Flatcoat--oh boy, I can relate to the "unbearably nosy"...we had the prior owner of our house (an absolute NIGHTMARE to deal with--we have had to threaten her with the police and court on a number of occasions to get her to abide by the contract) showed up just after we had finished our remodel, with a friend from out of town in tow, to "show her the house." She thought we hadn't yet moved in and was just going to make herself at home showing her friend the house she used to own. When she saw that we were actually now living in the house, she insisted that she needed a tour, while telling us every detail of her nasty divorce. I'm really afraid that she's going to show up one day and tell us that she has decided to hold a party at her old house to show all her friends our great remodel LOL!

Our remodeled kitchen is about 2 years old now, but one thing really sticks in my mind...

Our kitchen cabinet doors are very simple, modern looking, and were quite costly. After the installation, there were a couple of doors that didn't match the others either in color or grain. When this was pointed out to the KD, he said, with a perfectly straight face, "You needed to specify that you wanted them to match. That would cost extra."

Of course, he did end up fixing them.

Had a contractor tell me recently that I couldn't get rid of my soffit because the wall cabinets have to hang from it. Had no explanation for why so many houses have space above the wall cabs.

I can't think of any bone head things I've heard directly but I do know that half the city employees coming up and down my street have used the GC's portapotty. I'm appalled that these guys (mail man, garbage man, cable guy) would just walk up to a port-a-pot in someone's yard and use it. un real.

Using the GC's portapotty may be a little nervy...but look at the positive things about it...

1. Maybe these guys have a urinary problem and your GC's portapotty is a blessed relief to them.

2. You're helping to reduce greenhouse gases, as these guys didn't have to drive to the nearest McDomald's or gas station restroom.

3. They're looking at it as a break from using your trees.

buffettgirlI'm appalled that these guys (mail man, garbage man, cable guy) would just walk up to a port-a-pot in someone's yard and use it. un real.

THIS was a HUGE SHOCKER to me, too! I hosed that porta' potty out EVERY SINGLE DAY!

The next PEOPLE SHOCKER FOR ME TO BELIEVE WAS TO ACTUALLY BE STANDING RIGHT THERE WHEN SOMEONE WOULD pull up to the front of our house and DUMP THEIR GARBAGE IN OUR DUMPSTER or GO THROUGH THE GARBAGE BIN! I know I scared hell out of a few of them warning them that they were violating county law by illegal dumping in a private receptacle, trespassing, stealing, and could go to jail. When I educated them that we PAY by the POUND to have the garbage hauled off, I requested they RETRIEVE their trash.

One more surprise I just thought about: My DH and I drove over to the house we were building one Sunday late afternoon only to find three vehicles in our circular drive. Two couples were walking around the house and property. They were with a guy claiming to be in charge of advising us on 'how to build a home' and using our home as to the quality of work that they could expect his sub contractors to perform!

I asked this 'advisor GC' about OUR house and heard a line of BS that I almost believed! I asked him how well he knew the owners? Everything he said was a LIE. Then we asked for his business card, which he provided!

My DH and I burst out laughing. BRIEFLY. It seemed to be a genuine sham on these people. We told these two couples that they were trespassing AND THEY WERE IN THE COMPANY OF AN IMPOSTER AND LIAR.

WE INTRODUCED OURSELVES AS THE OWNERS and THREATENED this "GC" to leave. He was not even licensed in the state of Florida! We took another tour of our home with these couples showing them the house and clarifying things they were misinformed about and encouraged them to educate themselves on home building and telling them they could do this, too. They were just going to have to do the research and not trust anyone.

The shyster tour guide was telling these couples that he was actually advising US on how to build a house and was ultimately trying to get them to hire him as a GC advisor and he would share his sub contractor's names and discounts for 10% of the value of the home they built. Sweet deal if it were true.

We ended up encouraging both couples to build their own homes and we shared the names of our subs with them instead. Free. I also told them about GW and all of the great advice we learned so that they could save some money. One couple built themselves, the other completely changed their minds because they felt they were too gullible.

Remodeling and dealing with deadlines and decision making is not for the faint of heart....or stress free for the Type A's that seem to take on these projects! :)

my installers have been great so nothing to complain about. but when i was interviewing different contractors ... i asked one how long he thinks it would take from start to finish, asssuming cabinets, sink, faucet, all that, was on place. with straight face, he said: a week (!). hahaaaaa

From a national stone retailer, when asked about resined stones:

"Of course we resin every stone after installation. Our guys wipe it on and you will need to resin it every 6 months or so."

When I got the quote, it had my address (with incorrect numbers) and "unknown jobsite." Hmm. I bet the kitchen has the same address.

At least you guys have porta-potties on your property. We have none (I assume because we are building on 22 acres and the GC figured the guys could find a spot in the woods where no one would see them). I worry that I'll go wandering around the property at some inopportune moment and run into one of the framers in the woods, doing his business! eek!

