Home Renovation Part 14: Surprises

We encountered many surprises during the project. I listed the major ones below.

1. Once we started fixing known water damage in the bathrooms, we found much more water damage in the external walls. The bottom edge of the external walls had to be replaced, as well as whole sections of exterior siding.
   
2. The Corian people templated the bathroom vanity before it was completely installed. They planned for a 3/4" overhang of the Corian countertop in front of the drawers. The reason why the vanity was not full installed at the templating time was that the tile work was not complete in that bathroom. The vanity was later installed with a little spacer in the back, which eliminated the overhang. This is unfortunately hard to fix. You should never template any cabinet if it is not fully installed.
3. We ordered certain bullnose tiles, which should have been in stock. After we got the wrong items from the warehouse two times in a row, the salesperson visited the warehouse, where she found that the wrong items were placed on the shelf. We had to order the tiles from Europe, which should have added 6-8 weeks to the order. It was too late, so we did without them.
4. The stone yard manager probably forgot to work on our order after we picked the granite slabs and the templates were made. He verbally promised a certain delivery date. When that date passed, he claimed that we misunderstood him. His delay caused a cascade of other delays, including the backsplash tiles and installing the top kitchen cabinets.
5. We ordered custom kitchen cabinets from a medium-sized cabinet maker. This factory has sales people, but because we had a specific requirements for our order, so we dealt with the owner instead. Every change to the order or scheduling the installation took extra time, which could have been avoided by dealing with a sales person instead. The owner confessed that he is a good carpenter but not a good manager (his words).
6. The plumber installed the wrong shower valve in one of the bathrooms (a shower valve that he bought), instead of the shower valve that I ordered for that bathroom. The problem was that his shower valve required a round cutout, whereas my valve required an oblong cutout. The result was that the acrylic shower enclosure had a large hole above the shower valve. The plumber did not replace the shower enclosure, but instead patched the hole. Since it was late in the project, I agreed to this shortcut.
7. I paid with checks drawn on my money market account. When my account was frozen, I had to call the suppliers that got checks that bounced.
8. I ordered a refrigerator that I saw in the store, but I ordered a freezer based on its data sheet without seeing it first. The freezer was fine, except that its front door was curved instead of flat. I never knew that freezer doors could be curved. The curved door is hidden by the kitchen cabinets, so it is not a big deal. You should see every major item you order before placing the order.
   
9. We got a different border for one of the rooms then the one we ordered. It had the correct design but the wrong color. The catalog number in the order was different by one digit than the correct catalog number in the book. Fortunately, our architect was at the house just before the painter was about to hang the border. The paint store replaced the border promptly without any problem. Just another good reason to work with a local supplier and have someone check everything that is delivered to the house.
10. We got an incorrect tiles for the master bathroom floor. Fortunately, the job manager realized that the floor tiles do not match the walls and asked the architect. The tiles we got simply did not match the order. The tiles store replaced them without a problem.
    
11. The electrician run the wires of the new phone jacks to the phone company's wiring block in the electrical panel, but he did not connect the new phone jacks. I had to call Verizon on the day we moved to the house to connect the phones. Fortunately, the phone technician arrived the next business day. If your phone is being forwarded to a rented apartment, and your home phone does not work, you can ask your phone company to forward your home phone to your cell phone.
12. The new coax jack in the living room did not work when we moved in. Of all coax jacks, it was the only one that we actually needed to watch TV. The electrician routed the coax cable of the new jack to the electrical panel instead of to the coax splitter.
13. The painters did not know how to remove the LED light bulbs from the ceiling cans. They pulled them straight down instead of twisting then pulling. The result was that the spring retaining clips were permanently bent out of shape. I had to buy replacement bulbs at $92 a piece. Being a trailblazer is not cheap.
14. The plumber threw away the instructions for setting and maintaining the Hansgrohe shower valves and the special tool for removing the shower handle. Fortunately, he did not have the correct cartridge for the last shower valve, so I had an opportunity to save the last remaining manual and tool. He threw away the other two.
15. I ordered a nice-looking solid wood TV stand from the importer instead from a furniture shop. I thought that I was smart to take advantage of the monthly special $350 discount this way. The problem was that the importer offered only threshold delivery (deliver across the threshold of your home but do not carry it across any steps). The result was that I had to pay the painters who worked at my home to carry it inside. They removed a small package containing the TV stand's hardware and placed on a shelf in the garage and promptly forgot about it. The result was that I could not assemble the TV stand, so I had to call the importer. This was a major hassle. In retrospect, it would have been best to order it from a furniture shop and pay for "white glove" delivery to the ultimate room.
16. The kitchen counter was not perfectly square. We found out that the range was not completely straight when pushed all the way in. It is noticeable when you compared the distance of the range's back panel from the wall. The granite overhang on one side of the range was slightly larger than the other side. The granite people showed me that the kitchen wall was curved and not straight, so they had to do the best to accommodate this situation. Since this wall was torn down and rebuilt by the contractor, there is no excuse for building a wall that is not straight.
17. The kitchen countertop developed two cracks on both sides of the sink, which extend from the sink to the backsplash. There were the result of hanging the heavy sink below the countertop without additional support. The problem was solved by asking the cabinet people to add support below the sink (for a nominal charge) and asking the granite people to fill the cracks in the countertop (no charge). This problem should have been avoided at the kitchen design time. Always support a heavy sink from below in addition to the clips that hold it to the countertop above.
18. We used cheap Ikea office chairs with hard plastic wheels (not rubber wheels) in the dining room area and in the new office/sun room. These chairs made deep scratches in the office's hard oak floor, whereas they made only minor scratches on the existing hard oak floor in the dining room. Using these chairs was our mistake, but the office's floor should have been as hard as old dining room floor, and it was not. The contractor said that the hardwood today is softer than the hardwood 20 years ago. In any case he asked the flooring person to refinish the office floor free of charge. You should always use chairs with thick rubber feet or thick rubber wheels on wood floors. 
19. A positive surprise for a change: in the first really hot day of May 2009 the outside temperature was 110 Fahrenheit and the inside was a comfortable 70 Fahrenheit. Hurray to the central air condition people!

There are a few precautions you can take to avoid turning minor surprises to major ones:

• Always follow up promptly if something is not done by the date it was promised.
• If a subcontractor does not return your calls after you paid him half of money, it is a very bad sign. Ask your general contractor to intervene if it is a person he recommended. If you found the subcontractor by yourself, prepare for a lot of trouble.
• Before signing on any order containing catalog numbers, verify that the catalog number matches the sample you used to make the order. This is most applicable to wallpaper, borders, tiles, and carpet orders.
  
• Verify that you got the correct wallpaper, borders, tiles, and carpets before they are installed.