Is he looking at Gaggenau ovens and Wolf ranges? Lol and Yikes.
$110k - what a money pit that townhome is! We bought a rotted house which needed a lot of TLC (new windows, siding, paint, sagging floor repair, and more) but even so we did not spend that much on structural stuff! And we have 3200 sft with a full basement! Guess we did not get electrical outlets up the wazzu! 
wow coral brook! 
I think its time to fish or cut bait. So sorry this guy is being such a jerk.
Tell this guy that you KNOW how to remodel a project AND make it look fabulous, AT a reasonable $, BUT in order to do so, he HAS to take his hand off the wheel AND leave it to you to finish the remodel.
He needs to trust you regarding what IS and is NOT worth spending his hard earned $$ on.
GREAT appliances can be found at GREATLY reduced $$ at Pacific Sales, as you have found.
good luck!
:x
Wonderful…higher than high end appliances, and lights in the kitchen drawers…for someone who probably does his cooking by carry out/delivery or at a restaurant.
I sure hope you aren’t returning his calls at night! You deserve some peace from this guy everyday.
My bet is the previous owners laughed their way to the bank…because they KNEW about the windows, and some of the other issues you are presenting. This guy was a stupid buyer.
@thumper1 - that seems to be the trend here in my neck of the woods. Folks who don’t cook themselves because they are too busy making $$ (or spending inherited $$) get the most expensive thingamajigs (sp?) for their kitchens. Those kitchens are like showrooms. Spotless.
Has the guy had ANY inspection on the home done?! Our inspector picked up every thing that was wrong with our house, so we knew well what we were getting. The only thing she did not know was that the some stupid skywalls cannot have glass replaced.
This guy is a nightmare. Why would you hire Coralbrook and not let her do what she does best?
My full post did not get through…
I was saying if that it takes $110k to rehab that t-home using CB’s very reasonable rates and her trusted crew, I can’t even imagine how much it would cost him to do what has been done to date using a contractor who would charge typical rates.
As thumper said, the previous owners were probably releaved to get out of this rotted pit before it collapsed on them!
Late night phone calls are the reason I use the do not disturb setting on my cell phone; it’s set up to block notifications at night from everyone except my kids and our security system service. If this guy can’t respect your normal working hours then maybe it’s time to block him at night.
As for the expensive appliance costs, let him fritter away his money however he wants just don’t allow his extravagance to cut into your profit. He doesn’t get to splurge on stuff such as silly shower systems and then complain about the cost to install all of his whims. I’d draw the line on wasting your time, too. Remind him this is your business that he’s negatively impacting by delaying completion and give him X days to wrap up appliance selections and any other details.
I get the owner wanting to be involved in selecting things. I do that, too. However, I do my homework up front and don’t make my contractors wait around while I dither about the choices. On one project I got razzed by the GC and his subs for choosing Waterstone faucets when I could have picked another brand for a fraction of the cost. I think they were shocked since I’m generally frugal. What I didn’t do was complain when the GC charged his usual percentage plus actual labor costs, even though it was no more work to install those faucets than to install Delta, Moen or Kohler.
I hope this job wraps up quickly.
I can understand why he cannot communicate during the day. He has a very demanding job and he cannot spend time discussing appliances or tile during his work hours. So far we have a good working relationship and he knows I just laugh at some of his extravagant whims. I’m self employed and you have to do what you have to do to keep the customer happy.
The only thing that irks me is he is getting upset that there are too many workers and labor costs are so high. But, on the other hand he is desperate to get complete and the only way to do that is have tile guys working at the same time as a 6 person drywall crew at the same time as my crew is working on a million details, like tearing out rotted wood from another debacle we just found today.
Lights in the kitchen drawers?!? Now I’ve heard everything. Does he think that turning on a light in the kitchen will break the “mood” he has established elsewhere? Maybe in the purple shower?
“…he is getting upset that there are too many workers…” Oh boo hoo! There have been times when I would have paid double just to get people to show up. Labor isn’t free, this isn’t a volunteer project and his higher labor costs are not due to the number of trades on site at any one time but are due to the need to do a lot of extra work thanks to all his add-ons and specialty items.