I was so infuriated that someone would walk all the way onto my property, up by my house, uninivited, to use the porta potty I was paying for, for MY GC's subs to use, that I ran out back, got a 2x4, swung back and whacked the side of the shed about head level as hard as I could. I put the 2x4 back where I got it and calmly walked back into the house.

pecanpie, I'm avoiding work, but now that you have me laughing, I think I'll get back to finishing my doors.

One day when I was in our moldy, new-construction house that we don't live in, I spied a couple snooping around our back porch. I went outside (via a front door) wearing my Tyvek suit, keeping the hood up and my respirator on, walked around back, and asked them if I could be of assistance. For a moment you'd have thought they had seen someone from outer space. They babbled a bit and finally admitted that they were just curious. I told them that didn't give them the right to trespass and said if I caught them snooping again I would provide their license plate number to the local police. They beat a hasty retreat.

Pecanpie - you are now officially my hero.

No wait - chipshot is my official hero too ! That made me snort my morning coffeeup my nose.

Sheesh, after reading your dumpster/port-a-potty stories, my problems don't seem bad at all.

Our previous home was built on a large piece of land in the middle of an existing subdivision. Our property faced one street and extended all the way back to another street. Unknown to us, for years, the neighbor kids had used our property as a shortcut to the other street as they walked to school. Was I ever shocked the first time I watched the stream of kids walking through our backyard every morning. Oh, well. I figured that would all end when we got our fence put up. Wrong!! They climbed over our fence (twice) to get through. Because our fence was pretty tall, they would use a travel trailer we had parked in the side/back yard to climb up on and over the fence. It took years to finally shut them down. We got rid of most of them by asking nicely that they stop (explaining that they probably wouldn't like to look out their windows and see strangers walking through their yard and climbing over their fence), a few we were more stern with, but some were determined to "sneak" through. My guess is it finally ended when the older ones went on to another school.

At least these were kids---not adults, who definitely should know better.

OMG i'm dying at everyone's portapotty stories!!!! My sil is a long distance runner and she told me that her running buddies routinely will find any old portapotty and use it. She, being a classy broad, just finds a woddy area. So the joke was that she'd now have her running group come by our house. LOL.

Pecanpie!! That is a riot!!!!!

Sail-away, we had a similar issue when we moved here. My house had been empty for a few years and every kid in the neighborhood tramped through every day. That wasn't hard to stop - most did once they realized we were living in the house, but the worst was that EVERY neighbor around us had a dog and every dog used our yard for their business. They would just send their dogs out and the dogs would make a beeline to our yard. THAT took the city and numerous leash law tickets to stop. UGGH.

If I caught an unauthorized individual using the port-a-john at our house, I'd be inclined to confine said person to it until they provided their name and the telephone number of someone to come and collect them.

OH my.... i usually hang out over in the decorating forum but these are great.
I read most of these and i feel better about some of the "issues" we've had with building out house. (still isn't done)
I think my fav is sherilynn. Bet that guy felt like such a jerk!
The only thing i can think of off the top of my head... i really like thick, plushy carpt and i had a potential contractor tell me they don't make it any thicker than 45oz. -He doesn't care for the look of thick carpet. We ended up not going with him for various reasons but all in all i think he thought we were stupid.

you should have hit the porta potty with the 2x4, or had a couple of the subs rock it back and forth. ;)

We found a penny round tile online at Home Despot that would probably be perfect with our shower tile-the guy in the flooring department couldn't figure out what penny round tile is.

Gosh. I think I should have had a porta-potty. The humor of it would have helped with the stress.

You guys crack me up!!

remodelqueen, I DID hit the porta-potty. That's what I smacked with the board. He was in it.

Of course I didn't have the presence of mind to knock on the door afterward and inquire, "Everything come out OK, buddy?"

And this is why we do pretty much every single thing ourselves. Thanks for sharing stories, they're cracking me up.

I have nothing horribly amusing, but we did have someone dump an entire sofa into our dumpster when we were doing a reno a few years ago. And this was an area where you could put large items out on the curb once a week and the city would dispose of them.

OMG I love it!!!! You said shed, so I thought you took your anger out on a garden shed or something. I would have loved to see you in action!!! It is amazing how people have zero respect for your property when you are renovating.

We have let our front yard go to crap for various reasons, it's tough to keep it nice with all of the work we've been doing. We have decided that the front yard will be finished when we are done with everything else. Well, I had a guy come do work for me and he parked on the LAWN. We still have a sprinkler system-- the nerve! We paid him for work done, and have decided to do the remainder of the work we hired him for ourselves. The parking spot he made for himself isn't even what made us sick, it was not knowing when he was going to grace us with his presence. I could go on forever........

