Day 3 cont.

After a hollow victory over the door, I began clearing the room.

The first thing I tackled was a large metal file cabinet full of papers. Mom's job was to sort through all of the paperwork to determine what got tossed and what got kept. So I just hauled everything in the file cabinet to her area and tossed the metal shell into the trash pile.

The rest of the stuff in the room was art stuff. Lots of picture frames which I kept. Some things I tossed.

Then it was the closets. It seems that every room in this house has tons of closet space. These closets seemed to contain a snapshot of Dad's life.

I found old yearbooks, either college or high school, that I kept.

Dad had varying interests throughout the year. He dabbled in yoga, played the drums, and was interested in various odd religions. I found a lot of old drummer magazines and I found an old drum pad and drumsticks (which I remember him having). I found a lot of literature from some religion I've never heard of. I'm guessing it was more cult than religion. I probably should have kept this just to see what it was all about. And I found quite a few cat fancy magazines.

Sandwiched in between the drummer and the cat fancy magazines was some of dad's "porn". It was actually a lot of nudist magazines from the 60s and 70s. It was pretty hilarious - people doing random stuff like playing volleyball or having a picnic - only naked. I tossed all of this but I was tempted to keep it.

Dad kept a diary for many many years. I've never known really what he wrote about. I do know he logged the high and low temperature every day. He never ever missed the local news to get this info. Other than that I have no clue what is in them. I saved these and took them to him.

I found several other boxes of old pictures and random papers that I kept as well.

I got this room cleared out about lunchtime.

Met my old girlfriend for lunch. She's sort of a female version of my Dad. Some here will know of the great mattress saga. It was quite a story.

Drew just sent me his bid. It is fairly detailed.

$117,768.

I'm a little concerned about several things.

1) I think his material budget is low and this total price will definitely go up.
2) His payment schedule is really bad. I'm in for a vast majority of the total cost way before he finishes.
3) His communication sucks. I can never get hold of him. He emails me in the morning but after that he's unreachable.

We are going to meet today at noon.

I guess I'm a little confused about his payment schedule. It appears as if he's including draws for materials. I thought I'd be buying everything but I guess I'm just ordering. The draw schedule makes more sense now, but I'll need details when I talk to him.

Obviously I am a fool and embarrassed.

I love the six significant digits bid.

I met Drew for lunch. We talked about my concerns and he addressed them but they are still concerns.

I think he's so busy that he won't be really responsive. I asked if he had a second in command or someone I could call and he said he'd rather deal with anything himself. That's fine but I still think this will be a problem.

We walked through the material budget and I think we are OK. I think I'll save on some big ticket items but go over on some of the smaller stuff. I'm not too concerned about this.

His draw schedule bothers me.

11 grand up front. I'm fine with this. He has to do detailed design and demo before he can finalize the design. 47 grand when we order materials. I'm ok with this too. 47 grand upon cabinet delivery. I'm not ok with this. There isn't any other condition. He conceivably doesn't have to have anything done at this point and I'm in for 90% of the total cost. 8 grand upon ordering countertops. I'm ok with this. But that leaves only 3500 upon completion of the entire project. This troubles me.

On the flip side, he's got a stellar reputation. He came highly recommended by the realtor association. I haven't found a complaint one about him.

I'm gonna think about it some. I'm hoping John comes in with a bid soon.

Day 3 cont.

On the home stretch.

Mom had her maid (Margarita) show up today to help out. Mom originally wanted her to do a lot of cleaning and other prep work. Mom even wanted to wax and buff the floors. I convinced mom that no amount of cosmetics would change the price. This is an as is sale (more on this later).

The hall closets had various things in them. One was full of linens. I'd sort of convinced mom to toss stuff like this but she wanted to give anything usable to Margarita which was fine.

There were some other items, old vacuum cleaner and some various household items that Margarita took.

