A Pothole on the Road to Recovery

I’ve been waiting for a good time to give an update on how our house is coming along and I thought that, tonight, the eve of firing our first contractor, might be a good time. For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, our home was “essentially destroyed by a fire” back in October. You see, Floyd took a two-year assignment over here in Ireland so we left our home in the Northwest. I think for some folks this would be a no-brainer, but there were two things that we struggled with in deciding whether or not to move over here. 1) was my job/career, which I was really engrossed in, and 2) our home. It’s an 1899 Victorian that we had put a lot of sweat and money into and, frankly, we were just way more attached to it than any sane people should be. I had bought it before I met Floyd and everybody thought I was crazy. It needed loads of work and it was in the “wrong” neighborhood. My first night in the house was marked by some dude running through my yard blazing a handgun and shooting at lord only knows what. Call it the welcome wagon if you will. When the cops came and laughed in my face for buying the place, I dug my heels in pretty good. Ever since then that house and I got pretty attached.

So, fast forward about 10 years and she’s gutted to the studs because some fucking toads that were renting the place couldn’t see fit to use an ashtray. Sometimes I think our home was just so pissed to have these toads living in her that she sacrificed her innards to see them leave. It just seems like something she’d do. She’s that kind of a gal. Uppity I suppose.

We hired two contractors when we were back in the NW. One is a specialist in disasters, fire, floods, wind storms, etc. An ambulance chaser to be sure, but we were in shock and were steered towards these folks because of their experience in dealing with fire (and saying all the right things to people that are in a state of shock). But they knew nothing of working with older homes so we got another company that would do all the finish work. This second company is well-respected in the area and we really liked their portfolio. Not to mention the fact that they’re just really nice people. So we had our team together, everybody agreed to play nice and get along, and we felt good enough to come back to Ireland.

So, if you’ll forgive me for stating the obvious...it’s really hard trying to rebuild your home when you’re on the other side of the planet. Especially when the ambulance chaser doesn’t see fit to call you back or return e-mails. Yea. That makes it a little bit harder. And then they’re ripping the shit out of the inside of your house, and you don’t know if they’re making the effort to salvage the 100-year old straight grain fir molding that you and your friends busted your asses trying to restore, or if their crew of illegal workers, that are undoubtedly underpaid, are deciding whether to pocket the door hardware that could go pretty far in supplementing their meager income. You think about these things in the middle of the night. Especially when nobody calls you back. Yea. It gets rough.

And then you try to share your frustrations and fears with folks and they just remind you of how fortunate you are that you get a new house at the end of the day (!). Well, let me be the first to tell you that burning your house up is NOT a good way to get a new house...especially if you never wanted a new house and especially if the thought of a new house kind of makes you itch. So, while I realize all of the ways in which Floyd and I are blessed, I think I’ll continue with my story of the blessed re-building of our house. Thankyouverymuch.

Thankfully we have a few friends in the area (like the Fire Chief and family) that are willing to check in on the homestead for us. Based on pictures taken through cracks in the boarded up windows and doors, it looks like things are progressing just fine. The charred and melted material seems to be decreasing and we can see studs. Progress. This is good. But, still, the updates are woefully few and far between from the folks that we’re paying and the ulcer-causing knots are growing.

In the meantime we’re getting excited about a few things. We decided to take the “opportunity” to make some changes. Knock out a wall, tear out an unused chimney, make a bigger kitchen, create more storage space, build a staircase that’s more suitable for little people and....drumroll please....putt in some solar!! Actually, we don’t know if we can afford the solar stuff but Floyd’s a big solar freak and he’s working on a system that would hopefully heat water for space heating (radiant floor heat) and our domestic hot water. Joy. Big joy. But I’m containing my exclamation points because we don’t know if it can happen yet. So if any of you have experience with solar power or radiant floor heat, give us a shout, we’d appreciate the opportunity to pick your brain. I really like the idea of walking the talk (the “sustainability” talk) and taking a 100-year old home and getting her geared-up for the next 100 years. This gives us joy.

But then there’s the ambulance chasers. Ugh. We’ve been waiting on an “engineers report” from them for over a month now and it just came in yesterday. Completely worthless. Like completely. Nothing redeemable at all. I don’t even think the few crayon drawings were of our house. And we waited over a month for this? We postponed all design work as well as delayed submitting the budget to insurance AND pretty much guaranteed that we won’t be able to move into our house when we move back to the NW....for this?! Whew. Now that’s some fine project management right there.

Thankfully our other contractors, the nice people, are willing to step in. Unfortunately, their employees are all paid livable wages (haha) so we don’t know if our insurance can afford them. But we’re going to try and make it work. You know all of those magical incantations and de-smokifications that the ambulance chasers claim that only they can perform? Turns out anybody can do it. The magical mystery ozone chamber (that can suck so much smoke it probably cures lung cancer)? Yea, you can buy one for like $300. The witchy “smoke-sealer” that they paint all remaining surfaces with, the one you thought might be made with the eyes of newts? Yea, it’s called primer.

Firing somebody is not something we take lightly. It’s serious stuff to mess with somebody’s bread and butter. And the guy we’re working with seems like a pretty nice guy. Family man and all that. But we can’t let our old gal get burned again, so it’s gotta be done. Besides, I see sunlight on the horizon...and the soothing of my pre-ulcerous knots...once we get him out of our lives.

So that’s where we’re at. Maybe once we get this icky stuff out of the way I can post about the wet dream/nightmare of getting/having to pick out an entire house worth of appliances, countertops, cupboards, flooring, hardware, sinks, baths, tile and fixtures in one week. Oh...and paint colors...for the whole house (jaysus, I’m starting to sweat-I wrote a post back in July '06 about what a color freak I am but I have no clue as to how to provide the link to it-go to my archives and check it out if you want to get a glimpse into crazy). I think you can see the whole wet dream/nightmare thing going on here.

If any of you have some remodeling stories to share, I’d love to hear ‘em. Or maybe you have a favorite range (we know what wzgirl’s is!-once again, I can't figure out how to provide a link to that one post of hers where she raves about her AGA), or a favorite faucet, or a fridge, or a light fixture, or a....you get the picture. We’re open. Oh, and blessed.