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Saturday, April 27, 2013

Post-construction saga: SNAFU

I'm not intentionally being coy. I really do plan to reveal my new modernist nest soon. In fact, I intended to reveal it long before now. However, there's no accounting for weather or for workmen. Or for moving the store, which is causing the current delay.

I've vowed not to do the full reveal till everything is finished, and right now the entire back yard is torn up and covered with weeds. Not just the part in front of my new apartment. I mean the entire back yard.

My daughter and SIL decided...and very rightly so...that the original layout of the yard, while perfect for a single older woman, was not conducive to play for the boys. The yard is small, and most of it was taken up by shrubs and flower beds, leaving very little grassy area in which the grandsons could cavort and commit mayhem, so my SIL wielded his mighty chain saw and removed the shrubs. Then it rained. By the time things dried out, the brush was very brittle. We decided we didn't want the headache...or the cuts and abrasions...of hauling it off, so we set about hiring it done. The first person who was supposed to come didn't show up, but we were luckier the second try...although that person came so late that he had to work by porch light.

Then it took a while to get all the roots tilled up. That was no fault of the workman with the tiller. He had to wait until several other things were done...particularly getting someone to flag the gas line, which we rightly assumed ran directly under the area to be tilled. More rain, this time with hail, caused a couple of delayed visits.

My SIL also had to wait for the flagging before he could jackhammer out a couple of sidewalks. One originally went to the carport/storage area, which was converted into my kitchen, closet/laundry room and bathroom, so it had become The Sidewalk to Nowhere. The other, in front of my apartment, was an eyesore and needed to be replaced.

Once that was done, the tilling had to be further postponed till we could get someone out to haul off all the rock and concrete my SIL had so dauntlessly and manfully broken up. There came the rub. The guy, who had delivered a diatribe against "flakes on Craigslist" when he hauled off the brush, stood us up the first evening he was supposed to come back. And the the next. And the next. Then it rained again. And rained. And then it was muddy for several days, delaying the haul-off even further. The guy finally showed up and took away most of the debris.

In the meantime, though, we discovered that the rest of the rock in front of my new apartment, which we thought we could finish digging up in a snap with a shovel, was buried so deeply that it would need to be jackhammered as well. The tardy rock hauler said he'd loan my SIL his jackhammer...to save another rental at Home Depot...and he also said he'd come back to pick up the last of the rocks the next day when he got his jackhammer. He finally showed up a week later. I opened the gate for him and then went back inside, only to discover that he had picked up his jackhammer but had left behind the rock.

The tilling was finally finished, and our brand new rake immediately broke. More delay was caused by trying to find the receipt and then time to exchange it. I think this is a perfect example of how the acronym SNAFU and Murphy's Law came into being.

So at the moment, the plan is to go on a marathon landscaping finish-up as soon as the last piece of furniture is moved into the new store location. Till then, we have a yard cart full of rocks that we're going to have to find a place to dump, dirt that needs to be spread, nandina and boxwood stumps/roots that need to be picked out of the dirt, an I-kid-you-not boatload of weeds...and sand. Where the sidewalk came up in front of my apartment, we found a ton of sand that was put down in 1950 when the house was built. After staying put for 63 years, it now migrates into my apartment in copious amounts every time the door opens. That doubles when the grandsons enter. They sit in it to play with their toy cars and trains, so they track in shoesful and pantsful. That is, unless they're busy committing the aforementioned mayhem, such as having stick fights or throwing chunks of concrete at each other. (Thanks for leaving those behind, flaky brush/rock hauler man.)


If dirt is your thing, we've got it.

Did I lie about the weeds?

Or the sand?

A few baskets have been hung in back,
along with some well-placed flags telling us where we can dig.

A few more have been hung in front...but, as you can see, it's still looks like a war zone.
The plastic lid as a stepping stone is a nice touch, don't you think?

Soon. Very soon.

::SIGH:: I hope.

24 comments:

  1. Geez, it sounds like an ordeal alright! But, all good things come to those who wait, and I'm 100% sure your yard will be worth the wait - as will your apartment reveal too! : )

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    1. I know it will all fall into place...but I've never been known for my patience. :)

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  2. Aren't there always dramas?! How's the bloke taking his jackhammer and not the rocks? Typical. I think the yard is looking fabulous even in its pre-landscaped state. All I see is POTENTIAL!!
    Had our garage sale today. Had a bloke say he's buy 169 Phantom comics for $100 after he'd picked up some building supplies a few suburbs over ... so I stashed the comics away for him ... do you think he returned?! He's probably related to your jack-hammer fellow!

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    1. Don't you just hate it when that happens? A woman has been giving me the run-around about buying a chair on Craigslist since Tuesday. I'm giving her till 3:00 this afternoon to come get it, or I'm selling it to someone else. People can be so unreliable!

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  3. Ugh, chaos is such a bummer. Just reading about your ordeal gives me a headache, I can only imagine how stressful it's been for you. That said, I would disagree about you being impatient. You are patient!

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    1. I should know better than to get a strict time frame in my head, because anyone who's ever done any construction or major landscaping knows that there are always delays caused by weather or scheduling workmen. Still, I expected all this to be finished weeks ago, and I'll be glad when we can focus all our efforts and get it done.

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  4. Ugh! I feel for you, Dana. Hang in there...one thing you can always count on is that you can't count on anything!!!

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    1. That's absolutely true. Once you start having grand expectations, the universe feel compelled to show you how powerless you are. :)

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  5. Goodness, Dana, I get exhausted just by reading about your ordeals!! Imagine the day it's all done and everything is back to normal. Promise me you'll treat yourself to a good champagne that day:-) Have a great weekend, Dana!