There were some coats hanging in one closet. One was a hideous fur coat from some other decade/century. I'm positive that it would have been considered hideous in any time period. Given what happened later I wish I had snapped a picture of this because of it's hideousness. But the other coats I recognized as coats Dad wore occasionally so I put those aside to take to Dad later (along with his diaries and other personal items). So, I walk in to Dad's new place with his coats and of course the first thing out of his mouth was "where is my fur coat?". My inclination was to say "you mean the hideous one that you've never worn?" but I told him we put it in storage.

With Margarita helping we got those closets cleared quickly and all that was left was the kitchen. It had been mostly cleared already so there wasn't much left to do. I carried out the last of the heavier things and called it "mission successful", and headed over to Dad's.

Someone at work gave me the number of a contractor he knew so I gave him a call. Turns out he was a framer but he gave me the number of the gc he works for. Called them and she indicated they were pretty swamped and it might take some time to get going so I let that one go.

I called John to see if he was going to give me a bid. His surly helper called back to ask if I had called. I told her that yes, I had. I asked her if he was going to give me a bid and she told me definitely yes but it takes him about a week. That's how long it took Drew so I'm fine waiting.

I think I'm going to call the third one and cancel our planned meeting. At this point I'm leaning towards Drew unless John convinces me otherwise.

After sleeping on it, I'm getting more uncomfortable with Drew's draw schedule.

Zikzak, what say you?

It sounds like he's thinking that most everything else will be done by the time the cabinets get delivered, which is a bit unreasonable. Plumbing and electrical fixtures won't be set yet, and there will probably be another dozen odds and ends left too. $3,500 definitely seems low for final draw. That amount of money has no teeth on a $118 thousand $117,768 job.

Why not just go back to him with different terms? I'm surprised you haven't already given your concerns and the fact you are ready to commit otherwise. Ask yourself what you think is reasonable, then propose that.

Thanks guys. Yeah, I'm going to negotiate this for sure. We'll see how it goes.

Day 3 final tally

Although dad is a hoarder, he's a neat hoarder. Everything, and I mean everything, was in some sort of plastic container.

This is the pile resulting from my work. There was an equal sized pile in the living room. And that doesn't include the ones I threw away and the ones in the POD.



This is the stuff mom didn't want to put in the POD or throw away. I don't have an update on what she did with this.



Trash pile

I've been thinking about this all day and I think I'm ruling Drew out. He gave me a 6 page contract full of clauses that protect him and almost nothing that protects me. Nothing in the draw schedule is favorable.

I'll probably voice my concerns but I think I'm going to call Doug again. He's the other full service guy. He's got a very visible presence and has all kinds of awards. Probably more expensive but as reputable as they come.

My contract is 7 pages and is just what I downloaded from the Contractor State License Board sample.

Dunno about Florida, but there's certainly a lot of home owner protection just in the law in California.

If he has a good reputation, I wouldn't count having a good (for him) and thorough contract against him. Homeowner screwing contractor doesn't make the news, but that's because no one cares, not because it's not common.

I was sitting at a chatty (poker) table and happened to set next to a gc (Matt). He said he mostly works on his own stuff. He buys, sells, and rents. I asked him if he'd be interested in doing my condo and he said yeah. He said he could pull the permits and just give me a crew that I would pay their hourly rate and he would take some off the top. He's got his plumber license and has another licensed plumber working for him. He told me the only person he would have to hire is an electrician but he said that's no problem. Obviously there would be other things I'd have to pay him for like taking care of inspections and such. The only issue would be that his projects take precedence so there might be idle time.

This would also mean that I'm 100% responsible for ordering materials which is fine since I pretty much know what I want.

I'll be calling him tomorrow.

My Dad's house was built by a guy named A.D. Stenger.

http://stenger.rileytriggs.com/man.html

Stenger built quite a few houses in the area and he has developed quite a cult following. While I was working at the house, several people stopped by to inquire about it and one left a note while I was inside.

