed at first.

The architect and his PM did a walk through which apparently took 2 hours, during which they talked a bit with the builder. They talked about a lot of the items on the punchlist, and eventually even talked about the cabinet hardware placement. The builder called up the drawing that they sent on his computer, to show them how the drawing was confusing. The architect told him in no uncertain terms that it was accurate and clear, and that they just put them in places other than the drawing showed.

The architect and I had a nearly 2 hour phone conversation about the punchlist, and it was VERY reassuring. He said that most of the items on our list were valid, and there were just a couple that he was going to take off. Plus he was going to add a couple of his own.

He said overall the place looked good, and 90% of the items on our punchlist would likely be on the punchlist of any project. He validated a lot of our concerns about the trim and paint work. However, he said that the flooring and tile installations were well done, though neither one was cleaned, and the tile wasn't completed. One thing that he mentioned that we weren't aware of was that the cherry cabinets will get darker over time, growing closer to the shade of stain on the back door probably within the next 10 years.

The big discussion was about the cabinet hardware. The architect said that he actually felt that the current installation of the hardware (not where he specified)looked good. He made it clear that he wasn't just saying that to alleviate a potential problem, and that the hardware layout that he specified for our job wasn't his "favorite" way, and he didn't use it on every job. As he put it, it was just different, and he thought either way looks good. He also said that we were definitely due a remedy if we didn't like the placement, and that the builder might suggest a few options. He suggested that if we were satisfied with the existing placement of the hardware that we use it to negotiate to get some other things done. Maybe a few things that we not in the original scope, but clearly of a lesser value than the door fronts. One thing he suggested was to have them build "collars" to fix the transition between the laundry room floor and the vent pipes; here there are currently fairly unfinished holes in the flooring.

He was going to put the punchlist on his letterhead and email out to the builder, and copy us, probably going out on Monday. He also mentioned giving the builder a call to go over it with them. So there doesn't seem to be a need to have a meeting to review it.

FRIDAY

The appliance guys finally showed up, and it's a good thing because I think the builder would have made good on his threat to drive to their shop and drag someone out here. They installed the microwave and adjusted the installation of the range. When I spoke with the builder at the end of the day he mentioned that he's going to have them come back out because he wasn't happy with the installation of the microwave; if he saw what we saw, it's because it's tipped forward. The range also needs to be moved a little, but they may have to make a countertop adjustment to give it room - it's just 1/8" or so too narrow.

They did some cleanup of the floors, tile, and laundry room vent pipes, and it's definitely looking better. They were also working on getting some of the remaining items, and working on the punchlist.

It seems like our on-site guy really does want to make it a nice job, and he's trying to address our issues. It's just that he didn't really notice the things that weren't right as they were happening, or until we said they needed to be fixed. But his heart is in the right place.

Not much new for pictures, but maybe an overall shot with the floors uncovered would show well...