The Most Disastrous Remodel

[Al Agnew]

There were just a few things wrong with our Montana house. The so-called master bath was the size of a closet. The kitchen had an unfortunate peninsula that stuck out right across from the fridge, so that when you opened the fridge door nobody could walk past you. The living room, with a gorgeous view of the river and mountains, was pretty much unusable as a living space.

So we planned and we planned, and eventually ended up with plans to remodel all but one bedroom of the house, changing a small bedroom and hallway to a master bath and walk-in closet, opening up the tiny dining area to become part of the kitchen, changing a tiny office space into a large entryway...it all looked really good on paper. Mary's brother, who has been a building contractor for many years, looked over all the plans and the house, assuring us it was all feasible and that he could bring a few of his workers out and do the whole thing in about two weeks, as long as we ordered all the doors, windows, cabinetry, etc. well ahead of time so that it would all be there when he arrived. The problem was, he had to schedule it around all his other work, and wouldn't be able to give us more than a couple months' notice. But he and his wife came out and made some final plans early in the spring, left us a list of all the things to order ahead of time, and told us he would be out sometime in late June.

But...earlier, not figuring he would get to it until mid to late July, we'd scheduled some other things. Mary scheduled a class on Shamanic Healing at the house in mid-July, and I scheduled a one man art show at the gallery in Jackson WY that handles my work for late July. And I also had scheduled the Ozark Riversmallies rodeo for mid-June, and suddenly Jeff was telling us he was going to start work the week of the rodeo.

Well, it became one heck of a hectic summer, to say the least. But back in early May when we finalized the ordering of everything, we thought it was all well in hand.

First problem. The lady at the locally owned building supplies business who was supposed to get our doors ordered kept procrastinating until, when Jeff arrived, two doors were not there, and wouldn't be there for a couple weeks or more--and remember, Jeff had a two week window to get things done. More about the doors later.

Second problem. The kitchen cabinetry arrived mostly on schedule, except that two large floor to ceiling cabinets were backordered and not going to be there for weeks. Okay...they weren't attached to the other cabinets, so we could wait. The cabinet installer came and put in the other cabinets, but he was going by the plans given him by the lady at the same locally owned building supplies place, which were supposed to be the plans we finalized. But they weren't the same plans; she'd arbitrarily changed the cooktop area. He put it in per the plans, and suddenly our bar space where we'd planned to sit four stools had shrunk considerably.

And...after it was already installed, we realized that the floor to ceiling cabinet in which the oven and microwave were supposed to fit was the wrong configuration. The hole for the oven was the same size as that for the microwave, but the oven, of course, was far larger. In this case, it was the cabinet company that had made the mistake. it would take a month at least for the replacement to come in.

And then the tall linen cabinet for the bathroom came in. We had exactly 30 inches of wall space between the new door leading off the bathroom and the washer/dryer in which to fit a 30 inch cabinet, but the cabinet was 36 inches. This was the building supply store lady's fault; somehow she'd changed 30 inches to 36 on the order. It would take a month to get in a replacement, of course. She asked us if we could possibly fit the 36 inch cabinet, even though she'd personally come to the house to measure and knew the space was tight.

Meanwhile, we'd dealt with a granite and tile business for the granite countertops and the tile shower and bath area. They came on schedule to install the shower and tub area, but the two workers spent more time taking long lunch breaks and coming back smelling of booze than working. They got the shower in, though, and it looked good, but when they started on the tub area using the same ceramic tile, they realized they didn't have enough to finish it. The sales guy at the business had measured wrong. No problem...it was a tile they commonly stocked and their warehouse should have plenty. Except, the warehouse was empty. A hospital in Seattle had ordered all that particular tile in existence to do thousands of square feet. And, we learned at that point, the tile came from Italy and would take six weeks to get here.

But the granite was supposed to be done and would be installed the next day, except it wasn't. It still wasn't done two weeks later, and we were heartily fed up and cancelled the order after being lied to several times about the saw being broke, etc., when we found out that they had bumped our little job in favor of a much bigger job at a rich resort area nearby. The one good thing about that deal was that the delay in getting the countertops done allowed us to get the cabinet guy back in to do the cooktop area the way it was supposed to be.

Meanwhile, Jeff and the guys were doing everything they could, but it rained almost every day of their two week window. They'd just get all the equipment set up out in the driveway when another shower would come and they'd have to rush to get everything under cover. In the end, the two weeks disappeared and they weren't finished, and we'd have to hire some local people to finish things like electric outlets for the appliances, trim, and some of the painting.

Mary's class went off without a hitch, in a half finished house with the old electric stove on a temporary hook-up out in the garage, dishes being done in a big sink in the garage, and people staying in the basement while Mary and I lived in the old log cabin that I use for my studio. I was frantically painting to have enough work done for the one man show. Mary was running to Bozeman every day to pick up stuff that should have been in long before.