There's even a website about all the Stenger houses for sale in the area.

http://www.modernaustin.com/category...rn/ad-stenger/

His houses are kind of cool looking but not very functional. And, they all have flat roofs which are a nightmare. Dad's house has all sorts of problems. Rotten wood everywhere, exposed wiring all over the place, mold, and apparently asbestos.

But there are people that want to buy these houses. Dad's house sits on a fairly large 2 corner lot. It's in an area where the land values are pretty high so I think there will be interest in just tearing this down as well. It will be interesting to see what happens with it.

On a personal note. I met A.D. Stenger when I was young. He sort of reminded me of the most interesting man in the world. I vividly remember walking in the front door and seeing a stuffed polar bear (standing with paws out over you) on one side of the entryway and a similarly posed grizzly bear on the other side.

Never heard of the guy. Any explanation of what sets his houses apart from all the similar mid-century stuff in the area? Did he originate that look, or was he just more prolific and better connected than his contemporaries?

I immediately thought of one house in particular I know in the Zilker neighborhood. Apparently it isn't one of his, but the house across the street is.

I'm not sure what his appeal is. One of the people that stopped by to ask about the house was an architect that bought one a couple houses down from Dad's and fixed it up. I'm guessing some of it has to do with just being in Austin. You know, keep it weird.

Most of his houses are in the Zilker area. Dad lives near there. When I met the guy he was living on Robert E. Lee.

Today was talk to contractor day. Unfortunately, no progress on actually hiring one.

Doug called. He's the guy that I'm guessing will be expensive but not as high as Richard. I'd sort of blown him off just because I thought Drew was going to be my guy. I had forgotten that we had talked about getting measured drawings from Richard instead of Doug doing them. Doug told me that he could do the drawings for $150 and they would be mine if I didn't choose him. Although I am paying him, the way he approached it and our overall conversation sort of has me hoping he comes in with a decent bid. He said it will be a few days before he can get to it, though.

I had called a place called Ace Remodeling about 2 weeks ago. The woman that I talked to was sorely lacking in any customer service skills. I just got the feeling that she felt like she was doing me a favor if I hired them. She also told me that it would be $75 for them to come out for a consultation. I was sort of desperate at that time so I arranged a date. That date came and she called and said they needed to reschedule so I reluctantly did. Today was the day we were supposed to meet and she called to remind me. I told her I needed a name so I could alert the guard gate. She apparently had some experience with this because she asked about the logo on the truck. I told her that they had a rule but everyone else had gotten in. She said 'well, we aren't going to drive all the way out there if we don't know if we can get in". I let her know I thought her customer service skills sucked and she just lost them some business. I never did talk to the owner. I'm going to give them a nasty rating on Angie's List.

Then Richard called. I reiterated that his bid was too high. I also asked him again about the plans. He said I could come get them if I wanted them. I then said something about transparency of materials costs. I never did see any breakdown nor did I see any cost comparison on different selections. Amy sort of got ticked about this because I'm sure she felt like she really worked on the costs. She certainly might have but I still never saw the numbers.

And, last but not least. A guy at work gave me the number of a framer that gave me the number of a GC. The woman that answered the phone was super pleasant and helpful but said he was just too booked up to get to me right now. She left a message this evening to let me know that he could get to me in a month or so if I wanted to start working on plans (she didn't realize I have some) and that they had someone that could do that work.

Still no word from John, so I'm sort of pinning all my hopes on Doug.

looks like were getting biggerboat solo remodel part 2!!!!

The thought is seriously crossing my mind. The place is livable right now.

Remodel update



Dad's house update



Online dating update



Actually, I did send Drew an email about the contract and what I didn't feel comfortable with. Couldn't hurt, right? We'll see.

I am rooting for you, man. I don't really have helpful advice, but I'm still rooting!

I think you should try to hook up with the surly woman from Ace, and then maybe see if you can talk her into cleaning out the rest of your father's place.