here is the house...

Contractor FAIL

As you've probably been able to glean from reading this blog over the past year or so, our contractor left us high and dry at the end of our renovation and gave us a story that is similar to just about every contractor story ever told: He was good at the beginning, but once the bulk of the work was done (i.e., once he got the bulk of his money) he disappeared and cared not for out problems and complaints about his finishing work. He kept promising to come back and fix the various detail oriented work that he and his team screwed up but of course that never happened. Need photographic proof of his incompetence and lack of attention to detail? Good thing we've got it! His work was indeed a study in "FAIL"

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the molding supposed to go around the corner here? Or at the very least to the end of the wall?

And here the molding on the left it doesn't go around the corner but on the right it does. Not to mention the fact that the molding on the right is just a painted 1x4 and not actually the same as the molding around the rest of the house

Sure they need to secure the first round of flooring boards with screws, but maybe in a less conspicuous place than right in front of the threshold to another room?

Pretty much every light switch and outlet was left looking like this

Awesome sunroom construction detail! This is just one but we've got tons of photos showing exposed shims and wood blocks like this.

Way to install that kitchen backsplash evenly

All this flooring around the stairs buckled very shortly after the boards were installed. Turns out the floors were installed backwards—tongue and groove fail!

Every single hinge on every single wooden door throughout the house looks as well installed and patched as this one

We've got tons more photos of his failures, but after a while it stops being funny and just makes us angry so we'll leave it at this!

Top 10 Things I’ll Miss about Vincent

In no particular order:

1. The way he would attack the printer. Seriously, no matter where he was in the house, the second he heard the printer come up he would came dashing up and jump on top of the thing and swat at all the paper coming out. I swear he thought my HP was his arch-enemy
   
2. The way he would drink out of the color-changing faucet. He was very spoiled and only drank from the faucet since he was a kitten. Once we got the color changing faucet he was obsessed with it. He would even look at the water coming out to make sure it was blue (cool) instead of red (hot) before drinking it. Yeah it was cute.
   
3. The way he used to jump on top of our headboard in the morning and meow at the top of his lungs until we gave him food and/or water. Our headboard is very high and very skinny, so to see a fat tabby get all the way up there and balance of it while crying for food was pretty damn endearing.
   
4. The way he would to greet us at the door. Every day, every time, without fail, the second we walked in the door Vincent was there to greet us. Sometimes you could see that he had just woken up from a deep slumber, his eyes were half shut and he looked like he was sleep-walking, but he never missed a chance to be at the door waiting for us.
   
5. 
   
   The dive-bomb. A patented Vincent move, when he was sitting down and you were petting him he would suddenly and with great force and purpose lift his head and then dive it down and under, exposing his chin and belly for petting.
   
   
   
   

   Vincent shows Jules how to dive-bomb:

   
   

   

   
   
   
   
6. The way he smelled. It might sound odd, but Vincent always smelled vaguely of roasted nuts. I've never met a cat who smelled so good all the time.
   
7. The way he loved to sleep on piles of clothing. The second a piece of clothing would hit the floor, intentionally or not, Vincent would run towards it and curl up on it and sleep for hours. He liked it best when the clothing was dirty, but he would deal with clean clothing if that was all you had.
   
8. 
   
   The way he cuddled with Jules in the basket on the windowsill. If Jules was in a basket, Vincent would do whatever he needed to and make room for himself in there, much to Jules' discomfort occasionally. Vincent didn't seem to realize quite how fat he was.
   
   
   
   

   

   
   
   
   
9. The way he would sit with us at the dinner table. Jules would always be on the floor begging for scraps, but Vincent was never really interested in human food. He would usually jump up on the table and curl up on the other end and watch us while we ate dinner. Not because he wanted food, just because he wanted to be there with us.
   
10. 
    
    The way he only sat on red pillows. When we would sit on the sofa Vincent would wait on the floor until we put down a red pillow for him to sit on. He never wanted to sit on the black pillows or multi-colored pillows. Only the red ones. The second you put one down he would jump up and get comfy on it. It was even cuter when he would sit next to his doppelganger Vincent-pillow and stare him down.
    
    
    
    

    

I still can't believe he's gone.

R.I.P. Vincent

Last night at around 8:00 pm Vincent was euthanized at the vet's office. Eric and I were right there with him as he went to sleep and his four months of pain finally ended. The chemotherapy was working and aggressively killing the lymphocytes in his blood, but his body was too weak to handle the side effects of the chemo and he went into shock from raised potassium and lowered calcium levels. He started rapidly losing weight and his blood pressure dropped dangerously low. Ever after fluids and blood transfusion he was in a great deal of pain so we opted to halt the treatment and end things the best way possible. Jules and has been howling all night for him and Eric and I are inconsolable. He was a great cat, everyone who ever met him liked him. He wasn't like Jules, who has a frosty personality that takes some warming up to, he was a universally happy and all around awesome little guy. He was 10 years old, which is way too young for a cat to die, but we know he had a good life for those 10 years. Safe travels little man, you'll be deeply missed.

