Finally the drywall is done. After weeks and weeks of being told it was almost done it really is. It hasn't come without its problems but Im glad we are done and can now move on. Matt and I have learned that we should have listened to ourselves when we decided we wouldn't do business with friends but I will include the rest of the story at the end of the post....for now moving on. With the drywall wrapping up Matt was able to start the doors, casing, and window sills. The guy we had originally hired was out of town for 2 weeks when we were ready to go so Matt decided to step up and do it. It also allowed us to complete the entire house with the same amount of money we would have paid just to do the upstairs.
Basement family/movie room
movie room
Craft Room
Family Room
Gracie's Bedroom
Hallie's Bedroom
Basement Bath
Playroom
Master
Mastrer Bath
Emery's Room-I showed Matt a picture and this is what he delivered. I love it
Family Room
Kitchen/Dining
Stairs before board/batton
Laundry Room
Half Bath
They also were able to get the remainder of the driveway poured before they finished the drywall. I think we have decided to wait until spring to pour the circular driveway for so many reasons. When they formed it up its done crooked. Second now that we have decided to finish the basement we could save the money for now and just do it in the spring. Third it is now the end of November and we don't think we can get it fixed to our liking before we run out of good weather....basically it isn't very high priority.
The house is finally completely wrapped now if we could only convince JJ to get his guys up to finish the siding and flashing so we could wrap up the exterior. We have be blessed thus far to not have winter set in.
Stairs after board/batten...I really like this and the uniqueness it gives the stairs
Back to the drama which is drywall. To back up we received a bid from Trav months ago and do to that and the fact that Trav asked Matt for the job since they could really use the money we decided to use him. Matt and I had the conversation that we shouldn't do business with friends but thought we had good enough communication with him to make it work. He told us it would take 3 weeks which was a week longer than the other timelines but it also was going to save us $400 dollars to go with them so we stuck with it. Once things got started it was very apparent that it was going to take longer than 3 weeks. Aside from the weather getting cooler(do to being behind since framing took a couple extra weeks) they were only working in the evenings and Trav seemed to have family stuff part of every weekend. Needless to say it quickly became pretty frustrating. Matt talked to Trav and they started working on Sundays and hired someone to do the garage. But still the progress was slow. We added the basement knowing it would slow us down more but they thought only a week. Well by the time we could see the light at the end of the tunnel we were in week 7("double our timeline). The night before finishing the garage Trav asked Matt is they could get paid. Matt said sure and Matt asked about splitting it up but when it came down to the numbers it wasn't adding up. The number Trav wanted Matt to write the checks for was about 2000 dollars more than our bid. Matt talked to Trav and went over the bid. His response was that his number was an estimate.(Sadly if houses were build on estimates we would have a huge problem). He didn't add tax and it had taken them longer than anticipated. Matt expressed his concern to Trav and honestly we don't have money in the budget to do that. Trav was mad Matt was frustrated and we were stuck between a rock and a hard place. That night Matt came home and we talked about it, tried to see it from his point of view but ultimately it came down to what the bid said so that is what we paid them. Matt thought things were going to work out and be fine. Tuesday while Nic and I were at the house they came to finish the garage and acted fine. Wed morning Matt and I received a Facebook message stating that Trav had quit and felt like we had taken advantage of him and were dishonest with him. And that he would no longer be painting our house. To be honest we felt the same way. At this point feelings have been hurt and there was really no middle ground to meet at. He felt under paid and I felt like he should honor his bid. He had been telling us for weeks that they were almost done but yet took days and even weekends off to do other stuff. Matt and I were bugged since we felt like when you commit to a job you make sacrifices to get it done when you said you would before doing "family"stuff. I really think this job was just way to big for them and when it came down to it it took way more time than they had anticipated. Trav does amazing work but he is not a business person. Really in the end it may be a blessing in disguise it may have taken him months to paint the house. To make matter worse his wife has been posting passive aggressive messages on Facebook(don't you love the maturity). And now the one thing we didn't want to happen has happened, We have lost friends over this house. After going back to the house later in the week the garage looks thrown together and the work is definitely not up to anyones standard little lone Trav's but what's done is done and Matt and I will work thru getting it right since it wouldn't do us any good to try to get him to come fix it. I feel badly that things have ended this way but I can only control how I feel and my actions.
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