I got a bee in my bonnet a while back that we were gonna get new floors, hardwood or bust. I hated the carpeting in our house for three reasons: it was old, it was orange, and it was stained. Basically, we had yucky carpeting.
I interviewed three floor guys, decided on one. Darin and I went to pick out the kind of floor we wanted, and for Darin it was no contest: he wanted maple. Which, hilariously, was the same kind of floor we had in our house in Sherman Oaks. Maple was great in that house because it’s a light wood and the “theme” of that house was Scandinavian everything. Maple is an excellent choice for this house, because there isn’t near enough light, and a light-wood floor really brightens the place up.
We had a vacation planned for the first two weeks of July, so I asked the floor guy, Can you do it then? Sure, he said. Then he wanted to let the floors “sit” for three or four weeks before he sanded and sealed. In the meantime, we could get the walls painted (since they really needed it and I hated the color that was on most of the walls, peach — combined with the orange carpeting I had a orange-y color headache every day).
Painting. Right. Let me get right on that.
Of course I didn’t get right on that until two weeks ago. Meanwhile, the majority of our small items in the house (all the books on the bookshelves downstairs, all the kids’ toys, piles of papers that kept building up in the kitchen with no help from us) were boxed up and stored in the three bedrooms upstairs. Not enough room to swing a cat in the two bedrooms that are being used, and the unused bedroom became a storage room, filled to the ceiling. And the floors are still unfinished maple, and I periodically pick up a splinter.
I talked to four painting guys. The first one, I realize now, was a bozo — he walked around the house, eyeballed it, then gave me a quote: $4000. The second one was more professional and seemed like a nice guy, but he didn’t have a licensing number and, while I realize a contractor’s license isn’t the be-all and end-all, I wasn’t comfortable. His quote: $6000. The next guy came recommended by the guy who’s doing our floors, seemed very professional, and wrote down every single thing, and he gave me a quote of $9500.
I said to Darin, “I’m kind of frightened what the next guy might ask for.”
I picked another name out of the phone book — based in my town, had one of those diamond thingees on his page. He came through, gave me references, wrote everything down, and gave me his quote: 1 week and $5000.
Woot.
I called him yesterday, said I wanted to hire him, asked, “When can we begin?”
“We’ll be there at 8am,” he said.
“Tomorrow?”
Yup. They were here by 8:30 this morning, and approximately 50 guys (okay, not really) covered my floors with brown paper and the rest of the house with plastic. Half the guys sanded down doors and window frames, while the other half painted all the ceilings. All the ceilings: done. They estimate they should be done with everything by Friday of next week. If they bring 50 guys every day, I’m thinking Tuesday at the outside.
Of course, the house will be set up for painters over the weekend. Little by little things will get done around here.
Anyhow, so this is what it looks like now. I’m hoping to have an “after” pic pretty soon.
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Of course, the first thing we noticed when we had the floors put in is that the maple doesn’t match with the cabinets in the kitchen. (Oak? Something dark and stained out of the early 80s, when this house was “remodeled” — in fact, what the then-owners did was tear down everything but the front steps and build a totally new house, which led to a town ordinance that when you remodel, you must keep two walls and the original foundation!) So we started investigating refacing the cabinets, and then how much new cabinets would cost, and then if you’re going to get new cabinets you might as well just remodel the kitchen, which we’ve wanted to do anyhow…
I justify even thinking about it with, “But I actually cook! I’ll use it!”
Sigh. The Money Pit begins.
(If you know of any kitchen — and, er, while I’m at it, bath too — remodellers in the Silicon Valley that you can recommend, let me know!)
Great scott – how big is your house? For five grand I bet I could paint my house, the house across the street, and the one next to that…
Welcome to the Bay Area — where everything costs 150% of what it does in LA. (That was the first thing I noticed after we moved back.) Evidently it’s not as bad as during the Boom, when you basically couldn’t get a plumber.
I remember talking to Toni back when Darin and I were looking for a house and considering buying a tear-down to completely redo a place, and I figured it would be cheaper to fly one of Toni’s construction crews up from LA, put them up for a couple of months, and have them do the job, than to hire locals.
Well, the fact that we just found out that we no longer have any work just might make that real affordable. (grin) We’re finishing up the work we were doing, but our two biggest clients were based in New Orleans. They cover huge regions, and they’re moving their offices to Baton Rouge, but it’s going to be a while before they’re back to work for real. We’re hoping to get some of the FEMA work that’s going to happen, but we tried to find the FEMA office today, and no one knows where it went. It apparently was moved when no one was looking last week, and they didn’t even tell one of the FEMA people, because he set up a press conference and then couldn’t find the office address to give out to the press. Much less all of the contractors who were milling around outside of the former office space. gah.
We’ll be fine — there’s lot of work here. I just hate having to transition into something that’s going to change everything so radically when I’m already running behind for that deadline. grrr.
Hey, you wanna get a CA contractor’s license, I have a kitchen for you to mess with.
Can FEMA be stopped before they kill again? Grrrr.