Just got back from my weekly condo check. Work is coming along but seems slow. I think it's mostly due to how much time it is taking them to lay the living room tile. They are about 1/3 of the way finished with it. They are also about 2/3 of the way finished with the master bath tile. The electrician installed a bunch of switches and receptacles and they look great.

I talked to Javier for a bit. He told me the bathroom tile was taking a while because of how heavy it is. He says he can't put more than 2 rows up at a time because stuff starts sliding. He also showed me how he is having to level the living room floor since the slab is crooked. Although I understand this, it is causing a weird visual effect that the floor is actually crooked. I guess due to the fact that the roof is probably as off as the slab. He didn't notice it but I do. Hopefully this sort of disappears when "stuff" is put in the room.

I'm super happy with my tile choices and the paint choices are growing on me.

Pics and stuff.

Living room

This first pic shows how much they are raising the tile on this side. Crazy.



Living room and office







Master bath







This pic isn't good but on the left is the master bedroom paint and on the right is the master bath paint. The master bath paint is actually a few shades lighter but you can't tell. It almost looks grey but they are both fairly blue.



New light switch!!!!

Didn't you have hardwoods spec'ed out for the living room and office floors before, or am I imagining things?

No, it was tile all the way. I had originally picked out some of that tile that sort of mimicked hardwood but I settled on this.

I was talking to a guy at work about the unlevel slab and he seemed to think it was that way on purpose to allow good drainage when it floods. That doesn't seem right to me and googling turned up no such thing.

Also, forgot to mention that Javier said a bunch of my neighbors have bugged him to come in and look around. Apparently because the double unit is unique (well, I think there may be 2 or 3 others) to the complex and they all want to see what it looks like.

Weekly trip report.

There were 5 guys working which is encouraging. They are still laying the living room tile. While I was there it took 2 people about 20 minutes to lay one piece. It took about a whole bag of whatever they are laying under it and quite some time to get it all level. I'm sure this is killing them.

I put a level on the floor and they are going slightly uphill on the downhill slope. It's not horrible but I don't quite get what they are doing. There is about an inch between the slab and the bottom of the tile in some places.

The doorways all have substantial step-ups but Javier showed me something that really surprised me. The door on the end has more than an inch step-up but it is all slab. I'm really confused on how they built this. They actually cut the slab away on that doorway. It's really odd.

The good news is it looks like most of the door trim is up and most of the doors hung and painted.

He told me he'll be asking for the cabinets this week but he said that last week.

He also said he's ready for the door hardware.

We talked a bit about the urinal. He's still not sure how he's going to do this. Right now it's just an exposed wall.

They seem to not finish anything. The master bath tile is close but not finished. No plan for urinal. They never completely finished the guest bath tile. The door trim is close but not finished. The living room floor tile is not finished. All in all it looks good but I seriously doubt they make end of May. I told Javier that I don't mind if they have more work to do but at least make it liveable.

Pics of tile and door trim.

Went to Lowe's and bought a bunch of door knobs. But not before fretting a lot about which ones to get.

Tile looks great

Thanks! Yeah, I'm super happy with the floor tile.

Love the floor tile too. Reminds me a lot of a marble that we sell. Calcutta Vagli is what we call it:

Yeah, I originally wanted something like for my kitchen countertops but I just couldn't get myself to go with marble.

Keith emailed me. The last time he emailed me he told me he would keep me updated on progress. I guess this is an update but it's really "I need a check". I still haven't told him I'm planning on flipflopping the last two payments. Should be fun.

Anyway, here's the update:

I arranged to meet Keith on Friday to pay him but the more I thought about this the angrier I got. I'm sending him an email postponing our meeting until I can see progress. I also added a few other things I'm not too pleased about.

So, that email just set me off for some reason. I have a bad habit of obsessing over stupid crap like that when I get ticked. It's pretty bad. I didn't sleep well at all last night because I was so mad. Then I completely overreact. I really lit into Keith and although I feel like there is some justification given the history of this project, I think I could have handled it much better. I'm not sure how I could have handled it better but I always feel like that whenever I have a conflict.

