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home project

Kitchen Remodel: The Abusive Relationship

January 17, 2019 by Elizabeth Drake

I have not talked much about my kitchen remodel. Not here on the blog, not to family, not to friends.

What started out as the most exciting thing, turned into a disaster. An expensive disaster. One that has cost more than either of our cars.

KitchenRemodel

If you remember, our first contractor disappeared. But, at least he had the grace to disappear without stealing our money or causing us lasting emotional harm.

I can’t say that about the second.

Yes, he showed up. But, after only a few days, we quickly learned what’s like to live with an abusive relationship. To constantly be on pins-and-needles as you wait for what sets him off next.

But you have to be so careful. This person has access to your house, your home, and you have signed a contract to trust them with the single most important room in your home.

So, when he tells you over and over again how much he hates your cabinets, how difficult they are (cabinets he specifically quoted a certain dollar amount over and above because they were difficult – so you’re paying for them), you listen, apologize, and tell him over and over you can’t return them as they were custom ordered.

When he tells you your kitchen designer doesn’t know how to design a kitchen, you plaster on a smile, nod, and promise you’ll work with the contractor along with the designer on the next job.

When he damages a door on your very expensive cabinet, but demands you go get the replacement and he’ll pay for it, you do whatever you must to get the door.

CycleofAbuse
Cycle of Abuse by Lenore E. Walker. We lived with this for over three months.

It’s a never ending cycle, and there is always something else he’s angry about and takes it out on you, the one paying him. But he has access to your house, so you shut up and take it. There is never a moment of peace, because even when he isn’t angry, you’re waiting for the next time he is.

Still, through it all, when you get home from work, you see a kitchen forming in the winter darkness. You sneak in with flashlights, as all of your lights were torn out when the kitchen was gutted, so happy for any progress.

Yes, the contractor told you 4-6 weeks. By the time it’s “done”, it’ll be over 14 weeks. He only works 2 hours a day, by the way, from 9am to 11am. He has other jobs, you know. He also doesn’t text or like phone calls. So if you want to talk to him, or he needs to talk to you, either you or your spouse have to coordinate to go in late to work so you can meet with him at 9am.

But progress is happening.

Then, you finally get electricity two weeks before Christmas.

And see your kitchen.

And see this:

10-C5
11-A2
23-D6
23-D6
11-A2
10-C5

You nudge the kick plates on your new counters, and they fall off. So you investigate, and you realize none are attached properly.

06-A6
06-A3

 

The more you look, the more you find. It takes 121 pictures to document it all.

Sucking in a breath, you stare at the second most expensive thing you’ve ever bought in your life and fight back the tears. It looks like you and your husband did it, not a professional you paid more to do it than you spent on your first new car.

You are mortified. You don’t want to step foot in the kitchen and see all the mistakes. You’re losing even more sleep as you now have to confront the abuser in the relationship, but this is your kitchen.

So you and your spouse go into work late again a few days before the Christmas holiday to talk to him about it.

He says he’ll fix it.

Christmas comes and goes.

It’s the new year. Still not fixed.

It’s still not done (the pictures taken above were taken after his “last day”), even though he says his last day is Thursday.

You discuss with the contractor doing a final walk-through on Friday after he’s “done”, and you and your spouse arrange to take off of work on Friday to go through the three page outstanding items list of issues you’ve found.

When you get home on Thursday, he’s left his final bill on the counter along with your garage door opener and a note saying, “Thanks for the work.”

You wonder if that means he’s not coming on Friday. Your fear is confirmed when he texts you (so he can text!) saying he won’t be there, he’s starting on another job on Friday. Then follows with the threat that if you don’t pay him, he’ll put a lien on your house.

Because anyone that does good work follows their bill with a threat about payment on the same day they deliver the bill. Yes, that was sarcasm.

Interestingly enough, if he’d have done a good job, I’d have been overjoyed to pay him and have my new kitchen.

I’d also have told the three people I know who are thinking about doing their kitchen all about him. Oh, I’ll still them all about him…

The good news: the abusive relationship is over.

I have notified him he has two weeks to remedy everything on the list and provided him with detailed pictures of the issues. If he doesn’t fix them by the date listed, I notified he will be in breach of contract and I will find another contractor to finish the job and deduct it from his final payment.

