To General Contract or not to General Contract

To general contract or not to general contract, that is the question.  Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the stress and chaos of full home renovation alone, or to hire another to take it on for me.

I wavered.  First there seemed too many projects to be my own general, hiring subs for every little thing.  I didn't really know how to start.  Then I talked with Mike, the general my realtor had found, and our meeting made me start to think I should just do it myself.  Two guesses how the meeting went.

There were several problems with Mike.  First, while he had done a lot of projects like mine before, they had mostly been for banks as they got their foreclosures ready for quick sale, or to flip them himself.  I asked him if he had worked for homeowners and he said yes, but when he listed his resume, he only listed the banks he had worked with.  That's great and all, but I'm not a bank or looking for a quick flip.  I plan to live here.  I don't want some quick, cosmetic fix of a problem that I can pass on to the next buyer.  I want to get it done right one time and be done.  I'm not sure he understood that.

The second major problem with Mike was that he met my dad.  Now, I love my dad, and he does know the industry and how to write a contract, so he will be able to help me out at times.  The problem with this meeting of the Mikes is that Mike the contractor met my dad and my realtor long before he met me.  It was the three of them that had talked about what needed to be done to my house.  Key words, my house.  When I had some questions about his estimate, he agreed, somewhat reluctantly I believe, to meet me.  A couple times during our meeting he dismissed my question with a "well, I went over that with your dad."  I mentioned to him that it was my house, my money, my decision.  I would be the one signing the checks.  I don't think it got through.


In his proposed work, he was going to re-stucco the whole house for a price I thought was ridiculously low.  I walked him around to the back of the house and asked him his plan.  When I asked if he was removing all the stucco on the back, he said no and looked at me like I had just asked him the stupidest, most obvious question on earth.  He intended just to patch it.

Yeah, that only needs a little patch, right?  Well, so long as he can get a pink to match.  I can't believe I would have asked such a stupid question.  Certainly you need more than 75% damage before you have to start to consider more than just a patch, and I'm clearly only up to 73%.  As you can guess, the meeting was going well.

Last straw, that really let me know our time together was done, came when I told him that anything that required a permit would need to have a permit pulled.  I am not interested in any non-permitted work in my house.  I want the third party check of the work and I want everything safe for now and legal for resale later.  Don't even get me started on an industry that is "regulated" with a permit and inspection system, but doesn't require licensed contractors to follow through with the process.   Or a real estate industry that allows the sale of homes with non-permitted work and additions and doesn't require the seller do anything to make it right and legal.  Anyway, upon my statement, he again looked at me like I was stupid.  "Well nothing we're doing here needs a permit."

"Really?"  I ask, looking at him sideways with one eyebrow raised in skepticism.  "Not even the electrical?"  To this he said no, because we weren't changing the box, just the wires.  Yeah, all the wires, every last one.

Slam!  That was the sound of the door shutting on any future of him working in my house.  I may not be incredibly knowledgeable with regards to home renovation or repair, but I am confident that rewiring an entire house, even a small one like mine, with require some sort of permit.

In addition to all of this, when I asked about doing multiple projects at the same time, he again looked at me like I was stupid (ass!, I'm getting annoyed just remembering all those looks as I write).  He said no, he would do them one at a time.  Well why the hell do I need you then?  I could organize these projects one at a time myself.  It might take me a little longer, but I wouldn't have to work with you and more importantly I wouldn't have to pay you to come over and think you're better than me.  Thanks for playing Mike, but I think I'll pass!

Emergency Surgery

One of the things I knew I had to take care of fairly early on in my renovation process was getting the house tented for termites.  I got everything set up to have them come on a Thursday and be done by Saturday.  Tuesday I was off from work and was doing some yard work at the house when I noticed something troubling.  There was a trellis overhang that attached my house to the fence on the property line.

The problem with the trellis, beside it being pointless, ugly and bug eatten, is that in order for them to put a tent over my house, it would need to come down.  With it in place, the tent would have to go over the fence which has the double problem of taking it into the neighbors yard and the fact that the fence goes all the way to the back and around the property without any breaks.

There was also the issue of the tree that had at least one branch laying on my roof.  I talked with the next door neighbor about sharing the cost of removing it, which unfortunately he said he couldn't do, but he did say I could hack it up, that he didn't care.  I may in the future just pay to have the thing cut down myself, but that would have to wait.  I just needed to get my house ready for the tent.

