The Home Improvement Saga

Hello everyone! It's been quite awhile since I've updated our blog. Where to begin... Well, we've been MIA for some time working on home improvement projects. As you well know if you're a home owner, one small project can quickly turn into quite the ordeal. Here's our story...

Back in January, we decided to get new carpet for the upstairs and main floor. I was getting sick of trying to decorate around our blue and green carpet. So we went to work comparing various places looking for the best deal. Meanwhile, I started thinking that most of the rooms we were going to carpet were also in need of a new paint job. Unfortunately for me, 3 of the rooms were wall papered. Just an FYI - wall paper is a pain to take down! It took weeks, but all the painting was finally done - 5 rooms in total.

While the painting was in process, we started thinking about how nice it would be to move the washer and dryer out of the mudroom. Our mudroom was really cramped - the washer and dryer basically filled the entire room and we really wanted to use that space differently. Not to mention that the "mud" room is of course the dirtiest room in the house. We threw around some ideas and thought the best solution would be to move it upstairs. We would cut our master bedroom closet in half and create 2 closets - one for the laundry room and one for our clothes. This project was of course more than we could handle ourselves, so again we went to work looking for a contractor. We got a couple names and decided to use the one that was the "better deal".

The laundry room project was going pretty well after the first week. We were assured that the project was on track and would even come in under budget. Our contractor then asked us what kind of closet doors we wanted. We thought a while on this. We wanted them to match our current doors, but our current doors were the typical hollow panel door and we really liked the 6 panel solid doors. We also wanted to change our closet doors in the guest room from by-fold doors to by-pass doors. We decided to just replace all the upstairs doors as part of the project so all they would all match.

The hole that was cut in the hallway for the new closet door.

Work being done inside the closet

Shortly after we decided to do the door project, things started going downhill. We weren't seeing much progress. The contractor was soon over budget, but things still weren't done. The electrician had cut a small hole in our bathroom wall by mistake. Not sure how that could have happened. The linoleum had been laid slightly crooked. The hot/cold water shutoffs and the drain hose had been placed in a terrible spot that interfered with the little storage space that we had. The mud and tape job that was done was a joke. The walls were uneven - an amateur could have done better.

By then our contractor was on a tight deadline as he was leaving for vacation by the end of the week. So I spent hours sanding and spackeling the walls so that I could paint them. One week day night I stayed up until 3:00 am and then woke up at 6:00 am to finish painting since the plumber and contractor were going to be moving the washer and dryer into the closet that day.

So now our contractor was on vacation. At least we had a working washer and dryer! The laundry closet was pretty much complete (except for the woodwork - the door, baseboard, and trim) and significantly over budget.

The finished laundry closet

It wasn't long after our contractor got back from vacation that he notified us that he was changing careers. But he assured us that he would be able finish our job. He took the measurements and sent them in to the door supplier who was going to stain the doors to match our existing trim. The door supplier sent us a form to confirm the door sizes and stain color. We remeasured the doors and noticed that the closet door in a spare bedroom didn't seem right - he had put down doors that were 2 inches bigger than we needed. So we changed the order and sent it in. The next day we got a call from our contractor. He had received a call that we had changed the order and the door supplier wanted to confirm with him before placing the order. He explained to us that we did indeed need the wider doors. So we placed the order (with the wider doors).

Before he started installing them, he told us that his original bid was probably too low (he had been working at another customer's house installing doors and it was taking much longer than he had originally anticipated). So he almost doubled his original estimate.

The doors finally arrive and he started installing them. When I got home after his first day of working on the doors, I was actually scared to go upstairs and see what had been done. As I made my way upstairs, the first door I see is the bathroom door. Wow, it looks good. I open and close it, and it works like a charm. Yeah!! Something is finally going right. I go to the next door (the master bathroom). This door is a pocket door and over years of the house settling, the old door hadn't closed properly. So I was excited to have a new door that was hung straight. Oh no... He had put up the new door, but it still didn't hang straight! Great...