I am forced, by law, to give him the right to remedy. But, he will no longer be allowed in my home on his terms. He will be forced to give me the days and hours during which he will remedy, and I have to agree to them. No more 9am to 11am until he “gets it done”. My husband and I will both be here while he is so there is no “he said, she said” nonsense.

I don’t know if he’ll show. I don’t know what he’ll say when he receives the certified letter warning him about being in breech of contract.

He can, of course, try to put a lien on our house. I’ve researched it a bit, but he never gave us notice of his right to file a lien in the original contract or within 10 days subsequent to starting work. The law in my state says he must, but it’s doubtful that will protect us overmuch.

I hope it doesn’t get to legal action, but it might. Still, I am not sure how the courts could find this complete. I have freaking holes in my window and floors. My kick plates fall off. My trim is cracked, or not stained, or not attached to the wall. It goes on and on.

But, you never know, and it would be an additional expense. I haven’t yet researched if I can make him pay my legal fees if he loses.

I bought him and each of his crew a case of beer for Christmas, but that relationship is over.

I am still eating poorly and losing sleep because I don’t like confrontation or the unknown, but I will not be bullied anymore.

The cycle of abuse ends now.

Filed Under: Home Update Tagged With: abusive relationship, cabinets, contractor, disaster, emotional harm, Home Improvement, home project, Home Renovation, Kitchen, remodel

I Made a Mistake.

August 28, 2018 by Elizabeth Drake

It’s called a kitchen remodel.

If I could go back to April and tell myself what I know now so I would avoid this additional stress. So I’d never start this project.

We hired a designer thinking that would help. And while it has, it’s still stressful. Very stressful.

First, our budget is completely blown. At this point, we are literally double what we’d planned. And construction hasn’t yet started. Yes, I did some research ahead of time. You know me. I even made a detailed list of what I thought needed doing and the cost of each. I thought I was estimating high. I was so wrong. So very wrong.

budgetblown.png

Second, they lost six of our cabinets. SIX. How do you lose six cabinets?!? It appears as if an entire pallet walked out of the warehouse. They are still searching for it. We’re considering putting up wanted ads.

Third, I was wrong about the start date. I thought we were setting it after the cabinets arrived… Which led to a frantic rush to get the rest of the materials purchased.

None of which are coming in on time.

Agggggh!

perfectlycalm

Why yes, I am a little stressed.

But I’m still writing.

Filed Under: Stress Tagged With: Home Improvement, home project, Home Renovation, Kitchen, Stress, Stress kills creativity, Stressed

5 Reasons Why Things Are Stressful and Crazy

July 31, 2018 by Elizabeth Drake

I am beside myself these days, and it’s killing my creativity. Here are five stressors I am trying to control.

  1. Got My Edits Back

I am still new to working with freelance editors. I have in my mind what I think will happen, but so far, it has not been the case. I got the edits back on Seducing the Ice Queen. The editor made some good points, though I wish she would’ve also provided a path to fixing the issues she identified. Simply telling me something is broken is not the same as using experience to give me a nudge into what it would take to fix it. I could also tell she was not as experienced with the romance genre as I would have liked.

At first, the comments were crushing, and I put the novel away for a week. I’ve pondered them a bit more, thinking about some of the areas where she found issue. While I’m not going to change my purple prose, there are some things I can do to make the work better. I doubt I will use this editor again as I think finding a true romance editor would be the best way for me to learn and improve my writing.

editing
Feels like it most days.

 

2. Girls’ Rooms

They are done! I took us a while, especially the last little bits like getting black out blinds made and installed, but their rooms look terrific. Now, to keep them that way.

 

3. House Move

We had talked about moving to a larger home, then decided against it. Not only is a smaller mortgage and lower taxes a nice thing (our property taxes as a % of value of our home are some of the highest in the country), but we quickly discovered that finding a home in the school districts we wanted with trees and a bit of a yard was all but impossible. After seeing what was out there, and the price tags attached, we decided to stay in our current house.

MovingSucks
Maybe not that drastic…

 

4. Fitting Comfortably Into Our House

I know, right? Such troubles, but real enough for us. It’s amazing how much stuff you collect living in the same place for over a decade. Longest time I’ve lived in one place.

So once we decided to stay in our house, we committed to “fitting” into this house. We are going through closets, desks, dressers, the basement, etc. and attempting to do a hard purge. My question to myself and my spouse is, “Would we have paid to move it?”. If the answer is no, it goes in the Goodwill pile. We’ve been very good supporters of Goodwill these days.