Unfortunately, I didn't have any of the proper tools with me on my day off, so I had to stop by after work and race the daylight to get it all taken down the night before they came.  I had my dad put together all the tools I might need, and mom brought them down to me at work.  I had a tall ladder at the house, which I was able to use for the first few feet, but the shelving unit attached to the house was too close to the fence to let me use it beyond that.

The tools.

Once I found a plug in the garage that worked, I was able to get started with the saw.  I was up on the ladder making the first few cuts, trying to figure out exactly what would be the best way to get this done quickly, when one of the neighbors from across the street yelled, "Be careful up there."  Doesn't seem too bad, right?  I mean, maybe he's just trying to be nice, show some concern for the new neighbor.  Doubtful.  I'm pretty sure he just assumed that, as a girl, I couldn't possibly have any idea what I was doing with a power tool.  And up on a ladder, too!  Certainly I would be there all night, or just until the ambulance came to bring me and my severed arm to the hospital for reattachment.  Perhaps the fact that he is friends with PO colored my opinion.  Whatever the case, I didn't have time to deal with him.  I just smiled and said, "I will," turned my back, rolled my eyes and got to work.

The whole process only took about 30 minutes.  I was concerned that it would be difficult because of the shelves on the side of the house.  They blocked my access to the top part of the trellis that connected to the house, and the trellis appeared to be fairly well built.  Fortunately, the wood was so dry and bug-eatten that I only had to cut the boards at the fence, and cut the occasional cross beam, and I could just wiggle, bend and break the wood right out of the screws on the house.

I had to use the step ladder for most of the cuts.  It was a little shorter than I would have liked, so I had to reach up and look up in order to make the cuts and I pretty much had to be right under the cut I was making.  The only big deal about that is that I was looking up and all the debris from the cuts was falling down.  Perhaps you see the problem.  Even with safety glasses, without which I would likely be blind now, the end result wasn't pretty.

My face was covered in wood dust and other fine particles that were shaken loose from the sawing and pulling down of the trellis.  I was very happy with the end result of the house, though.  I was able to clear a spot for the tent to fall.  I knew that it could be a while before I was able to dump the remains of the trellis, so I dragged them into the garage so that they would get tented too.  I didn't figure there was any point to tenting the whole house only to leave possibly termite infested wood within feet of it.

I also took down a branch that was laying on my roof.  It turned out to be a lot bigger than I thought.  Cutting through the 2 inch diameter branch near the trunk of the tree, I pulled and pulled until I wound up with this...

I think I actually heard my roof sigh in relief.  It was a pretty exciting evening.  The neighbors 3 year old daughter thought so too.  She poked her head out every so often to watch what I was doing, running from front to back and letting her parents know, "I can see Olivia from back here!"

The next day at work I got a call saying they couldn't find the key to the house.  They had asked me to hide a key so that they could get into the house, so I had done that.  Without access to the house, they could not tent.  The first call was from the guy in the office, saying his guys had told him they couldn't find the key.  He asked me if they could call me back so that I could describe my hiding spot to the people actually at the house.  A few minutes later I got a call from the guys at the house.  I told them exactly where I hid it, and they said they had checked, but hadn't found it.  I knew exactly what the problem was:  they were looking for a house key.  My house doesn't have front door hardware, so the front as well as the garage are locked with padlocks, the keys to which are much smaller than a standard front door key, only about as big as a mailbox key.  I told him again where to look and informed him of what he was looking for and he said he would try again.  His tone did not convey much expectation of discovery or faith in my competence.  Twenty minutes later he called to let me know they had found it and had started.  I told you I put the key there!

I went by after work and everything had been started.

Now it is all done and I can move on to the heavy work.  It's nice to know that the termites are gone, along with any other pest that might have been living there.  Of course, last time I visited the house, there were quite a few flys and a not so great smell coming from the attic.  It seems I may still need to deal with a few of the other pests.

My First Houseguests and more Lawncare Lessons

While I am not entirely sure I could call them houseguests, I found a few friends in my back shed when I went to put my lawnmower in there.  The first is a lizard with the longest tail I have ever seen.

The tail was probably 10 inches long.  It just moved slowly around the inside perimeter of the shed.  I decided to stick to the middle.  The second guest I didn't actually see, but he left evidence of his presence.

I'm thinking a possum that got in through the hole on the ground.  I refuse to think it was a skunk.  Note:  I have since blocked the opening and I do not believe that the animal has gotten back in.  As for the lizard, who knows...

