It's getting surreal up in here.
Tank and I drove up to Mayberry yesterday and went to the Taj. I barely noticed that there was a roof on the house, so focused was I on getting the bakery goodies to our neighbors who suffered through 14 1/2 hours of unrelenting hammering on Monday.
The neighbors were delighted with the treats and warmly welcomed us in. And that's where the surreal started. "You know," Nice Neighbor said, "That's not an architectural roof." I looked across the driveway and...no, it wasn't.
Y'all. It was the wrong roof.
The. WRONG. Roof.
And it was finished. Done. Over.
And Shawn was in a meeting 200 miles away, the roofer was due any second for the remainder of his pay and I did NOT know what to do.
I might have done the Home Alone face.
Fortunately, the roofer ran late and I was able to talk to Shawn, as well as Nice Neighbor about how best to handle this before we had to have a painful conversation. Over the past 24 hours, we have determined that an honest mistake was made, but we have also determined that we did request IN WRITING architectural shingles. Naturally, Roofer Madness doesn't want to take a hit on a job he's already done, but we also don't want to pay for a roof that is not what we wanted.
As of now, we're debating the possibility of either keeping the wrong roof and having the roofer refund a portion of the cost or having the right shingles laid on top of the ones he just put up. It's silly, really, to put a new roof on top of a new roof, but I was so disappointed that we had plain, flat shingles when we'd specifically said we wanted the more dimensional, higher-end ones. Sigh. The roofer is a nice guy and a hard-working man and we certainly don't want to cause him any issues. But at the end of the day, we're stuck with a 25-year roof that is just NOT what we contracted for. I am hoping that each side can give a bit and in the end, we can either be at peace with the roof that's on there, or work out a deal that suits us to get the one we wanted. I hate being taken advantage of by seedy workmen, but it's almost worse to have something like this happen, where you're not MAD at anyone, but the job is still not satisfactory. We'll see how this shakes out.
In other news, I had a second electrician out to the Taj today and was really surprised at how much he seemed to NOT want the job. He couldn't give me any numbers, other than to say we'd "start around $6,000" and it looked like it was going up from there. He didn't offer to give me anything in writing and didn't seem enthusiastic at all about doing the job. In fact, he acted like it was all just really a big bother to him and I figured he was just not the guy for us.
Shawn had met already with another electrician and I liked what he told me about him and also liked the fact that he was able to give us a ballpark estimate on the spot, after carefully checking the house. I think we'll go with him, and hope to call him in the next few days to see when he could start.
I also met with a plumber, who was very nice and even told me a little about the house's history. A man named Elliott lived there and the plumber said Mr. Elliott had a big lumber company back in the day and that he looked like Al Capone. He said he always wore a white suit and a Panama hat. He must have been quite an interesting man. There's a very nice local historical society library here in the 'Berry, so I think I'll see if I can find a photo that we could copy and put somewhere in the house as a nod to its past.
Anyway, the plumber is going to price a few things for me and get back with an estimate in the next few days. He was really creative and saw possibilities that I hadn't seen, when we talked about how to improve the poorly-laid-out master bath. That's why we're needing a plumber, since we can remove and install bath fixtures, but this job is going to involve moving some things and also installing a tankless gas water heater. I want to be sure that's done right, and I am willing to defer to a pro for it.
At the end of the day, the drywall man arrived to look at his part of the Taj rehab. While I have done drywall before, it is one of those things that really shows when you don't know what you're doing and I want the ceilings to be nice and smooth. Again, I am willing to call in the pros for the right result. I'll demo the existing ceilings and save money that way, so I don't feel too much like a cheater.
Well, it is pretty late and the Taj will have all new drama for me tomorrow, I'm sure. Better rest up!
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