Yet.
The renter that was moving into his condo backed out. Turns out his fancy 2 bdrm condo only has 1 assigned parking place in the bldg. fine for single guy, but it will be an issue for anyone else that wants to live there.
At this point, I really want to be done by March 1st. I had to release my #2 guy ( who is our electrician) and the painter and my laborer. That’s not good for them, they live paycheck to paycheck. But we don’t have colors selected yet so the painter can’t move forward and no lighting to install. This means we are going to be painting after floors get installed which is not a smart thing to do, but feasible. Two weeks ago I had to release the tile guy because owner had not selected master tile yet. He went on to another job and I couldn’t get him back for over 2 weeks. Now our tile is running behind.
It’s a giant domino effect. Countertop guys cannot measure for any more countertop installs because there is nothing finished to measure!!
I cannot figure out what the goo inside the toilet is for. It’s not structurally relevant so I think it is meant to cover stress points where leaks might occur? We opened up all of the ones at the store when we went back for the 2nd one. Which was not easy! Every one of these brand toilets had spots of the goo (it’s like a hardened plumbers putty) at several locations inside the toilets so we assume it’s in there by design. Shame on the toilet company if they test them, or know there are leak points, and they just slap goo on them and ship them out. Man, they should not mess with toilet leaks!!
Can you contact the manufacturer and ask? It seems really weird.
CB, I hope you’re making money off this project.
PROGRESS UPDATE
The owner found a renter and has to start moving his stuff into the townhouse next weekend. He is not planning to move in until March 1st. I had estimated we would be done about then but we don’t have half the stuff that needs to get installed.
Yesterday I made a huge mistake that I am going to own up to so everyone can learn from my mistakes. The owner could not decide on the floor tile for the master bathroom. He did finally select the tile for the shower installation, but as I described earlier, he was a day late. Because we didn’t have the tile at the project, my tile guy went off to another job. Big mistake!!! He didn’t come back to start work on our master shower for 2 weeks! It’s not his fault.
But, the big mistake was that owner wanted a custom chevron cut on the floor tile but it was very expensive, about $25/sq ft. So, he didn’t pull the trigger on the floor tile until last week and then it had to be delivered down from central warehouse. I was not at the tile store when he decided to buy it. He evidently pointed to a display and told the lady that was what he wanted. Well, he ordered the wrong color! I picked it all up from the tile store in boxes about Tuesday. On Friday the tile guy opened up the boxes and was about to install the floor tile. Thank God I was there… it was the wrong color… it was white. The rest of the tile is Silver and Grey. Of course, tile guy cannot install it, and I had to madly call tile store and try to get the right stuff to come down from LA next week. We will not get it until Monday and tile guy is now off to another job and ‘might’ get back to our job by Thursday. What a debacle. And, the grout that the tile store ‘recommended’ for the tile is horrendous, kind of a creamy yellow. So, tile guy was going to grout up shower so we could continue with all the installations required in there but I had to make an emergency run to go get the right grout color. When I got back, he had already packed up everything and was hauling it off to his next job. He promised he would come back today (Saturday) and do the grout. We will see.
What was the mistake? Do you think I could have opened the boxes and checked while picking up at the store? No, big mistake. Do you think I could have opened up a box every time I walked by it in the garage for 4 days? No, big mistake. It would have been an even larger mistake if the guy had laid it all on the floor and I told him he had to tear out $1,300 worth of tile!!! We will be pushed back one week on our schedule to finish that bathroom.
Meanwhile we are all done in the kitchen. White quartz countertops with waterfall drops on the ends is installed. All the crazy drawer lights and pop up outlets installed. Appliances installed (and each one was a huge challenge to fit properly) Owner bought a sink that was too large for the sink cabinet so we spent hours cutting out the sides of the cabinets to get it to fit.
We had to re configure the fireplace area to move wiring around because the design of the fireplace has changed.
Still waiting for glass companies to give us an estimate for glass railings on staircase… it’s been almost 3 weeks. I gave up on the expensive glass installs owner wanted on the bathtub and shower and we ordered some pre made stuff that arrives next week. We will install them ourselves. We are basically running out of time to get decisions made and I am now riding the owner almost daily to get stuff purchased, let me purchase it, or please pull the trigger on glass designs/installations.
And, then there’s the flooring. There are many things that cannot get installed until the flooring is complete. Flooring guy was supposed to start installing the flooring on Monday. He never really showed up until Wednesday and then started to complain about leveling the floors and now we have self leveling cement everywhere. He played the game of showing up for about 10 minutes and then announcing he had to go to the store to buy bags of self leveling cement, then never showing up until the next day. Repeat. I am livid with him so he will be working all weekend to get us moving forward on flooring. But of course it is raining today and he probably will leave because he cannot cut pieces outside in the rain.
And… owner still has not purchased a master bath vanity, selected countertop or purchased any lighting. I sent the whole crew home on Wednesday because there is nothing more they can do because we are missing so many pieces and parts to try to continue to install stuff. Electrician wasted 3 hours trying to install some ‘special’ wireless type track lighting above the fireplace because the wireless color changing bulbs he bought do not fit into the track so we had to take it all down and pack it up to be returned. He wants remote controlled color changing lights washing the fireplace! Not to mention some crazy LED strip lighting that wireless remote control changes colors under the countertop overhang. Which doesn’t stick to the plywood under the countertop so we have to invent a sunken channel to install it.
Just shoot me!