Oh I just thought of one - my electrician told me that in "none of the high end houses he does, nobody is putting in vent hoods anymore, especially ones that vent outside, EVERYONE uses microwaves over their stoves"

yeah, right buddy.

From day one, we had told our electrician that we wanted a ceiling fan in the new kitchen. We'd either get the Casablanca fan that we currently had (Stealth model) with the wood blades/satin nickel body, re-use the white one we had, or look for something else. He kept knocking that idea, "none of the high-end kitchens he does have them" and "are you really sure you want one?"

I knew I really did want one, so DH and I looked around, and decided that the wood blade Casablancas wouldn't go as well with our cabs as we'd thought. We saw the fan we ended up getting (Matthews Fans--Vent Bettina in polished chrome), and knew it would look great in our kitchen. Showed the brochure to our electrician on one of his visits during the demolition/wiring phase of the reno. He actually had the nerve to say, "oh, no wonder why you wanted to put in a ceiling fan, it's because you found a really cool fan."

Can you spell a-r-r-o-g-a-n-t?

Ya'll made me think of another, VERY true, 'nasty' building story.

We were building our house in 2004, during the summer that four hurricanes hit Florida in five weeks. We had torrential rains during that time. The ground was soft and rutted easily.

The main two guys that framed our house were brothers that had been in business with each other off and on over the years. Several years ago, the eldest brother went through some hard times personally, losing his framing business and marriage, then left for Tennessee, leaving his younger brother unemployed.

A few years later, he came back to town and ended up working for the younger brother's established faming business; and the guy that we hired to frame our home. It was a tough adjustment for all, especially for the elder, more experienced, talented brother. (Both men near 50.)

Anyway, the eldest, easy going brother got peeved with the taller-younger-Type A -brother-boss and was threatening to quit. DH was always riding shotgun and soothing tempers or trying to persuade each other's point to the other. Know that there was a LOT of tension building in 100 F degree heat, tremendous humidity, and a lot of down time building because of all of the rain.

ANYWAY, bosssy-younger brother was especially bit-chee one day and for some insane reason announced he had loose stools and had to go take a _rap. So, eldest-employee brother and other crew members waited until they thought he doing his 'movement' in the porta-potty and apparently gave him the ride of his life! (I so wish I had been there!)

When I showed up and witnessed the aftermath (and I do mean aftermath), I could not believe such a hideous site! Forget the porta potty! The crap that was all over EVERYTHING ELSE was UNBELIEVABLE!

When the eldest brother came out of the porta-potty a chase began! Eventually, the eldest-employee brother got into his truck and sped off. The boss-younger bro began chasing him in his truck around our house!

When I pulled up, I could not believe my eyes. Those two had RUTTED A MOAT about 18" deep around our large homee!! WATER INCLUDED!! My husband said that within about 20~30 minutes, they had circled the house about 30~40 times. I mean it was a MESS! I think had we not been sitting about 300' off the road, they might have drawn crowds. What a mud bath! Mud was everywhere. On the roof, inside all of the house, just EVERY WHERE!

There were 8 crew members, my husband, and three police officers there when I arrived. Everyone had mud on them! The police officers discussed it amongst themselves about what to do. The brothers eventually swore to fix the grounds and clean up the place. Everything had to be pressure washed inside and out because the walls were not up yet!

The forecast following this escapade was two days of torrential rains. They had to literally make a makeshift 'bridge' across at least an 8' wide moat to get into the house for a couple of weeks. Talk about one nasty mess!

Trying to find the good in it all, we learned all too well how much water could potentially run-off our 12:12 pitch roof for our 6,500+/- sf under-roof home. We did some major underground drainge system to move the water away from our house after that fiasco! I am so thankful now that it all happened and that our driveway had not been put in yet, because we really did need to run drains under the drive, too.

Oh, from then on after the car chase, they called the porta' potty "The Moat". :) And yes, these guys built a great house and got our land to drain great to the creek. (

Had our framer not had loose stools that day, I do believe that our yard work on our 1.5 acres would have cost us double. We got a great deal out of that mess.

OK you guys I am late to this but you have me laughing so hard. There is a reason why I am called "trailrunner"....long distance in the woods is a lot cleaner than most of those old porta potties LOL !

Years ago at our other house we decided to put in new kitchen cabs. We had had the old oak ones painted but after several years that was chipping and we wanted new ones. We went to Lowes and they came out and measured and wrote all of it up and placed the order. We waited and waited and no call to tell us the order had arrived. So we ,DH and I, go out to the Lowes and we see the guy that had helped us sitting there at his desk. I tell him my name and ask him what has happened to our cab order. He opens his file drawer and starts leafing through the files. He goes front to back and then back to front. Then he asks me to spell our name ..again. I do and he leafs some more....then he looks up and asks," are you sure that is your name?". Well I nearly wet my pants ! My DH was trying to hold me up as I sank slowly to the floor laughing uncontrollably. I finally got control, sort of, and looked at DH and said," uhmmm honey is that the right name?". Then it was off into gales of laughter again. We still tell that story and laugh about it.

