How to ask for a jack

In one of the many emails back and forth with my father about the new house, he reminded me of the story about the motorist late at night. He had gotten a flat tire on a country road and it was close to bedtime. He needed to borrow a jack to change the tire and saw a farmhouse nearby. As he headed towards the house he started worrying about disturbing the family at such a late hour and was anticipating the worst reaction from whomever was home. Just before reaching the house, the light went out inside and it looked like everyone was going to bed. The motorist felt even worse but pressed on and decided to knock on the front door anyways. By that point he had scripted the worst possible reaction, so that when the farmer calmly opened the door, the motorist blurted out, “JUST KEEP YOUR DAMNED OLD JACK!!!” My father's point was that if there's a lack of communication, you're prone to fear the worst possible outcome. The longer we didn't hear from our contractor and didn't know what the plan was, the more we were convinced we had made a horrible decision and this contractor had taken our money to spend it on hookers and blow. I left two voicemails yesterday with Bill (our contractor) and sent him an email last night. I called him again at 1:30 this afternoon and when I hadn't heard from him an hour later, Rich called the main office. Within 15 minutes we heard from the owner and everyone started feeling better.

I told Burt (the owner) that I don't want he or Bill to tell me what they think I want to hear, but just to tell me something. Amazingly enough, I got straight answers. They have two other jobs that have come up all of a sudden now and those folks are freaking out. One is a couple starting their own business and have been delayed for months before they could start construction and spending tons in rent to not be able to open. The other is a lady whose house was damaged in the tornadoes last month and has been living in a hotel waiting on a check from her insurance agency before they could start construction. Burt explained that this lady was cryin' on the phone and they were short-handed and he didn't want to make excuses but he just wanted me to know what was going on.

We can't reach Bill because he has a new cell phone and it's being a giant pain in the ass (I've seen this phone and it is way more complicated than it needs to be). Burt said that even he was having a hard time getting Bill on the phone but that Bill was a good guy and was just having a hard time right now. Bill also has a lady friend that's taking up more of his emotional energy right now, and I can empathize with how a new relationship can turn your world on its side. I had wondered when we first talked to Bill how he could have any social life if he worked so much and I think we just figured out he can't easily. Burt and I had a good talk and then Bill and I had a good talk and we're all supposed to talk again tomorrow. I told them both I didn't want them to rush to get something done, I just needed to stay in the loop.

I'm guardedly optimistic right now. We'll see if Bill or Burt can give us a call tomorrow and if we can have a good talk about the dormers and the things the framers are going to finish. We picked this company because Bill seemed like a straight-forward kind of guy. I have a lot more patience with folks who are trying to do the right thing and get overwhelmed than folks who are liars. Until I talked to them on the phone, I was ready to file complaints and read everyone the riot act. But now I'm willing to give them another chance and see how this turns out. I'd much rather hear that Bill is a bit overwhelmed but they plan on making things right than some random lie.

I told Rich that Bill was having some professional stress right now mixed with some personal issues with his lady friend. He started to frown until I reminded him how we both struggled to focus on work or a full night's sleep when he and I were first dating. He agreed, "I could see that, since I have a hard time thinking of anything else compared to you." The feeling is mutual, baby.

like birds building a nest

There's a commercial that I can't find anywhere that was a contractor telling a couple that they would come in and tear things up for a week or so and fly like the wind, but then they would drop off the face of the earth for weeks and the couple "shouldn't even *try* to call." Finally, they would come back and finish everything up and the couple would love it. The couple just sit there in shocked silence. The commercial was claiming that sometimes there's such a thing as being too honest. But that scenario is exactly what's happening to us right now.

We spent a week with things happening at a rushed pace and walls moving on a daily basis. But then the week ended and you can hear crickets chirping on our property. I wouldn't be so upset about this if the things they rushed through doing last week weren't so shoddy. This entire process is making me exhausted.

So while I would love to update you all on the house progress, it's pretty much at a standstill right now and our contractor isn't returning my calls. I'm trying to remain calm about the whole thing and not start yelling at our contractor. But I'm not above emailing him pictures of the shitty carpentry in our house. And I did leave him a voicemail saying that while they did nail lumber to our house, it was more like birds building a nest, one haphazard twig at a time.

hardwood versus carpeting?

All the floors upstairs and down in our new house have hardwood floors. We are trying to decide if we want to clean up those hardwood floors and use area rugs or put down new wall-to-wall carpeting (or some combination of the two).

The soon-to-be den will have some walls taken out of it any day now, so we'll need to either patch them with regular subfloor or matching hardwood. The upstairs bedrooms we have already decided to carpet and will just put subflooring up there to match heights where the dormers were widened.

So if the upstairs is carpeted, what are your thoughts on the downstairs? The office and the sewing room would be nice to not have thick carpet (which is not friendly to either rolling chairs or finding sewing needles). But then there's still the living room, dining room and den.

What are your preferences for flooring, and more importantly, why? We have five pets, one of which (Sarah) creates tumbleweeds of hair all over the house. Sarah also can't climb the stairs anymore and doesn't have the surest footing in the world, so we would definitely need lots of area rugs if we had hardwood floors downstairs.