More photos of our boy Vincent after the jump…

Cancer Sucks

Vincent officially has been diagnosed with lymphoma, he's is the hospital after a nasty episode on Sunday. We nearly lost him but he's stable now and is ready to start his chemo treatment tomorrow. We hope to have him back home in the next few days to live out the rest of his days (6 to 9 months or so?) with us and Jules at home. So if you don't hear from me, that is what's up. Cancer really sucks. If only Vincent could defeat it with his spooky x-ray eyes.

What to do with a Huge, Blank Wall?

For over about two years I've been trying to figure out what the hell to do with our huge wall in the upstairs stairwell opposite the glass wall. There was never a concrete plan for it during the construction but just a general idea that we would use leftover material from the wall to create some type of glass light sculpture. The one crack that the architect took at designing it did nothing for us so we scrapped the idea of having him work on it. Our ex-contractor threw out some half-formed ideas that might have worked with more planned but nothing really seemed to take root. The space is so big that it demands something complex and 3-D and it requires some sort of incorporation with the two electrical light points we have as well. Until a couple of weeks ago we had absolutely no idea what to do so we just did nothing.

This is the current space, measuring 116 inches tall and 120 inches wide

Then Eric had a flash of brilliance that satisfied both an aesthetic and a practical need for the space. Since this is the main wall to the open staircase below and sound travels up and through the open stair like a wind tunnel, Eric thought we could put acoustical wall panels in this space. We used similar panels all throughout his recording studio downstairs and in his research he came across thin, multi-colored, stackable faux-suede panels that could be arranged in a pattern. The panels come in 2 feet x 2 feet sizes and go up in increments of 1-2 feet in width. They come in both 1 and 2 inch thickness but we would use the thinner ones and stack them on top of each other for a layered effect. Eric's panels downstairs were made of more of a burlap type material, were much thicker and hung off the walls like picture frames. These come with nails that can be used for "impaling" the backs of the panels and stacking them on top of one another. The panels can easily be cut out to accommodate fixtures they have to go over and around, like a light point. So, let's see, not only do we get to "impale" things, but we get a cool, custom made by us wall sculpture that actual blocks sound from traveling quite so well between the floors of our house—sound like a bonus to me.

Here is an example of how they stack:

Here is the rough design I put together for the space using their color panels that appear to match closest with our colors in the glass wall and around the house. We've ordered sample swatches just to confirm, but you get the basic idea.

For the lights we would cut out holes in the two large green panels for these 6"x6" mini-sandwich halogen lights from Vibia. They would stick out another inch and half past the panels so you can see the light coming out of the sides as well.

At a later date we would probably put some more of these panels on the side walls in the staircase to help reinforce the design, but nothing as complex as this. We just going to get this wall done for now and see how it looks before tackling the other spaces. Who knows this might be too many panels for one wall and we might have to transfer some to the ajoining walls. Or we might need more. All I know is shortly after we get the samples we'll be ordering these up so expect to see some progress soon!

I’m Surrounded by Idiots and Morons

There is no other explanation for it. Why else would I have to deal with so many idiots and morons on a daily basis? That's the best I can figure given the general competence level of literally every single person who has had anything to do with building this house with us.

Case in point: About 3 weeks ago Eric turns to me and says "Hey, don't we have to change the filters in our air handling units for the AC?" My answer had something to do with the fact that I've never, ever in my entire adult life had central air conditioning nor the need to maintain it, so I literally had no freakin' clue as to what types of filters are inside these things or how often they need to be changed. A quick visit to the Trane website revealed that we do indeed have filters that need to be changed every couple of months. Awesome, I love my AC so I am more than willing to sacrifice a filter or two on it's alter in order to bask in the glow of its chilly awesomeness. A quick exploration to our upstairs air handling unit revealed, yet again, how stupid every single person who built this house is. The fact that the downstairs unit suffered the same moronic fate just proves my point even more.

Look at this photo. See if you can tell me what is wrong with it:

You can see the tray labeled filter where you can pull out the tray and change the filter. Can you see how pulling out this tray might not be feasible? Just in case you can't orient yourself, there are two issues in this photo—1) there is PVC pipe attached to the AC unit that is blocking the filter from coming out 2) There is sheetrock around the pipe and against the unit that also prevents the tray from coming out. AWESOME!

