Time-wise, they are both at the extremes. In reality, it should take somewhere in the middle. But I have more faith in contractor #2 for a more realistic/gracious timeline than in contractor #1 for his slash and burn, in and out timeline. Allowances: Be careful with the allowances! An allowance simply means that you haven't picked out specific materials, but he's including an "allowance" in the bid so that he can give you an overall $$$ for the job. The allowance should also just be a FINISHED MATERIAL allowance, not a FINISHED MATERIAL AND LABOR/INSTALLATION allowance. Meaning, you have a 100 sqft bathroom and a $500 allowance for bathroom flooring. That works out to $5 a sqft. That $5 should be for the cost of the tile only. The labor to install, the cost of the underlayment or menmbrane, etc, should be buried in the overall cost of the job. If you chose a tile that cost $7 a sqft, you went $2 a foot or $200 over your allowance. The contractor will bill you for the additional $200 at the end of the job. If you chose tile that is $4 a sqft, you should get a $100 credit at the end of the job because you can in under the allowance. Be careful with allowances. $500 for "finished electrical/lighting" might sound fine until you realize you need two lights in your shower, a ceiling light in the bathroom, four sconces in the walls, a vent fan in the shower as well as another over the tub, and fancy wall dimmer/timer switches to control them all. So try to break allowances down into specific things; flooring, countertops, wall coverings, lighting fixtures, vent fixtures, etc. And make sure that the shower glass allowance is JUST for the cost of the glass. Not the cost to install it too. If installation is included, then break out the labor cost in your head so when you get the final bill there are no surprises. And for things like tile or hardwood flooring, break those down into square foot pricing. It makes it much easier to shop that way. Your contractor might have an arrangement with a local supply house or two. You can shop there and "get his price" or you can shop on your own and buy things on your own. Just ask him if he has any additional mark-ups on things you get through him or things you get on your on. It's always better to ask these questions now rather than later. It's simply good business. Mongo

Clinresga, you have a weird idea about the purpose of advertising. Advertising is a way for providers of goods and services to inform the public about what they offer, thereby encouraging them to become customers. Some products (e.g. Spanx) require no advertising. For the rest, getting the word out to the people who are most likely to become customers is really important. The best ads are appealing and interesting and have elements that draw attention to themselves, while providing information about what they're selling. Poor ads are obtrusive rather than interesting, or leave the potential customer unaware of what was being offered. The worst ads annoy the customer enough that while the message--what is being offered and/or by whom--may be clear, they so annoying that those who see them actively avoid doing business with the advertiser. It is these worst ads that we complain about, and install ad-blockers to eliminate. They make the site unusable. For me, it was the full screen dancing baby. I don't even know what that was selling, but would certainly avoid it if I did. It is ridiculous for the webmasters to design new advertising products that are so annoying that they drive away the very eyeballs that they're supposed to be selling. NBC/iVillage/Gardenweb has known for many years that people are installing ad blockers to avoid seeing the annoying ads. They allow threads where we help each other to do so. They're not hurting from it. While it's true that we're not looking at their ads, it's also true that we probably don't pay attention to the regular ads anyway. They're probably using us as an experiment lab to see just how annoying their new advertising products are and testing how many complaints are generated. One thing you've left out of your business side thoughts is that we are providing free content for NBC/iVillage/Gardenweb. Kitchens Forum, especially, is very highly ranked in the search engines nowadays, and GW in general is, as well. There are a LOT of lurkers and click throughs who are the real targets of the advertising. Without the free content created by the members of the forums, there would be no eyeballs for the Powers That Be to sell. It's just a shame for all of the smaller sites that are trying to stay afloat with a little third party advertising, that we can't see their ads once we've blocked the really egregious ones. Instead of complaining to us that blocking ads is bad for your business, you should be complaining to NBC/iVillage/Gardenweb, and the other big sites full of obtrusively annoying ads, that they are the ones who are hurting your ability to support your site through advertising. With Ad-Block, there isn't even a link to accidentally click on with which to pay you.

Hi Ken - thanks for taking the time to add some comments to my post. The landscape company added about a 3 foot piece of corrugated draintile near the base of the tree. The end of the draintile sits into the ground and the other end sits at the top of the mulch. I'm assuming this is to help bring more air to the soil and help dry out some of the moisture. I live near Chicago by the way. I'm glad you think that the tree looks OK. Since the tree's been planted about a year ago I haven't really seen much growth. That said, I know blue spruces grow pretty slow. I also haven't seen the tree produce a hefty amount of the blue tips similar to the others. Hopefully it will start to fill out and grow.

Start over with someone of talent. This wholesale hatchet job on a pretty bad plan to start with does not make it into a good plan. First rule of internet plan shopping is if it has angles, the person who created it has no real design talent and is overcompensating for it by trying to “add interest”. Second Rule is if the width and length are similar measurements, the inside will be dark, and the roof will be a big fat ugly top hat. Third rule is that plans are not omnidirectional and will not fit all lots equally well. That means that wanting “morning sun” in your bedroom means you should design a house that you start with which way is east. Not try to cut and paste a bedroom behind an east facing garage. Houses should be designed to fit the property on which they will be placed. Not some generic ill fitting cardboard box plopped, and then try to cut and fold it into fitting a square peg in a round hole. Hire an architect.