 

5. Kitchen Remodel

*ducks*

Yes, you’d think the chaos of fixing up the girls’ rooms would’ve cured me, but I’ve hated out kitchen since we moved into the house. We did a partial remodel 12 years ago, and the company that did it did an awful job. So bad that tile flooring that should last 50 years is already pulling up. Yeah. Bad. That and our cabinets are vintage 1970s. They are not in great shape, and the blind corners make half of the cabinet space unusable. We’ve hired a designer who has put together a lovely plan. Now, we interview contractors… Wish me luck!!

KitchenRemodel

 

Filed Under: Stress Tagged With: clean house, cleaning, edit, editing, Home Improvement, home project, Home Renovation, Kitchen, Move, moving, Stress, Stress kills creativity

4 Reasons Why My WIP Isn’t Done

June 14, 2018 by Elizabeth Drake

I was supposed to have the first draft of my current WIP with Sir Gabriel done last week. It isn’t.

Why, you ask?

4 Reasons Why My WIP Isn’t Done

 

1. Technical Issues

I updated my computer to the latest update in Windows 10. At that point, all bets were off. When I tried to open the Word App, the computer decided to type 4 repeatedly so I couldn’t access any apps. Then, the cursor decided to move backwards one letter at a time. Good times.

Windows10
Real footage.

How did I solve it? I still don’t know. Which means if it comes back, I don’t know how to fix it.

 

2. We Decided Child 1’s Room Looked So Great, Let’s Tackle Child 2’s!

I wish I was joking. We have taken out all of the furniture and are painting the trim. We bought the paint for the walls today.  Seriously, I don’t know what’s wrong with us.

 

3. Dance Recital

No, I did not take up dance. But let me tell you how much time a dance recital your child is in consumes. You must take them in for pictures and final costume touch-ups. Then comes dress rehearsal, wherein you will spend 45 minutes in the car, after leaving work early, to pick them up and cart them two towns over to the auditorium at which they’ll perform. Then, you get to spend another 45 minutes in the car going home. All for them to have 5 minutes on stage.

This does not include attending the recital itself. It was over 4 hours last year. Enough parents fussed that they added another show and reduced the run time to 3 hours. Yeah. 3 hours. My kid’s dance was 2 minutes and 15 seconds.

dance1
All the dads.

3. Planning for Vacation

We’re taking a family vacation. That means I have to get done all of the work I would during the time I’m taking off before I leave. Because that’s what vacation means, right?

 

4. New Video Game

It’s sad to admit, but we got a new video game. It’s really just hack and slash, but we’re playing it as a family and having fun. It’s hard to be the odd-one-out when the whole family is cheering and playing.

 

Yes, I am serious about publishing that book in September. And yes, I am serious about 3 books next year. Just a little more paint on the wall. Or another round of Hyrule Warriors. Promise!

Filed Under: Writing Tagged With: dance recital, Family Vacation, Home Improvement, home project, Home Renovation, Vacation, video games, Windows 10, WIP

Update or 4 Reasons Home Improvement Projects Suck

June 12, 2018 by Elizabeth Drake

So, as you may have heard, we’ve been working on some home projects.

It’s not been going as planned. Here’s why.

childrens-for-girls-3368014_1280
What you think it’s going to look like…

 

 

Weekend #1

Took almost everything out of my daughter’s room. Feel sorry for my other daughter whose room was housing the first child’s stuff.

 

Weekend #2 & 3:

We painted the trim white. We then painted the walls misty lavender, all according to plan. I was pretty excited at this point, thinking things were going pretty well.

 

Weekend #4

Snag 1: We had to paint the ceiling to get it to not look awful against the walls.

Weekend #5

Snag 2: The closet organizer we ordered arrived two weeks late. *deep breath* That’s okay, we were already a week behind because of the ceiling. Yes, both kids’ rooms are a complete mess, so bad that the 3 year-old is complaining about how messy her room is, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

toys-457809_640
Kinda like this.

 

Weekend #6

Snag 3: That light turned out to be a train. We thought we were putting the closet organizer together this weekend. The directions were terrible, and I mean terrible, and this is from people who’ve whizzed through putting together IKEA furniture for 15 years. My husband has put together everything from basic bookshelves to a trundle daybed with drawers. He’s so good at it, friends ask for his help. He enjoys doing it. It’s like Legos for adults for him.