The custom doors were supposed to be delivered on Friday. That is a huge installation job with new door jambs, etc. On Friday at 6am I get an email that the delivery date has changed to Feb 20! We have been waiting for these doors for 6 weeks. I had to go into Home Depot and personally raise holy hell and the store manager is on top of trying to get those doors to me by Tuesday or Wednesday next week. They have to be spray painted in some kind of booth we are going to have to build (because new flooring is getting installed upstairs) before they can even start getting installed. Owner still has not selected door color, even though I have had samples up for 3 weeks.
Basically, we will not be done in the next 20 days unless a miracle occurs.
Some photos loaded
BUDGET UPDATE
I cannot even keep track of the budget for this project. The owner purchases a lot of things but I don’t have the invoices or costs to add to his detailed spreadsheet with the project costs. So, no idea what he has spent personally. Right now we are sitting at $170k spent and I know we have at least 20k more to get done. Not to mention I have no idea how much the fancy glass staircase railings are going to cost because I cannot get the 3 companies that came to measure to give me an estimate.
Coralbrook, you are a saint. I don’t think it was a big mistake on your part. The owner ordered the wrong color! Of course, the timeline would be better if you had checked the order sooner but the timeline is mostly his fault anyway.
Let’s hope you make the deadline so this crazy job will be over!
I have a sink like that. It came with a “rolling mat”, which I sort of use. I fold it in half so it doesn’t block too much of the sink. It also came with a “colander”, which was the world’s worst colander. It is rigidly orthagonal and the holes were too small so water wouldn’t flow out. I would not torture my pasta that way so it’s now under the sink, holding bottles of cleaners. Mine did not come with a cutting board but I ordered one. That piece is actually useful but it’s so big that I keep it with the cookie sheets unless I’m using it.
I miss my old sinks, with their rounded edges and corners. These rigidly straight sinks collect gunk in the edges and corners and water doesn’t flow into the drain as well. I have to clean the sink more often.
“Coralbrook, you are a saint.”
Ditto.
Yes, it has a rolling wire thing. I guess it is for stacking dishes. You are correct that this sink has square corners and does not slope well to the drain. And, that straight rectangle (rather than curved rounded corners and sloping) caused the butcher job on all the cabinets to get it set into place.
Did I mention that there are daily deliveries of boxes of pieces and parts all over the place?? Each box I open I find something new he found on the Internet that he wants installed. Some of the things we don’t even know how to install because he has several things purchased separately that are supposed to go together.
Just the other day I spent almost an hour panicking going through all the items stashed in closets trying to find the big toilet button plate thing that gets mounted on the wall for one of the wall toilets. My carpenter kept telling me that someone accidentally threw it away and he couldn’t find it. After searching, I called the owner to discover “Ohhh… I think I forgot to order that, it comes separately”. We of course assumed it must have been in the box with the original wall toilet. These are the types of small details that drive us crazy because I did not personally order all these things and have no idea whether we got a plate and lost it, or it was not ordered.
Coralbrook, just as your tile guy and other guys have to go on to other jobs and can’t get back to this one for a while, might the same thing happen to you? It sounds like the last 10% of this project could take as long as the first 90%, considering the way things are arriving in dribs and drabs. It’s a shame if you are just twiddling your thumbs waiting for him to decide on a paint color for the doors.
Just for kicks, here are the items that light up, beep, wireless or remote controlled and change colors
Fireplace lights up and changes colors in many different ways with a remote control
5 tv boxes mounted with cables that go to wireless boxes. Have no idea where these wireless boxes are going to sit because all the TVs are wall mounted
Front door lock that is wireless controlled
Lighting is all on dimmer switches that are wireless controlled
Pop up outlets in countertop that light up
Touch kitchen faucet thing that lights up the sink
Drawer lights on motion sensors
Steam shower light that change colors
Radiant floor heat in the master bath that is wireless controlled
Wireless speakers on walls
Track lighting over fireplace with bulbs that change colors wireless controlled
LED strip under countertop that changes colors wireless controlled
Light strips along staircase railing which is hilarious because we do not have a staircase railing, but gizmos have arrived
Lord help him if he loses his phone and cannot turn anything on or off!!
And a gazillion usb charging outlets mounted wired in walls in case the phone goes dead:)
@coralbrook This could actually be useful… do you happen to remember what brand/model you installed?
What kind of law does this dude practice?! I wonder if his clients pull this kind of crap on him. “Oh, Mister Lawyer, I looked over that finalized contract that you drafted for me, and I changed a few things around, but they all are fine, I am sure, so no need to bill me for double-checking… and can you also add this and that clause? And by the way, we also want to license the tech we don’t own yet to Amazon, so can you draft something about that? I am sure Amazon will be thrilled to license it from us instead of the patentee… we will buy the patent from them tomorrow!”
Betcha he will not like to deal with that kind of a client!!! Why the beep is he throwing this crap at you?!
“LED strip under countertop that changes colors wireless controlled” Is this in the kitchen?
cb we want videos of all this color changing lighting
This entire condo is going to look like one giant blinking Christmas tree!!!
No it’s not – he’s never going to use this stuff.
My bet - he will try them all once, and then he will lose the remotes and/or app passwords. 
LED strip goes under the overhang of the kitchen countertop. But it wasn’t designed for that. It has sticky tape stuff to go under kitchen cabinets. The sticky tape doesn’t stick to the plywood support underneath the quartz countertop and we are going to MacGyver (we use that as a verb around the project every day!) something. I’m afraid it might include the white duct tape that is everywhere in the back of the cabinets.