Keith still hasn't replied, probably because he's pissed off as well. That's fine. I made it a point in my email to discuss the carpet situation which he has completely ignored. I am responsible for it but it needs to be coordinated with Keith. So, although he didn't respond I almost immediately got an email from Sofia and a followup from Rob about the carpet. I'm guessing Rob got wind of this and decided to handle it. I hate to keep dragging him back into this because none of this is his responsibility. I'm going to get him a nice gift certificate to something when all of this is done.

Just wanted to say, that that all is not worth your sleep. But I think you know that. I don't think that you overreacted to Keith, but just don't let it set you off. I mean that one thing is to write an angry email, another thing is really to be angry. It is not worth it.

Is it possible to list things that must happen before you release certain payments and then just not have so much grey area?

Yeah, I think we are past that really. It's something I should have clarified from the start.

It really should be the function of a half decent account manager or project manager but I've found those may not exist in these types of industries. But it really seems you'd be about twice as happy with the project if that was done in a bit more detail from the start. They would be too.

I felt bad about pounding Keith so hard so I sent a kinder gentler followup.

He replied with a very apologetic email today acknowledging he's dropped the ball completely on communication. It was pretty sincere. I think part of the problem is he and Rob aren't communicating well either and Keith assumed Rob was following up on things and vice versa.

I was informed that I can order everything remaining that is my responsibility. Light fixtures, appliances, cabinet handles, etc. I was trying to avoid having to do all this at the same time which was why I was hoping they would communicate with me more frequently. But it is what it is. I've already sort of picked out appliances so all I need to do is order them.

I'll be meeting Keith tomorrow. I am hoping we can do a thorough walkthru with Javier and finalize a checklist of all outstanding items.

Honestly, the number one thing for me has been poor communication. Having done a lot of construction work, as well as being in the business I'm in, I'm pretty sympathetic to things not going smoothly. But you gotta pick up the phone and let the customer know wtf is going on.

Apparently, someone ordered new electric service and used my address. Duke energy caught the mistake (after transferring) and fixed it all. But they called me and told me the person requesting the service ordered a surge protector. They asked me if I wanted it to stay. It's $6.00 a month and protects the whole house. Actually, it's really just an insurance payment since it covers all appliances, tvs, etc. They won't charge me for the installation. It's probably not really a good deal but I figured why not. That's a starbucks coffee a month.

I'll be scrambling a bit now. I talked to two carpet installers that Sofia recommended. One is going out there today to measure, the other I'll meet on Monday.

Talked to Rob. He was at the condo checking everything. He said some of the cabinets have been installed. They've done whatever they needed to do to get templates for the granite/marble.

He found a few things like doors opening the wrong way, broken tile, etc. And he said he mismeasured one of the cabinets and will have to order another one. No biggies I don't think. I'll be walking through everything tomorrow with Javier and Keith.

I don't think the carpet guy made it out there.

I'm ordering all my appliances from Lowe's but they don't have under the counter beer refrigerators. So I went over to Home Depot and bought me one of these.

Woot!





It's in the back of my truck. Hope nobody steals it.

Pretty busy day today. I'l have to break this up into several posts.

I met Keith and Javier at the condo early. We walked through the entire condo and took notes of things that need to be taken care of. Most of it is what Rob had already pointed out. We talked a lot about the doors and how the tile is much higher. Javier is going to fill in some gaps with tile and try to fill in the step up with wood or something to not make it such a sharp edge. He'll have to get creative.

The cabinets are here!!!!!!!!!! They look fantastic. I'm super pleased. It was hard to get a good pic of the kitchen cabinets because of the light but one of them shows the red pretty well. Not everything has been installed yet. We did a count of how many handles I'll need. It's a lot.

