Six long weeks

The sun and blue sky finally showed itself around noon Saturday and got up to almost 60 degrees. The painter lady did finally paint the outside of our shop door. But, when she and her son put it back on the hinges, of course it wasn't fitting right and not adjusted right to fit inside the frame and shut correctly. Gah! So, that was a half hour or more of them trying to fix and figure out what happened. "The frame must've shifted"...don't think so. It took finisher whaling on a board up against the frame with a hammer for it to even shift a little bit (because the foam insulation is basically like glue). So, then today, she has to fix all that trim paint he took off from all the hammering.  Door still isn't in quite right, like it was before.....

The framing guy (contractor's son) and his wife stopped by Saturday, too. They had stayed overnight at a resort area and came through our way on their way home and he wanted to show her the house he built. She sure is a cute little thing. They are only in their mid 20's. He said he will be back in about a week, to do the staircase railing, so that was good to hear.

On Saturday Painter was up on her really tall ladder outside to get up to finish painting trim and caulking the dormers above the garage....So, now our gutters damaged from her ladder leaning on it. DH was fit to be tied when he realized this yesterday, while looking around at stuff.  Last Fall, when the lift truck was here and the framer was telling her to get that "up" stuff finished while it was still on site, she said she wasn't working more hours and would get to it later, in the spring.  At some point DH asked her how she was going to get up there and told her gutters would be going in and she's not leaning a ladder up against the gutters. This was mentioned again weekend before last. DH also asked her how she plans to get up above our front covered porch, where trim needs to be painted. She wants to lay boards on the roof shingles. DH said no way. It's still too cold out and they will break right off. Then she said she'll just use the scaffolding that is (still!) on our back patio (because she still hasn't brought the right color grout she needs for that final job) out front.

When they got here this morning, DH just matter of factly told them what is and what is not happening. They are not using that scaffolding on bumpy/muddy uneven ground. It's not our scaffolding (nor is it theirs, it belongs to the wife of the original local electrician we had for shop, who died of heart attack, she said we would use it as long as we needed it) and we are not going to have it bent and tweaked using it on uneven ground, let alone that is not safe. DH is trying to get a hold of someone in the area that has a bucket truck for tree trimming, to see about doing it that way.  Finish guy said, well I guess we'll need to get another lift truck out here. DH said WE are NOT paying for another one. It was already here and there was plenty of time to have used it to get that little bit of work done. DH said all in all, what needs to be still be done for the trim painting and caulking to do is probably 4 hours at the most.  This easily could have been done last Fall.

Finisher totally left all his excess grout to dry on all the tile. DH told him WE are NOT cleaning it. From what I gather (reading Bob Vila online) once it dries and leaves a haze it's not easy to get off.

DH told them the garage needs to get cleaned up now. It's still spread out with all her painting supplies and still some baseboard to go on and leftover trim stuff. It still looks like a bomb went off in there. DH told them the electricians are waiting to come back for their final visit so they can install the garage overhead lighting and they can't do it until the garage can be accessed and they can't finish getting paid until they can finish the job. Finisher had brought more baseboard last week, because enough wasn't ordered first time....apparently it still was not measured right and now he is saying he'll probably need a little more....which of course needs to be stained/sanded/lacquered (good grief!). Finisher says "well, I guess wife will have to finish the extra boards at our house". DH says, I guess so.

We have this flat shelf up in the loft sitting room that needs more sanding and lacquering, I guess. She wanted to do that lacquering now, inside. DH told her absolutely not. She is not spraying lacquer all over, inside our almost finished house, where it will float through the air and could land on our cabinets. I'm thinking right now to myself....can't she just sand it and lacquer it with a brush or roller or even a rag??

DH told him he's tired of brand new stuff getting ruined because their attitude is "we'll fix it... later". DH said we are way past "later" now. She and her son were in the master bath (doing nothing) while DH and finisher were working on tiling. Their son, with his filthy, dirty t-shirt on, leans up against the corner of one of the bathroom cabinets and scratches his back. Sure, just rub the finish off of my brand new cabinets!

She harped and harped about getting this front door done....it's been 2 weeks now. The side windows and top window (which has been here since last Wednesday morning) are still not in. They have cardboard taped up over the windows. There was apparently some wind yesterday (and a bit of rain). DH went out before bed to check on everything and realized the wind blew off the cardboard on the front door....what if we hadn't been living here? It would have just gotten left like that, for rain, weather to blow inside the house.

She wants to wait to do all the little spots that need paint touch up AFTER the carpet is in. Nope. There's no reason she can't do the few areas that need it right now, when she sits for hours saying she doesn't have any more to do that day. She is not coming back in after carpet is down. Just leave the paint and we'll do it ourselves...before the carpet is down. It will probably literally take 15 minutes or less.

As of tomorrow she will have been here 6 weeks now.......ENOUGH! We are beyond exhausted.  When I was visiting my old neighbor friend last week and whining about all this she said "is that the lady that was there that time I went out there and she acted like she owned the place?!" Yep, that's her. What she all has left to do is honestly probably not more than a days worth of work.