On to the next door. I then walked into the spare bedroom. He had hung the new closet doors. I can only imagine the expression on my face. (Just a reminder, these are the doors that we had changed the order because we thought he was ordering doors that were too wide.) The doors were by-pass doors, so one door should slightly overlap the other door. We had ordered 6 panel doors and they overlapped more than 5 inches. They looked awful!!

He was supposed to be done in 3 days and after 1 day, only 1 door out of 10 were installed to our standards. The contractor was coming out again the next day to continue working and we were going to have a chat with him then. When we meet with him, the first thing he did was explain the reason it was taking him longer than expected. Our house had settled over the years, so the doors were no longer properly aligned. So we now understood some of the problems he was encountering, but we were wondering just how he was going to fix the issues with the doors. I would think that he would have encountered this type of problem before.

When he showed us the pocket door, I pointed out that it was not closing properly. He said he wasn't sure how to fix the issue without having access to the frame behind the wall. But cutting a hole in my wall was the last thing that I was going to let him to. I actually had to be the one to suggest things that he could do to fix the problem. What do I know about carpentry?? I guess more than I thought because he was eventually able to get the door to close properly.

So then we moved on to the spare bedroom where he had ordered doors that were obviously the wrong size. We didn't know what he was going to say. Would we need to buy new closet doors? We sure hoped not. He took one look at them and said "They look gross." He agreed that they were the wrong size and that he would order us new doors since it was his fault.

He spent the rest of the week installing the remaining doors - although way over budget. But he did do a very good job on the rest of the doors. Unfortunately for us, the door debacle doesn't end there. We're actually not sure when it will end as we haven't gotten the closet doors that he had to re-order yet. So the door drama continues...we'll keep you posted.

The new door/carpet/paint in the spare bedroom

But now its back to the carpet (we just don't have much luck!) With all the doors installed (with the exception of the closet doors), we ordered our carpet and setup an installation date. We both took the day off to be home when the carpet was installed. He was supposed to arrive "before noon". By 1:30 we started wondering and finally gave them a call. They were on their way. At 2:00 they finally arrived.

They brought in the carpet and realized that they didn't have all of it. The carpet for the den had been left at the store. So we wouldn't be getting our den carpeted that day. By 8:00 pm, we were starting to wonder if they were going to be able to get the project done that day. Around 9:30 they finally finished. He walked us around to the rooms so that we could inspect them before signing off on the job. But he skipped the 2 spare bedrooms upstairs. Everything looked good (or so we thought), so we paid him for his work and he was going to be back in 2 days to carpet the den.

New master bedroom door/carpet/paint

After he left, I started vacuuming all the new carpet. The first thing we noticed was the nails from the tack board sticking through the carpet. I'm not sure if this has anything to do with how he laid the carpet, but it was sure annoying. So Shane spent some time pushing the nails down. The next thing that I noticed was our stairs. He was supposed to screw down some of the squeaky stairs. But I don't think he even tried. I couldn't see any improvement at all. Then I walked into the guest room and noticed he forgot to cut a hole in the carpet for one of the floor vents. Oh well, at least he's coming back in 2 days. Then I'm vacuuming the spare bedroom and the carpet in one corner pulls right up! This is not good!!

Guest bedroom with new paint/carpet

2 days later he calls. He wasn't going to be able to get to our place that day. We'd need to reschedule for next week. So the day of the installation rolls around yet again. And he calls us...to tell us that he had accidentally taken our carpet out at his last job and before he realized the error, he had cut it to fit their room. So now he needs to re-order and pay for all new carpet! A week later he finally gets the den carpet installed. Alas, this saga is not yet over either. He cut the vent and "fixed" the corner where the carpet was pulling up. But that same night, the same corner pulled right up yet again. He's supposed to be coming out this week to fix it yet again. Hopefully this time for good!!

Den before...

Den after...

Family room before...

And after...