Developments

There have been a few....minor ones, and one relatively major one. The minor ones involve making phone calls, not getting them returned, and then making some more until we get response.

For instance, Liane will call the Project Manager several times with no response. Then I call, and he'll answer. Probably doesn't recognize my work number. Or maybe he is genuine when he says that I happened to call at a good time. I've told him twice now to let her know what is happening proactively. "Even if you don't know anything, call to tell her you don't know anything." He says okay, but doesn't do it.

Occasionally she'll call the owner and that usually gets a response fairly quickly...from the Project Manager. It's weird. He generally sounds great, and responsive on the phone, but....well....we are where we are so obviously he's not getting the job done (though he really is better than most of the others we've dealt with).

The relatively major development can't be discussed here yet. I don't really know who all is reading this, so there are some things I have to keep quiet about. But it will eventually come out. No worries. Though this project is nearly complete the entertainment is not over, I promise.

Mistakes

A significant typo in the previous post has been corrected. No change to status otherwise.

I Swear I Am Not Making This Stuff Up

So...

We've pretty much given up on our (second) bathroom tile guy. He either can't or won't get it the way we want it. I'm sure he's extremely frustrated, but so are we. We've been talking to the Project Manager for a while about bringing in a third guy, Angelo. He's been very busy and hasn't been able to get to it yet. Well, last weekend he died. I am not kidding.

Back to the drawing board... The Project Manager is trying to find someone to take over the job and finish it.

Snowed Today

After a couple of weeks of temperatures in the high 40s and 50s we got a surprise snow this morning. Weirdest winter weather I can remember here.

The lake has frozen and thawed half a dozen times since the beginning of December.

What's Happening? Nothing.

The project manager's mother died a little over a week ago. We've been at a standstill. Hope we hear from him soon...

Inspection

So Liane gets a call today from the inspector's office. They ask, "Is your project completed?" Their tone clearly indicates they aren't understanding why they haven't been called in to sign off on it.

To make a long story boring...uh....short...they weren't concerned with the few remaining details so they came out and did the inspection. Aside from finding a few electrical outlets on the porch that don't work it's all good.

Wish we could use it...

Tough, but Not Indestructible

I don't believe I've written about the windows used on our screened porch. They are a removable vinyl window system. What's weird is that they stretch. You can stick your finger into one, stretch it out, and upon release they will return to their shape in a few minutes, with no trace of what you had done.

We've been pretty impressed.

Unfortunately we've also found the limits of them because the contractors didn't put a door stop in on the porch. Because the door doesn't always catch properly yet it has been known to swing open. It finally hit the light fixture hard enough to puncture the screen, and the vinyl behind it.

Sigh...

New Old Table

In an effort to keep something moving forward we recently refinished and repainted an old table that we'll use on the porch. Stupid me. I didn't take any "before" pics.

An Offer...(to take control)

Finally made contact with the project manager again. He says he's going to come Monday and fix it himself. Wow. Our plan is to offer for him to come Saturday. We can be there and we will help him, and in the process personally approve and sign off on the position of each tile. It will be interesting to see if he takes us up on it. I think we could be quite helpful. I'll bet he thinks we could be quite annoying.

Speechless

So we had them redo parts of the tile again, because it just wasn't good enough. This was the result. Notice anything weird?

The obvious thing is that the spacing really didn't get any better. The other obvious thing (though not so much in a photo) is the grout color in the new places is different. When I first saw it I thought it was because it was still wet, but no...it's just wrong. What the HELL? COME ON!!