House Projects - Venting

I will just jump out and say it.  We are crazy.  I am fully convinced.  Today, Jan 22, I spent the day wondering if our house is really worth it.  Is the area really worth it?  Is the school really worth it?  Are we going to survive?  These were my thoughts throughout most of the day.  My sister stopped by and declared that Marcus and I have horrible luck.  Awesome!  Totally made me feel better;).  I still love her.

Today was just another day when multiple things didn't quite go as planned.  Much of it stems from the general contractor we hired.  Not a good contractor.  We finally fired him when I was up at night making lists of things I needed to make sure the contractor was taking care of.  Why pay someone when you are doing the job for them?  Since then we have had to re-do most everything he touched.  For documentation purposes here is the list:

*The plumbing.  It was done poorly.  (Just this morning we learned that a pipe was cut too short and because of that error it didn't stay attached so our downstairs bathtub - the only one functioning currently - has been draining into the dirt under our house.  We were very lucky to find out about it.)

*The electrical.  When we hired our own electrician he had to re-wire almost everything.  We have had to add voltage to our home and the contractor told us he was adding 50 but he was only adding 25.  A misunderstanding he claimed.

*The framing.  When we were ready to do more plumbing in a bathroom ceiling the contractor happened to stop in and let me know that "his guys" framed the ceiling in the wrong direction.  He was right.  

*Windows.  We had great wood window jams that were in awesome condition.  I came downstairs to find "his guys" had torn them out to put in the new windows.  What?  He said, "I ordered the windows to the outside measurement so they are too big and we had to take out the jams".  Cool.  More work for us later.  Thanks dude!

*Tile.  He tiled 1 bathroom floor and one shower.  They look awful.  The grout is running and cracking out already.  The tiles are uneven, some high, some low.  When I asked him about it he said, "I didn't do a very good job did I?"  

*Time.  We started the first week of October.  He said one month.  I planned for two but had three blocked out... just in case.  We are now on month four.  

*Dryer vent.  Installed poorly.  Re-installed poorly.  

*Kitchen cabinets.  We had a plan.  Contractor mis-calculated and had to frame a wall unexpectedly and it shorted us an entire section of cabinets.  (A big deal when you only have two 12 inch cabinets!)

So we started managing the construction ourselves at 2 1/2 months into the project.  We are still paying the price for such a lousy contractor but hopefully the problems he created will start to be behind us.  

This is what we have been up to:

Guest room downstairs.  Can you guess what this wall is displaying.  If you guessed termites you are correct.  The house had been treated but they missed this wall.  Another really great surprise.  This was about a three week delay.  New wall is in place and has sheet rock.

Guest Room again.  After termite discovery, we had to remove all wood paneling to make sure other areas were okay.  Notice the new ceiling insulation.  We also insulated the concrete wall so it won't be so chilly.

The lovely wood paneling.

Marcus at work.

Nice splice job done by previous home-owners to add an additional thermostat.  We took it out.

A really old sander that was left in the walls when the house was originally built.  A fun find.

Guest room with termite wall removed.

I will take more pictures in the daylight (we have no power down in that part of the house until we install new switches and lights).

Upstairs main bathroom.  A beauty!  You can't tell but the bathtub leans to one side when you sit in it.  

Behind the door is this cabinet.  Could be nice but the shelves are super short and can't be adjusted.

70 inch sink cabinet.  It is super short too.

And from the doorway.  The sheet is covering the wall we already took out between the master bathroom and the main bathroom.  During drilling on the downstairs bathroom, the toilet top fell off and shattered so it is missing.  

The master bathroom.  It was tiny.  It had a sink and toilet and the toilet hit the door when the door was open.  I missed getting a before picture.

The rest of the master bathroom.  

Demo continues.  Tile removed around tub so it can be leveled.

 Huge mirror taken down.

 Completely open between both bathrooms. 

 The main bathroom was huge.  It was a terrible use of space and a waste of space.  We are taking the one big bathroom and the teeny tiny master bathroom and making two regular sized full bathrooms out of them.  I was able to fit a bigger tub (and added jets:)) into the master bathroom.  They are also sheet rocked.  In the basement we are taking two bedrooms and making a small apartment to rent.  We also had to re-due the guest room because it shared plumbing that had to be replaced (which also lead to opening all the water lines for the house so we have all new plumbing now).  We are finally starting to close projects up instead of discover new problems... I hope.  Today we still had new problems.  When we finish this phase the bedrooms upstairs will be done, all the bathrooms will be new, the apartment will be done, and the guest room will be finished.  Then we will take a break.  I think by that time it will be time to work on the outside for the summer.