Fun with Contractors

In my last post we were renovating an old millworkers house in to our new quilt shop.  We had our architectural drawings approved by the County, and a Building Inspector slapped a plastic sign by the front door that inspectors could sign when the inspections were done.  We were ready to actually start working on the building.


Since I had a lot of free time, I was the general contractor. You know the old saying "a man who defends himself in court has a fool for a client."  The same thing goes in contracting, especially when you've never done it before. We needed carpenters, electricians, plumbers, painters and a company to pave the parking lot.   Everything had to be timed just right.  Fortunately, I had our architect Ginger to help.  Her retainer included creating the renovation plan, getting it approved by the County and answering dumb questions from her client.  More on that in a future post. 



Judy and I interviewed three contractors for the carpentry work which would be the majority of the work.  Each one looked at the job with some skepticism.  One had a creative idea.  "I know 2 carpenters who will work for you on a hourly basis.  They'll officially work for me, and I'll pay their insurance and workers comp.   Then you can be flexible on how fast you want to spend your money."  Sounded like a plan.   We shook hands with the contractor, and 2 guys showed up at 7 am on the first day of renovations.  One was very fat with a small mustache and a bowler hat, and the other was skinny and spoke with British accent - just kidding!  Actually Jack and Jeff did an excellent job for us.  My only worry was that Jack felt he knew more than our architect and kept changing her plans.   I said "Hey Jack, are you sure the building inspectors are going to approve what you're doing without officially changing the plans?"  "Don't worry" he said.  "I've been building houses for 30 years and I know."  Jack was right.   A lot of the time his ideas were better than Ginger's.  And all of Jack's modifications were approved with no problem.  One other thing about Jack and Jeff.  Like a lot of skilled tradesman in our area, they were smokers, and even though the building was a mess and stunk of cat urine, it was a safety hazard for them to smoke in it.  So they took smoke breaks.  It seemed like every time they did, Judy's mother Virginia happened to show up.  She was constantly complaining to me that "They're not working.  They're sitting around smoking."  Despite Virginia's concerns work was progressing nicely.


The hiring of a plumbing contractor was easy, if expensive.  And then came our meeting with the electrical contractor.  A quilt shop uses A LOT of electricity.  We needed wiring for central air, lots of additional plugs, heavy duty display lighting, security lighting, multiple irons and sewing machines.  Roger walked around the building with Judy and I, and as Judy explained what we needed his smile got bigger and bigger and I was sweating more and more thinking about the cost.


Besides the electrical work, bigger expenses were coming.