We lined up a few local contractors, but it was difficult. In Montana, summer is the busy time for building contractors since it's a lot harder to work in the long winter, and most everybody was booked solid. We finally found a great plumber and a good ol' boy who could finish the doors and trim and painting. And as July would down, the stuff that was delayed began to trickle in. We still didn't have a working cooktop, the oven was still sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor waiting for the replacement cabinet to come in, let alone Mary's fancy new warming drawer. The dishwasher was finally hooked up to the water, but not to the electric, and we were running it off an extension cord. The water line on the fridge got hooked up and it was shoved back into its cabinet...only to realize, at that point, another problem with the cabinetry. The cabinet was countertop depth, not fridge depth, and the ugly black sides of the fridge showed.

And then the two tall kitchen cabinets came in, identical in size--or at least they were supposed to be, except as soon as they unloaded the boxes it was obvious that one was far smaller than the other. They had the right name, and the right model number, on both boxes, but one box was somebody else's cabinet, not even the same color or finish as ours. The cabinet company did a cursory search, but had no idea where our cabinet ended up or whose cabinet we got, but they just told us to keep it or throw it away. We put it in the basement as a linen cabinet for the basement bathroom! But of course, it would be another three weeks to make another cabinet like we were supposed to have.

Oh, and remember those doors that were delayed? One was a special order exterior door. We'd ordered a 6'6" door rather than the normal 6' 8", because we were putting it where a window had been, and by making it two inches shorter, we wouldn't have to alter the header above the window. Simple. The door came in, and of course by then Jeff and guys were long gone, so we had a local friend who does a lot of building to come one evening and put it in. And that's when we discovered it was a 6' 10" door, two inches taller instead of shorter, even though the invoice even said 6'6"! So, since we were getting close to time to come back to Missouri and we had a piece of plywood where an exterior door was supposed to be, we had to tear out the header and redo it and put in the door, being unable to wait another month to get in the right door.

An electrician worked two full days on connections and outlets, discovering along the way that the dedicated wiring we had for the new dishwasher went to a junction box hidden in the finished wall...and nowhere else.

The replacement tall kitchen cabinet and linen closet cabinet came in the other day, and today was the only day the cabinet installer could come...oh, yeah, I forgot to mention that one whole set of wall cabinets that we had ordered weren't really ordered, and after the others were put in, they were finally ordered, and came in a couple days ago. So the cabinet guy had plenty to do today, but when he dug out the crown molding to install in the cabinets that WERE correct, it was instead this huge cove molding that looked like a mushroom on top of the cabinets.

So...we're heading back to Missouri on Monday. The new bedroom is finished except for a wall bracket for the TV. The new bathroom is finished except for tiling around the tub and the trim. The other bedroom, which was only supposed to get a new door, is finished except for repainting one wall that got dinged up and putting up trim around the door. The living room is finished, except that the reclaimed barnwood we used for flooring has warped in places and will need work. The dining room is finished except one electrical outlet doesn't work. (Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention that the dining room was MY biggest mistake. I measured wrong when deciding where to put the chandelier over the dining area, and it had to be moved. I finished repairing the hole in the ceiling where it was before and repainting today.) As for the kitchen...the fridge cabinet still has to be redone, the oven cabinet still hasn't come in, the crown molding still has to come in and be installed, the gas cooktop is still not hooked up. (which reminds me of another near disaster; we had to install a propane tank outside and a line to the house. We did the right thing and had a "dig-right" guy come out and locate all hidden cables the propane installer might cut through when trenching for the line. Except he somehow missed the electric cable running from the house to the cabin, and of course the propane guy trenched right through it, fortunately only cutting the conduit it was in and not the cable itself! It's pretty bad when your mind actually blanks out some of these things.) And there is a big hole in a closet wall where the electricity still needs to be redone for the dishwasher. I finished the trim in the entryway today, but again, that reminds me of another bad happening...we decided to install in-wall electric heaters instead of the baseboard heaters we had before, and when it came time to install the heater in the entryway, the metal box was installed, but the actual heater had somehow disappeared. The only thing we could figure was that somebody had thrown away the box it came in with the heater still in it.

We have installers and the electrician scheduled for the week in September when we get back out here. By then everything should be in and ready to install...but I'm not holding my breath. Maybe by this time next year we'll be finished.

[Quillback]

This sounds like a Chevy Chase movie - "Montana Vacation".

[Mitch f]

It's so very difficult to make others as concerned about the details as you are. People do things so half arsed nowadays.

[Old plug]

I sympathize with you Al. I have never ever heard of a building supply that bad in my life.

[Gavin]

Gotta love remodel projects;)!

[Bird Watcher]

I'll pray for you Al. I can't even imagine how horrible it must be to live through this remodel of your vacation home out west.

#whitepeopleproblems

[bfishn]

This sounds like a Chevy Chase movie - "Montana Vacation".

...or an ill-planned episode of "Home Improvement"... on peyote...