It's hard to see in this photo, but the tray is clearly labeled "FILTER" in big letters. So first, some idiot HVAC assistant decided it was an awesome idea to make this PVC pipe run past the filter in a way that doesn't allow the filter to come out more than two inches. This is someone who theoretically installs AC units for a living every single day of their life. And he's made this kind of ridiculous mistake. Then his boss who is supposed the master AC guy either signed off on it or (in reality) doesn't check it at all and we are stuck with this pile of crap. Then a minimum wage Ecuadorian worker framed and sheet rocked a wall to block the filter as well. Then a moron GC either saw this and approved it or (in reality) didn't look at it at all and relied on his non-English speaking workers with no construction expertise to do the right thing. And that fact that your GC can't speak Spanish but has a pretty much Spanish-only speaking crew probably has something to do with this as well. And don't forget he's a sort of triple-moron for having hired and subbed out to the idiot HVAC guy in the first place. Ha! If it wasn't so annoying and thoroughly predictable, it might be funny.

We took the sheetrock down and saw this wonderfulness:

Now you can really see how the metal stud and the PVC pipe block the filter. This was our solution for the sheetrock/framing side of things:

We cut and reframed the wall and then re-sheet rocked the wall and left a small channel in it to allow the filter to come out. We are still waiting on the HVAC guys to come out and resolve the PVC piping issue. Commence holding breathe in 3, 2, 1…We could do it ourselves, but if we can get him to fix it that is obviously preferable. Daily, nagging phone calls are currently in use. Sigh, I hate people.

Good news? Let's end on some good news, shall we? After about 2 months of beating my head against the wall for hours on end every day dealing with Sears and the cabinets for Eric's studio, we finally have some success. Eric wanted to give up and just dispute the credit card charge, but after looking and looking I knew that these were the best cabinets for space and it would be worth it to deal with them for a little while longer if it meant getting Eric his cabinets. I lost hours and hours of my life shuffling between Sears.com and Sears home delivery while they collectively tried to pull their heads out of their asses and get us what we ordered. Finally today the second cabinet was delivered and while it was a little banged up, everything worked and the cosmetic issues were quite minimal, so I accepted the delivery. Success!

Here is their awesomeness:

They need a little shimming to even them out but otherwise you can see they are literally perfect for the space—they go right up to the ceiling and are exactly the right width between the wall and the electrical panel. They also provide tons and tons and storage for Eric and as I've said before, the boy has been severely lacking in storage for the entire time I have know him. This might give him the ability to actually organize his huge amount of music supplies. You can fit a ton inside each of these things. Inside view which shows the super special guitar storage area—rockin!

Success comes in short little bursts—we have to revel in them whenever we get a chance.

More Bad Customer Service – Sears Seriously Sucks

UPDATE: It just gets better and better. I used the number for the Sears headquarters published on Consumerist and asked for their CEO Mr. Lewis who is evidently "no longer with the company" Well, that makes sense. I asked for the new CEO and was informed that he DOES NOT HAVE EMAIL OR VOICEMAIL! Yeah right, okay. I asked for the number of Executive Customer Service 1-800-549-4505 – which turned out to be the best place to call, but only after some prodding. When I tried to explain the issue to the woman on the line she immediately wanted to send me to Sears.com customer service, which I've already talked to over and over again and they have told me there is nothing they can do. I explained the entire story to her and waited on the line while she tried to get the store on the line. She keep coming back and saying that no one was picking up the line (exactly!) but after about 20 minutes of trying every number they have she was able to get a hold of the manager of the store Jim. She transferred me to him and he asked for the order number and some time to research the issue. I asked for Jim's direct number in case I didn't hear back and again was told he has no direct number. Yeah right, okay again.

Surprisingly I got a call back from the assistant manager Zee a couple of minutes later. I explained the entire issue to him and he asked to call back in a few minutes once he talked to Sears.com. He called back about 10 minutes later and put me on the line with a rep from Sears.com who explained to me that we couldn't return a damaged item unless it was an appliance. Huh? I explained to her we didn't have the item, that we refused the delivery and she said, "Oh okay, then this has nothing to do with me" and dropped off the line. Zee asked for some more time and called back another 15 minutes later with some extremely bafflingly news. Our refusal of the shipment and request for re-delivery was already processed, even though they never told us, and the item is set to be redelivered next week. Um, okay?

Who wants to make a bet that they just deliver the same damaged cabinet to us? I can't imagine they can get their heads out of their asses long enough to actual make this work.

