Contractor in Race With the Stork
Remodeling is a lot like being in labor. You know it’s what you want, and you got there by your own efforts. But at times you still feel rather helplessly swept along in something you can’t control.
I offer this analogy for two reasons.
First, our architect read an earlier installment of Remodeler’s Diary and remarked to my husband: “Eileen sounds as if she feels like a passive victim, not an active participant in this.” Well, at times, yes.
Secondly, the impetus for our remodeling in the first place--anticipation of possible family expansion--has become more urgent since we embarked on this project more than a year ago. Baby No. 2 is due May 28.
“Substantial completion” of our home addition is due June 1.
It’s turned into a race. And I don’t think we are going to win.
Not that things aren’t moving along; they started out impressively. In the first month of construction, the foundations, under-house plumbing and rough floors were completed, and the old roof and many walls vanished. The next month saw the steady building up of our expanded living room and new bedroom, bathroom, closet, hallway and laundry room.
Where once stood a small 2BR/1ba house, a 3BR/2ba was taking shape.
And we had already written more than $50,000 in checks. More on that later.
Of course, our recently remodeled kitchen is getting chipped, scratched and otherwise battered in the process. With that part we are not just jazzed.
“If they break something,” said my ever-optimistic husband, “they fix it.”
One Saturday in the middle of the second month, we went over to inspect the house. It was raining, and we wanted to be sure the kitchen had some protection. The house had no roof, no heat, no electricity, and few walls.
That’s when we found the construction worker sleeping in our bathroom. Homelessness in our own home.
We didn’t know whether to be glad there was someone around to keep an eye on the property, or to worry about our lack of liability insurance.
We didn’t know whether to call the contractor and complain, or to bring the guy a CARE package and a home-cooked meal.
We didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry.
We shook hands with him, told him our names and left him alone.
“At least he’s got a roof over his head,” my husband said later.
“There is no roof,” I reminded him.
“Well, he’s got a ceiling. Until it gets soaked and collapses from the rain.”
What was his next-best option? we wondered. Under the freeway at Pico and Sawtelle?
I love L.A.
The third month brought a lull.
The electrician disappeared for two weeks in mid-job, saying he 1) needed to finish another job, and 2) came down with the flu. The contractor fired his assistant, apparently because jobs were becoming disorganized and falling behind schedule.
The windows didn’t show up from Minnesota, so the house couldn’t be wrapped with lath and waterproof paper, and the framer didn’t see any urgency in reframing the window openings that he had put in the wrong place.
The city inspector showed up to look at the rough wiring and plumbing, insisted we had no permits (we did), and left; it took five days to get him back, then another two weeks to make and get approval for the small changes he ordered.
Day after day, for five weeks, we would find the security gate locked and no sign of activity. Which didn’t stop the contractor from billing us for more than $15,000. We wondered what it would have cost if things had gotten done?
OK, the roof was put on. And the fireplace arrived and was installed--within the ill-fitting framing that the architect insists was not built according to plan. The windows arrived at last and were put in--in almost the same places that the drawings called for. It added up to about five days of work over five weeks’ time.
In the fourth month--about the time tactful acquaintances were beginning to eye my belly and offer remarks like “Any day now, huh?”--the pace picked up a bit. The siding went up, the insulation went in, and most of the framing details were taken care of. (A new framing sub appeared; our contractor had paid the first one in full before the job was done and couldn’t seem to get him back to finish it.)
A business note: Our contractor bills us every two weeks or so for the percentage of work completed, with the architect reviewing all bills. With each payment request, we get lien releases so the subs can’t make a claim on our house if they don’t get paid. We have plenty to worry about without that, thank you.
This project is taking its emotional toll on us.
For me, the most wrenching part is the sense of physical violation that comes with seeing strangers tear my house apart and leave my yard strewn with beer cans, cigarette butts and Taco Bell wrappers. I lose sleep over that.
To my husband has fallen the job of writing a slew of five-figure checks. This is heady stuff, not a habit to which he is accustomed. About once a week, he adds up what we have spent, what expenses we have ahead of us, and how much money we have left. He, too, is having many wakeful nights.
Our son copes with the stress in his own 2-year-old way. He sometimes lays newspapers over his toy Main Street, pounds on the pile with his little fist, and declares: “I’m a ‘struction worker, and I’m fixing our broken house. Bang, bang, bang!”
You take control where you can.
Recently, when he heard us on the phone to the contractor, he insisted on talking to him too. “Hans,” he said, “you gotta tell the ‘struction workers to wake up and fix our house!”
Our big furry dog seems to have adjusted better than the rest of us to living in a cramped apartment with no yard of her own. She quickly figured out that being left indoors all day meant she could nap on the couch or the bed with impunity.
We have moments of soaring bliss, too.
Now that the house has walls, windows and a roof, we look around at what will be our home and say, “Ahhhh.” We give the neighbors tours and quietly enjoy the gawking of passers-by.
I especially liked it when the heating ducts went in. Something about seeing those big vents in every room gave me a very warm feeling inside. This will truly be a house I can live in one day.
Meanwhile, my husband and I are negotiating over color schemes and baby names. And urging along our contractor much as a nurse once urged us: Take a deep breath and . . . push, push, push.
Heyes is a Times copy editor.
READERS WELCOME TO SHARE THEIR REMODELING TALES
Readers wishing to share their remodeling experiences should send queries or manuscripts to Real Estate Editor, Los Angeles Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles 90053.
BACKGROUND During the last few months, Eileen Heyes has chronicled her family’s home remodeling, which began more than a year ago in anticipation of a family expansion. Now the race is on between arrival of Baby No. 2 and “substantial completion” of the project.