Keith is a super nice guy. I'm sorry I ripped him so hard. He took full responsibility even though there is supposed to be yet another guy assigned to keeping in contact with me but he's dropped the ball. Things really progressed this week and I'm confident I'll at least be able to move in by June. I didn't flip flop the payments like I was going to but I did split the difference and hold some back. Keith was fine with it.

Entertainment center bottom



and top



Closet cabinets



Guest bath and closet



Office



Master bath



laundry



Kitchen - the last one shows the color pretty well

Next it was on to Lowe's. My mission was to buy appliances, light fixtures, and cabinet hardware.

Saturday is usually a pretty bad day to do this sort of thing but what the hell. I mentioned earlier I had settled on Frigidaire mostly because of price and their smudgeproof stainless finish. I walked through and picked what I wanted and headed for the helpdesk. Much to my surprise someone was finishing up with a customer and I got help right away.

The dude was awesome. He asked about how I planned to use all of this (like am I a serious cook, etc.). I pretty much told him, "well, I'm a guy so no". Then I mentioned Frigidaire and he gave me a look. He called them "flipper" appliances. I told him I didn't want to spend a fortune and he said "trust me". He pointed me to Whirlpool and found pretty much every item on sale except for the microwave. I mentioned the smudgeproof thing and he showed me how to clean them (wd-40 - who knew?). I feel like I got MUCH better appliances and barely spent more than the Frigidaires I picked out. I really scored with this guy - he was so helpful.

I mentioned that I bought that beer cooler somewhere else because they didn't have them. He showed me one that was $1100. I told him I saw that but got one at Home Depot. He said "one of those $300 ones?". Yeah, he knew exactly what I bought. He told me that they are not really built ins. They will fit just fine but the fan won't keep the motor cool because it can't get air. He told me the ones he carries are specifically for built in. He told me the one I bought would probably not last more than 3 years. We'll see.

They will be delivered Wednesday except for the microwave. They don't have any in stock and I'll just pick it up later. No biggie.

So far so good.........................

Next stop was cabinet hardware. I didn't see anything that really jumped out at me. There was some foo foo expensive stuff that was, well, expensive. Another problem is they didn't have enough of any item on stock. I need a bunch. So, I think I'm going to see if I can find some online.

That left lighting fixtures (and one ceiling fan). The fan was easy but I wasn't sure what I wanted for light fixtures. I saw these really bright and modern looking LED lights. I asked the guy what the bulbs look like. He had no clue. He said they haven't had these very long. So, he took one apart. (see pic below) There is no bulb. Or at least not what you think of as a bulb. And apparently when it dies you just replace the whole thing. I dunno. He said they are guaranteed for 50,000 hours. Seems like a lot.

I decided to take a chance and go with them. But they didn't have enough on stock (ugh). And, there was this really cool crystal like led light that would be great in the dining room. I wish I had taken a picture. They were out of that too. The guy said all of the LEDs have been really popular even though they haven't had them long at all.

That left pendants. They have mix and match where you buy the hardware and pic out the glass you want. There was one that was perfect. But there was only one. Ugh.

So, I pretty much needed to go to another Lowe's. There really aren't that many in St. Petersburg so it's a bit of a drive. I found the closest one but the closer I got the weirder it seemed. It was just in a neighborhood - not on a main road. LOL, it was Lowe's Trailer Park. Ha!

I did eventually find another one and they had exactly the number of lights I needed. But they only had one of the pendant light I wanted. I grabbed a guy and he looked it up and he said they had 12. He disappeared and came back about 5 minutes later with the ladder thingy. This guy was even older than me. I'd say at least 70. He could barely reach the boxes. But he got them without breaking anything or falling off the ladder.

Delivered the lights to the condo and called it a day. Pretty good day.

My pile O lights. Great photography, eh?



Inside of the LED light

LED's are fantastic. The technology has matured really fast and I've swapped out pretty much everything in my house. Couldn't be happier with them.