Thanks to Consumerist.com, I found the email address of the CEO of Sears and just sent this to him. Let's see if we get any traction:

Mr. Lewis,

I am writing to you to explain the issues I take with an order placed through Sears.com that has been extremely mismanaged. I have published this story on my website and sent it to Consumerist.com as well and will be filing with the BBB shortly. Your swift attention is appreciated.

Order #33465863 was placed on May 27^th via sears.com for two Craftsman garage storage cabinets Sears item# 00959125000. When I placed the order I was asked to enter my zip code (I live in Brooklyn) to determine if I was in Sear's delivery area—when I did I was told I was indeed within the delivery area and finalized the order. We got an email stating that our delivery was scheduled for Tuesday June 3^rd and to call the Home Delivery line if we needed to change the date. That Tuesday did not work for us so we repeated tried to call the delivery number to change the date but were told over and over again that our order number did not exist and that our phone number (how Sears tracks their orders) was not coming up in their system. After calling fruitless for days Tuesday June 3^rd came and went with no cabinets and I finally got a representative on the line at Sears.com who told me that the delivery date we got via email was simply an estimate and that the retail store in the Newport Mall in New Jersey was coordinating our delivery and we should contact them directly. I tried repeated to get a hold of someone at the store but was transferred and hung up on again and again. I called Sears.com again and spoke to a manager named Wendy who was very understanding and tried every single number at the store before getting in touch with a woman who works in the Newport Mall Sear's jewelry department. This woman was able to speak with someone at Lawn and Garden Department (the department handling our order) and explained the source of our confusion. Evidently, or so she says, the items were shipped to the store with no indication of where they were supposed to go, so they needed to be rung up with our order information and could then be processed for delivery. I could not fathom the backwards nature of this type of system but at least it appeared that our items were coming. This was Friday June 3^rd and we set a delivery for Thursday June 12^th.

Thursday June 12^th came around and our order arrived on time—as the two large boxes were brought into the house I opened them up to inspect them before the delivery men left. Much to my chagrin, both cabinets were damaged, one of them in a fairly minor way that we were able to fix but the other looked like it had been run over by a truck—it was so badly damaged that you could not even open the cabinet doors. More telling was that the box that it shipped in was not damaged at all, so the item was packed into the box in this horrific condition. When I mentioned this to the delivery man he looked at his order and said it indicated to him that I had ordered the floor model, which means I would have known about the damage. I told him the item was ordered online so there was no way for me to order a floor model or see the damage and he agreed that this was strange. We accepted one of the cabinets but insisted he take the other one back. He understood completely, called the store while we were there to explain the issue and said we would be contacted shortly to arrange re-delivery of a new item.

I did not hear from anyone so on Friday June 13^th I called the store again numerous time, but either there was no answer or I was immediately hung up on. So I called Sears.com again and spoke to a manager named Jen. Jen asked me what she could help me with. I told her my first choice was to get the cabinet redelivered in good condition. Failing that I wanted a refund.

Jen told me she could not coordinate the delivery or issue a credit for the cabinet since it was being handled by the store now. She advised that I go to the store in person and speak with the manager. I explained to her that the store is in New Jersey and I am in Brooklyn (there are two Sears store that are closer than the one in New Jersey) and that is an extremely long way for us to go. Getting to the store would take a very long time, not to mention the fact that I ORDERED THE PRODUCT ONLINE SO I WOULDN'T HAVE TO GO TO A STORE. Jen was extremely sympathetic and told me to hold while she called the store. She tried every number and told me there was either no answer or she was hung up, so she understood my pain. She told me she would be working until 10 pm EST and would keep trying to get through and get a resolution for me. She never called back.

On Monday June 16^th I again tried the store over and over again with the same poor results. I called Sears.com again and spoke to a woman named Brenda to whom I explained the story again and was again told I needed to talk to the store. When I asked her to call the store and try to get through to someone they had the same results I did, she was not able to get through to anyone. She advised me to call their Retail Hotline to register a complaint. I did and spoke to a woman named Melanie who transferred me back to a manager at Sears.com named Kelly. Kelly also tried to call the store to no avail and told me once again that I needed to go to the store. When I politely voiced the same complaint to Kelly, that the order was placed online and I shouldn't have to go to a store to get it straightened out, she said she would transfer me up to another supervisor. I waited on hold for over 20 minutes before giving up.

After spending approximately 17 hours on the phone dealing with this issue, all I want another storage cabinet delivered to my home with no damage. Failing that, I would like a refund of the money paid for the cabinet, plus the delivery fee charged. And I would like this without having to cross two bridges and go to another state to "nearest" Sears store. I appreciate your time and attention to this matter.

     

Thank you,