Perhaps the greatest part of this story, and by greatest I mean most terrible, is that on the way down to the shed I was pushing the lawnmower (it wasn't running), talking on the phone and holding the key get to the shed.  About half way I hear a tiny "clink" and suddenly I'm only holding the phone and lawnmower.  I have dropped the small brass key, somewhere in the grass.

 Can you see it?  Yeah, neither could I.  It took me five minutes, but I was able to find the thing and discover my new friends.  Lesson learned:  keep the key in the pocket until actually standing at lock.

A Little Neighborhood Knowledge

While Diana and I were unloading the lawn mower from her car, one of the neighbors decided to stop by and say hello.  Seems nice enough, right.  Well, he seemed like a nice guy but his timing wasn't great and his info was ... well, let's say unfortunate but good to know.  First for his timing.  He came and introduced himself and told me I might like to know some "stuff" about the house.  All well and good, but I was waiting for my insurance guy to come and look at the house to determine if they would insure it and for how much.  I really didn't need the insurance guy hearing all the crazy horrors about the house, like the fact that the electrical is terrible and a possible fire hazard.  The insurance guy came about 5 minutes later, and then came the awkward introductions, where I felt compelled to introduce the neighbor to insurance guy, but really didn't want either of them to speak to each other.  I set insurance on his way while Diana kept neighbor company. 

When I returned, I learned all sorts of interesting stuff.  Let's see... First, I had been told that the previous owner of the house (the guy that lost it in foreclosure) still lived in the neighborhood.  Turns out, he lives across the street and one house over, in neighbor's downstairs.  Great.  He had been living in the house for about 15 years.  Double great.  He was a contractor and when the economy went bad, he couldn't get work.  This just terrified me, since I'm in the process of finding a contractor and the work around the house is just terrible.  I will concede that the woodwork in the house, while not exactly my taste, does appear to be well done, but any plus is overshadowed by the fact that the electrical in the house is so poorly done that it might set all that great woodwork on fire under the wrong conditions.

Neighbor also told me about all the stuff he had in his backyard.  Apparently, previous owner (PO) had taken the garbage cans.  No big deal, I had the trash company coming to deliver cans in a week.  Neighbor also had my side gate in his yard.  Seriously, he took the side gate?  And kept it?  Neighbor was nice enough to suggest, hey, maybe I could make a deal and even have PO install it for me.  Pass!  I'll build one myself before I let that guy touch my house.  Of course, I tried to hide my revulsion at the thought, I am trying to make friends with the neighbors after all.  I tried to soften my reaction to the thought of "making a deal" to get back something the guy stole from my house.  I was able to give the non-committal nod/smile/"maybe" to try to end the topic.

But neighbor wasn't done.  Remember my front door?  PO had the hardware across the street.  Neighbor told me what I had already learned, that it was a special type of lock that cost a lot of money.  But it's ok, because guess what?!  Neighbor was pretty sure I could... MAKE A DEAL!! to get the lock back.  PO had gotten it for free, after all.  My mother would be proud.  I was able to withhold my laugh at the thought that I would ever buy back the freaking front door lock that PO had stolen.  More like POS!  I pretty much decided right then that I would be replacing the front door just out of principle.

Diana had to leave around this time, and neighbor left a few minutes after she did.  Last to leave was insurance guy, who was able to get what he needed and head out.  It was the longest 20min I've had in a while.  Diana sent me a text after a few minutes to check that I was still alive and well.  She agreed with me about the lock and new front door.

That isn't even the end of the story.  The next day I was in the yard waiting for a contractor when who strolled back but PO.  He of course was able to get to the back through the opening where the gate should have been, but I let that slide.  He had brought the front door lock.  He apologized, said he had taken it in anger and had even thought about taking the front door since he had built it, but didn't want to leave the house wide open (because, you know, leaving it without any way of even keeping the front door closed makes it tight like Fort Knox).  He told me briefly how to install it and that no one had the key.  Yeah, sure, I'll just throw it on right now then (eye roll).  Pretty sure there is another key somewhere, since you are only giving me one and they come with two, but I'll just let that go.  I took the lock, but did offer to let him have the front door because I would probably be replacing it.  He told me he didn't need it.  His exact words:  "What would I do with it?"  Hmmm, I don't know, what are you doing with my side gate?!  Making a fort?

I am now currently weighing the satisfaction I would get verses the negative neighborhood reaction that would likely result from my removing the front door and setting it on fire in the front yard as a means of claiming my territory.  Unfortunately I think the "nays" have it.