Lions and tigers and two colors of trim, oh my!
We had a huge blow up with Guillermo today, just to draw out the saga of the painting even more. He called this morning because he was going to the paint store to buy the paint for the trim, since his crew was going to finish the primer today. We explained how the hallway and bathroom were going to have one color trim and the other rooms a different color -- and did he ever blow a gasket. We had to meet with him in person to walk through the trim, and then he asked for more money -- we got a 30 minute disposition on why it was a whole lot of extra work to paint trim on doors one color and then trim on the other side of the same door another color, and on and on...We tried to explain to him that he needed to set parameters at the beginning of this project (e.g. if you want more than 5 colors, it will cost extra, blah blah), since neither of us are professional painters and don't know what is hard and what isn't. 
This is now the 3rd time he's asked for more money in addition to the set fee that we negotiated with him at the beginning of this job -- I am at the end of my rope with him and in fact told him that our "plan b" was to get a new painter (which of course would be a total nightmare, but at that moment, it seemed like a lesser nightmare than having yet another negotiation with Guillermo).
Walt and I agreed that the root cause here is that the guy is just terrible at estimating jobs. One of the things he asked more money for was painting the existing kitchen cabinets (we're keeping the built-ins on the wall but then have to install new ones to hold the sink, countertops, etc.),
and it was because only after he started in on them did he realize the magnitude of the work (80 years of grease and paint layers). Of course he could have examined them more carefully when he first did the bid, but he was too busy talking to us to look through the details.
Anyway, after yet another round of negotiations, we landed on a price (which had better be the last one because by god I am not going through another plea for money with him) and timing. We are now having to push our move out date back another two weeks. Apparently two colors of trim takes several extra days to paint. ARGH! This paint job is going to take more than a month -- and I'd remind you that it's probably no more than 1000 sq ft, so we're not talking the Taj Mahal here.
I just had to call my landlord again and beg him to let me stay until the end of the month (and luckily he's very accomodating, since I already had to beg him once to let us extend to Aug 15); and of course I also have to call the mover, PG&E and every other group that was either showing up or turning off utilities on the 15th to change that date to the 31st. I am becoming a professional sycophant as a result of this project, constantly begging pardon for disrupting the dates I had orginally agreed to.
Devon had her 18 month checkup at the doctor today. I was a little apprehensive of it since I was picking her up from Elaine's right at the time they usually nap, but luckily she stayed away and wasn't frightfully cranky (until later, that is, since she was overly tired by the time she got to a nap and screamed like a banshee). She's in the 50th percentile for height but 75th for weight, which explains the nice little belly she's still sporting. All was well, though, and we got in and out of there in record time. She also didn't have the slew of vaccinations that I was expecting, although the doctor did recommend hepatitis A, which apparently is an "urban baby" vaccine -- transmitted by urine and feces, so it shows up occasionally in kids who go to daycare.
Speaking of daycare diseases, I was talking to my friend Kaaren at work a while ago, and she mentioned that her husband had gotten meningitis. I asked her how he got that and apparently it is a virus that runs rampant through daycares -- kids don't get it, but it's infectious for adults. How horrible is that? Ugh.
This is now the 3rd time he's asked for more money in addition to the set fee that we negotiated with him at the beginning of this job -- I am at the end of my rope with him and in fact told him that our "plan b" was to get a new painter (which of course would be a total nightmare, but at that moment, it seemed like a lesser nightmare than having yet another negotiation with Guillermo).
Walt and I agreed that the root cause here is that the guy is just terrible at estimating jobs. One of the things he asked more money for was painting the existing kitchen cabinets (we're keeping the built-ins on the wall but then have to install new ones to hold the sink, countertops, etc.),
and it was because only after he started in on them did he realize the magnitude of the work (80 years of grease and paint layers). Of course he could have examined them more carefully when he first did the bid, but he was too busy talking to us to look through the details.Anyway, after yet another round of negotiations, we landed on a price (which had better be the last one because by god I am not going through another plea for money with him) and timing. We are now having to push our move out date back another two weeks. Apparently two colors of trim takes several extra days to paint. ARGH! This paint job is going to take more than a month -- and I'd remind you that it's probably no more than 1000 sq ft, so we're not talking the Taj Mahal here.
I just had to call my landlord again and beg him to let me stay until the end of the month (and luckily he's very accomodating, since I already had to beg him once to let us extend to Aug 15); and of course I also have to call the mover, PG&E and every other group that was either showing up or turning off utilities on the 15th to change that date to the 31st. I am becoming a professional sycophant as a result of this project, constantly begging pardon for disrupting the dates I had orginally agreed to.
Devon had her 18 month checkup at the doctor today. I was a little apprehensive of it since I was picking her up from Elaine's right at the time they usually nap, but luckily she stayed away and wasn't frightfully cranky (until later, that is, since she was overly tired by the time she got to a nap and screamed like a banshee). She's in the 50th percentile for height but 75th for weight, which explains the nice little belly she's still sporting. All was well, though, and we got in and out of there in record time. She also didn't have the slew of vaccinations that I was expecting, although the doctor did recommend hepatitis A, which apparently is an "urban baby" vaccine -- transmitted by urine and feces, so it shows up occasionally in kids who go to daycare.
Speaking of daycare diseases, I was talking to my friend Kaaren at work a while ago, and she mentioned that her husband had gotten meningitis. I asked her how he got that and apparently it is a virus that runs rampant through daycares -- kids don't get it, but it's infectious for adults. How horrible is that? Ugh.
posted by Devon Szalva at
9:21 PM
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