As for his demanding job, lots of people have demanding jobs and still manage to carve out 10 or 15 minutes during normal working hours to deal with their personal lives. This guy could have asked you to present him with two or three options for each selection - range, refrigerator, kitchen tile, bathroom tile, etc. - based on your expertise and his budget then made a choice and moved on. If his work is all that time consuming then he won’t be spending many hours basking in the glow of his fancy drawer lights.
I realize this may not be very helpful to you, @coralbrook , and I’m sorry for that. I just hate to think that you may be undervaluing your time and talent, and that this job’s delays may keep you from another, more profitable and satisfying, project.
Drawer lights look really cool in the showroom when the drawers are empty, and might be helpful if you have vision problems and don’t fill the drawers too full. But they mostly seem like a colossal waste of time and money to me, especially if you have to retrofit them to a cabinet that wasn’t designed to have them.
For the amount of work he is having done, if he gets out at under $200K he should consider himself lucky.
I think I’d tell this guy to get another contractor to finish the job if he is reducing your hours (and thus what you are paid.)
Purple rain, 
purple raaaaiiinnnn!!..
I think @coralbrook decided to reduce her hours in an attempt to reduce the costs.
Still…I hope this wraps up soon. Maybe do the essentials so he can get a CO, and then leave the rest to be completed when he has the money…and a new contractor.
We deferred lots of things when we built our house. We did what we needed to do to get the CO to move in. The frills like landscaping, and fancy light fixtures (which we still don’t have) were just not done. We even had to wait to purchase our garage door openers.
Come on…this consumer nut needs to set some priorities…and maybe the things needed to get done to move in need to rise to the top…and everything else…to the bottom.
It sounds like a nightmare @coralbrook
A little entertaining for us though. And a good lesson about what NOT to do when you are renovating a property.
And a really good reminder why I never work for friends or relatives…
I’m only sharing because it’s interesting how every individual approaches a remodel. Some of it is just plain funny. Yes, I agree that a lot of this stuff looks wonderful in the showroom:) I obviously approach it as biggest bang for the buck, but bucks matter. Just today I was able to get him to carve out time for a couple of hours in the tile store. He just couldn’t visualize any of the 50 samples I had been laying out. He wanted to see the universe. It took 2 weeks to get the tile picked out for the upstairs bathtub bathroom which is almost done. Those selections came from my samples.
I went way early and used a corner of their store to set up several variations based on what I felt his style was. He walked in and immediately wanted this that was on display.
I personally felt it would be overwhelming and he wanted it everywhere in the bathroom. Thank God they only had 3 sq ft in stock and none at any other store!! He wants a really wow back wall in the shower and white walls and floors.
In the end, after going through dozens of tiles in his color range, he selected my favorite that I had set up on display. It is much more beautiful and subtle than in the pictures. The hard part was trying to find just the right shower floor, side wall and floor tile to pull it all together.
Sides of shower will be a glossy white very large format, minimal seams
I think we are going to do a matte large hexagon floor tile which was on sale but I need to lay it down in the room after the herringbone gets installed to see if it looks OK. Still trying to find a safe small shower floor tile that won’t fight with everything. He doesn’t like the pebble style
I wanted to do just maybe a large inset of the glass herringbone to save money, but he wants a whole wall of it. I definitely want to try to find a gorgeous small navy blue vanity to contradt all the white in the bathroom but he wants a floating vanity which is difficult in navy blue.
And, he finally pulled the trigger on appliances. He found plessers.com the Internet and they resulted in almost a full $2,000 savings on his high end Kitchen Aid package. Free shipping, no sales tax (that’s 8 % savings in our neck of the woods), delivery up the stairs into kitchen!! I love that part. But, here’s the catch. 3 weeks out and being shipped from New York. Yikes, I am seeing some issues in my future. But, I told him to give it a try if we can save $2,000.
So, keep that website in my mind if you are looking for appliances.
Why Kitchen Aid? He likes the cool handles with red dots. I highly doubt there are any cooking features involved in the decision. This is the refrigerator. He did want in door water because he says he drinks more water when it’s handy so that was important to him.
Oh thank goodness it is Kitchenaid! I was worried he would be bankrupting himself by going after top of the line German and Italian stuff. The red dot handles are cool but they cost more than regular ones, for sure. Kitchenaid appliances are nice.
@coralbrook Are you going to be able to recess that fridge? At almost 3’ deep, it’s going to stick out way past the counters.