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    1. Believe me, I tell these crazy stories with a touch of irony and a smile on my face. If I didn't laugh about it, I'd be really unhappy right now, and it simply isn't important enough to lose sleep over. Whether it got done in March or gets done in May won't really matter in the grand scheme of things, will it? Fretting about it certainly won't make things move any faster. If I haven't learned anything else in 65 years, I've learned that. :)

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  6. I'm still laughing at the shenanigans of those cheeky mites! They will keep you grounded and smiling, if not exhausted! xx

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    1. They certainly have me in an exhausted heap by the end of the day, but I'm smiling the whole time. Well, except for today at lunchtime when I was making train-shaped sandwiches for them in the kitchen, only to find that Grandson #2 had wrapped Grandson #1 up head to toe in a tape measure, including around the neck...and was pulling it tight. Grandson #1 was urging him on, till it started to hurt. Fortunately, Grammo was able to effect a rescue before there were any bulging eyes or shortness of breath. Whew!

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  7. I sympathize with your saga! Goodness, one ever truly realizes what a mess comes with home improvement. (They make it look so darn 1,2,3 on shows and in magazines) Just this weekend we hauled off a truck and trailer load from the Casablanca and there is still another truck and trail load to go! AND WE HAVEN'T EVEN STARTED FINISHING THE INSIDE! Hang in their with dreams of a lawn and stylish lawn furniture!

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    1. You're so right. HGTV makes it look like such a snap. They just don't show you the reliable workforce of 100 people behind the scenes...or, like you say, the tons of debris that you have to haul away between each step.

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  8. Dana, love these stories because it helps me not feel so sorry for myself when I wander down a slippery slope. I have taken tentative steps towards planning a kitchen remodel which is sorely needed. But your blog posts are helping me remember how bad it all goes during the last 10%. Seriously, it is that last 10% that will kill you. I am going to really drag my feet before I undertake my kitchen adventure. No need to rush it. Also, let's talk Craigslist. Now Dana, your family buys and sells furniture FOR A LIVING. Why are you such a softie? Forget it, I know why, you are a nice person. I have totally given up cutting any deals to hold stuff or wait or blah blah blah. I always say first come first served. I will take the initial committed person, and their date/time. I will take back up offers. When they don't show (which is about 25% of the time with some dumb excuse), I go straight to the backup offer. But I leave the item on Craigslist the whole time and tell them that. My most successful listing ever was for a basketball hoop, with at least 8 people I think willing to come over immediately. The guy who insisted he would buy it, made it a very painful process which I posted. Never fails. But, I do love the community of Craigslist and the fact, in a way, we are all helping each other.

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    1. I think one reason that the last 10% of a construction project is so hard is that you're down to the details, and you want it to be perfect. The problem arises for me when workmen don't really understand what I mean by "perfect." It looks fine to them...and probably to 99% of the people who'd come into my home...but not to me. I've done a good bit of tweaking to my new apartment...going around trim with an artist's brush to get the paint lines PERFECT and sanding down places on the wall with an emery board where the texture isn't PERFECT. The contractor said he'd do it, but I knew no one would do it exactly the way I wanted it done. I know myself too well. One little place where something isn't just right will bug me till I fix it. It's the first place my eyes will go when I enter the room.

      I agree with you about the Craigslist thing. Jenn and Joe were the ones hiring the workmen for the yard, so they were the softies. In their defense, though, it was probably a bad time to start the project. I think Joe was so busy getting ready to move the store (and going on picking trips to Corpus Christi and Oklahoma City), and Jenn was so stressed trying to get things in order in her office before she quit her job that they put it low on their list of priorities. Jenn has said she's throwing herself into the yardwork 100% as soon as the store is moved, and she's a total workaholic, so when that happens, the yard will be shipshape in no time.

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    2. Sorry you've had to go through all of the construction issues, but I must say that your post-construction SNAFU yard still looks better than mine regularly does. I can't wait to see the finished results!

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    3. Jenn and Joe are just about finished moving furniture to the new location, so I'm hoping we'll tackle the yard in a few days!

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  9. You will soon be done with everything and you will look back and laugh at all the delays. I promise. I will wait patiently by my computer in the meantime.

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    1. I have to laugh about it now, because I know there's nothing I can do to hurry things. It will get done, and then all this will be forgotten.

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  10. Oh no! What a frustrating SNAFU. Sadly, my yard is similarly dismal and I have no one to blame but my utter lack of interest in gardening. I hope the rest is SNAFU-less because I am drooling to see the new place!!

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    1. I actually love plants, although I've gotten too old for the backbreaking part of gardening. I love planning, especially if someone else will execute. :)

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  11. YES! I love reading a blog that shows and tells you the REALITY of renovation. It's always something and it never goes as perfectly as you think or want it to. I LOVED reading this... but of course want you to have some peace soon. At least you have wonderful family and some happy little grandkids to keep things lively. There's nothing better than that... sand and all! I've come to realize that it's very hard to rely on people to do what they say they're going to do (especially when it comes to hauling off heavy things!). We always eventually do it ourselves which isn't always an option. Thanks for the update. I know you can't wait to give us the full tour. I'M SO EXCITED!

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    1. I think you're right about the hauling thing. I believe the guy quoted us a price and then decided he hadn't bid enough for the amount of work he had to do, so he rationalized not coming back to do MORE...even though hauling ALL the rock was part of the original deal. I think what disappoints me most about a lot of workers today is how little they feel obligated to honor their word.

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