But the directions on this were so bad he had to consult YouTube. Repeatedly. The directions were so bad he swore the manufacturers of the organizer had never once put together furniture before going into business selling it. For example, none of the parts were labeled, either with part numbers or a corresponding A, B C. We had to figure out what they were used for by counting them. There was a single diagram. It was bad.

Then, we discovered there were more parts than there should have been, but many of them were the right parts. We had 4 drawers for a 3 drawer organizer. But one of the drawers was missing all of the hardware in the box and the drawer front. That just so happened to be the first box we opened.

We had four more floating shelves than we should have had.

We had four LESS fixed shelves than we should had. Meaning, the entire unit couldn’t be assembled.

After lots of pictures to the manufacturer, they agreed to send us the missing four shelves.

So, another week without a closet organizer, and all of the older daughter’s stuff in the younger daughter’s room.

IKEA_Furniture
My husband, every time. Which is why this is so frustrating!

 

Weekend #7

We got the proper shelves!

Snag 4 – Except, we don’t have enough screws. The directions said 28 screws. We counted. We had 29. All good, right? Except, there are 9 fixed shelves and each needs 4 screws. So there should have been 36 screws. We went to Home Depot, Menards, and Ace. A very helpful associate at Home Depot spent almost an hour trying to find something that would work, but the screws are custom for this project, and without the right size and shape screw head, the fixed shelves won’t snap into place. So, I’ve requested the extra screws.

We got the shelves we could into place and started moving some stuff back into the oldest child’s room while we wait for the screws,

 

I’m never buying self-assembled stuff from anyone but Ikea again. They know how to do self-assembled furniture.

How about you? Ever have a home project not go as planned? Ever buy self-assembled furniture missing half the pieces? Any other stories that might make me feel better?

Filed Under: Home Update, Uncategorized Tagged With: Home Improvement, home project, Home Renovation, Not going as planned, Snag, Weekend

Home Renovation: Does Lavender Coordinate With Pink?

May 24, 2018 by Elizabeth Drake

We finished painting my daughter’s room a soft lavender. Misty Lavender to be precise. Who thinks up these names? Maybe it’s a side job for romance writers.

paintcolors
Misty Lavender pairs with Erotic Indigo? Ravishing Red?

But I digress.

It took a single coat of paint plus some touch-ups. Between my husband and me, we painted the room on Saturday and did the touch ups Sunday morning. My daughter slept in the living room on a carpet sleepover Saturday night as she didn’t like the smell. I barely noticed the smell, and I have a hyper-sensitive nose, but I figured she wanted the carpet sleep-over we’d promised. She was back in her room on Sunday.

We were feeling pretty good about our skills and the room. The pale lavender looks lovely next to the Silky White trim.

But I did notice the ceiling looked out of place.

According to HGTV, it’s ideal to pain the ceiling a lighter shade than the walls so that the ceiling looks higher, but it doesn’t have such an abrupt transition from the walls. So, we did that.

ceilingcat
A good reason to paint the ceiling a different color than your cat!

We figured this wouldn’t be a huge issue as we’d painted the ceiling a light purple to go with the previous My Little Pony Twilight Sparkle purple room that she’d had.

Except, it didn’t look right, and I didn’t know why.

twilightsparkle
And a chunk of my paycheck because my daughter loved her for years.

When my sister came over, we showed her my daughter’s room. After she said it looked nice, her very next words were, “You’re going to paint the ceiling, right?”

Well, um, why do you ask?

She gives me “the look” I’ve gotten for many years when my complete lack of color knowledge peeks through. She then explains that the color on the ceiling has red undertones and the colors on the wall have blue undertones.

I look at her. “So that means blue and red don’t go together? Even if they’re on our flag?”

She was kind enough not to roll her eyes at me. Well, at least while I was watching. She explained they didn’t go together and that’s why your attention is instantly drawn to the ceiling.

So we need to paint it.

Home projects never go as I expect.

How about you? Ever have any painting mishaps? Ever end up with colors that clashed? Why? Did you fix them?

Filed Under: Home Update, Uncategorized Tagged With: HGTV, home project, Home Renovation, paint, Romance Writer, sleep

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