“These are the times that try men’s souls.”
So wrote Thomas Paine in “The Crisis” back in late 1776. He was speaking of
events surrounding the revolution that was occurring against Great Britain.
But there are other things that can try men’s souls, such as building a new
house. Of course, that is not nearly as trying as facing a formidable opponent
in war, but trying to some extent nonetheless. As my wife would say, “It’s a
first world problem.” So true!
We signed our new house contract late in
October 2014. Construction was to start immediately. And indeed the lot was cleared
of excess dirt within a week. And it stayed that way for almost a month before the
footings were poured. It was disappointing to drive by every few days
anticipating some progress only to find the dirt that had been there for many
days.
Completion date was initially supposed to
be in May 2015. But based on the warnings we had been given by veterans of
house building, we knew that it would most likely be June. So, the footings
were poured and construction began. Things progressed in spurts. Sometimes
there seemed to be no activity for a week, then all of a sudden there would be
a flurry of activity. It was as if we had bears for workers. They’d come out
for a period of time and then go into hibernation. The difference is that bears
hibernate once a year. Our worker bears seemed to hibernate once a month.
Eventually spring arrived. We got to the
point where the underground electrical conduit was supposed to be buried in preparation
for the electrical department running power to the house. The day it was
supposed to be buried, the contractor was unable to make it to the house. That
afternoon it started raining and barely stopped for two weeks. No burying could
take place with the ground so wet. Finally things cleared up and the ground dried.
Anticipation was rampant. Nails were being bitten. The conduit was placed in the ground and
glued. However, the contractor wanted to let the glue dry good before covering
the conduit with dirt. Well, as you have probably guessed, it rained again that
afternoon delaying the burying another week or so. Finally, the conduit was
buried, and the electrical department was scheduled to come out. Well, guess
what? A storm came through town and knocked out power all around our area. The
electrical department then spent the next several days just getting people’s
power back on. Some newbie house waiting to have power connected for the first
time became a low priority. We totally understood. If the power at our old
house had been knocked out, we would have wanted it back on before having power
connected at the new house. Overall, about four weeks transpired from the time
power was supposed to be connected
and when it was actually connected.
When the subway tile was being applied to
our bathroom walls, the contractor was almost finished when he realized that
there was not enough of the bullnose trim to finish the job in the master bath.
He put an order in and then went off to work on another job less important than
ours. Well, less important to us. I guess he figured that it would take quite a
few days for the tile company to remove what we needed from the New York subway
system walls and ship them to us. Anyway, the tile arrived a few days before
the installer got his priorities straight and came back to work on the most
important house. Ah, but that was not to be. The bullnose tiles shipped to us
were not the right ones. They had apparently removed them from the wrong wall in
the New York subway system. And rather than just immediately shipping the right
tiles to us as we shipped back the wrong ones, they said they had to receive the
wrong stuff first. WHAT? Well, real long story long, we eventually received the
right tiles and they were installed.
Delays, delays. Always delays. There were a
number of more minor delays that occurred that I won’t bore you with. But
eventually construction came to completion…two months later than predicted. As
they say, “Better late than never.” Boy, that’s true!
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