Our GC that we just used also said to me" well you know I'm not used to having a woman micro manage while I am working". My feelings were so hurt so I said fine I am outta here. I went upstairs and thought " to hell with them all". It wasn't 30 minutes til I hear him calling me to ask how something was supposed to be done...something that we had talked about a dozen times and I had given him a written list that he had requested and lost !! I guess this belongs on the other thread about men and instr. Boy do I have a bunch of stories about that....but I won't. c

oh trailrunner, you're going to open a can of worms. LOL.
heheehee...

sherilynn, and I thought my life sometimes resembled a sitcom. I'm glad you're able to laugh at all of it.

buffettgirl...just pass the hot sauce.....I can take it ! ;)

rofl....hot sauce passing...

My kitchen is DIY, but initially I didn't think I could match the texture on the ceiling when we removed the old sofit. I called every contractor within 50 miles and nobody wanted the job - too small. So, I started calling local "handy-men." The last straw was a business named "Do-All Drywall. No job too small" Sounds promising, doesn't it? It went something like this:

DA: Do-All. What can we do for you?

Me: I'm looking for someone to match texture on part of my kitchen ceiling.

DA: Well, I'm not very good at matching existing texture, unless its a fairly heavy texture.

Me: Well it is a heavy texture. When can you come take a look?

DA: Well, how much patch are we talking about?

Me: About 40 sq. ft.

DA: Oh. That's not much. You know, you would be better of re-texturing the whole ceiling. It's really hard to match texture and make it look right.

Me: You could be right. The whole ceiling is about 300 sq-ft. How much would it cost to do that?

DA: Well, that's still a pretty small job, smaller than we do, and we really don't do ceiling work, but I guess I could at least take a look. Where do you live?

Me: 4 miles south of town.

DA: Oh-oh. Don't work outside the city limits.

Me: (Okay, rural area, everything is outside the city limits) So, you only work in town?

DA: Yes. Don't have a car.

Me: So how do you transport drywall?

DA: Don't do drywall.

Me: And you don't do ceilings?

DA: That's right.

Me: And you don't do patchwork.

DA: No.

Me: But, the name of your business is "Do-all Drywall"

DA: Yep.

Me: No job too small. That's nice. It rhymes.

DA: Yeah, my wife helped me with the name.

Me: Does your wife do drywall?

DA: No. Why?

Me: Never mind.

Admittedly, I should have hung up early on in this conversation, but it was about my hundredth call and I was tired and cranky. We laugh about it now.

ROFL....what on earth DID he do?? heehhe..

OK ladies this has GOT to stop my stomach hurts form laughing and I have to eat lunch. The bright side is I won't have to do abs at the gym since I have had such a great "belly laugh " workout ! Caroline

Thank you so much for the laughs! I love these stories!
Red

Would it still have been funny if that was a woman from DA? You women are all so gender-biased!!!!

roflmFAo!!!!!!!!!!!!

trailrunner, if you laugh so hard and pee your pants please do not think you can use my portapotty.

remodelqueen - yeah, if it had been a women some guy would have remarked that "do-all" probably had nothing to do with the drywall.

LMAO! !!!

OK I think I need Tequila to go with those worms.....C

OMG Too funny! Sherylin - love the moat story! I don't have a funny kitchen story but do have one good comment from a car salesman who trying to sell us a car pointed to the headlights and stated "These headlights are made with technology".

We still use that line on occasion.

Ok, the garbage man used my portapotty AGAIN this morning.

i'm convinced he's got a bladder issue. Or he's just like my little brother was as a kid - had to check out every bathroom everywhere. Wait, he still does that.

We have a DIY kitchen remodel. We hired the granite out. My husband welded supports & corbels for the long 15' kitchen island, one of the installers crew comented on how great a job he had done. I said yes, we do a lot of welding projects, like that wrought iron bed, I pointed down the hallway where you could see the scrolling leaves of the headboard and footboard through the master bedrooms french doors. That guy took two days to complete the installation of the granite and "argued" for two days that we did NOT make that bed. He was serious, it was very uncomfortable and insulting to be called a lier. He also brought his BIG dog with him and let it run loose,chasing deer & pooping in the yard. I advised that we had a leash law here and he said not to worry it was his dog I wouldn't get in trouble for it. I called and complained to the owner and the second day he didn't bring it. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!

So sorry to the orginal poster for an hijacking. But ladies and gents, watching a hideous free movie tonight on 'on demand', my DH and I decided (as I still have doors to finish in my kitchen), that if anyone can suffer through "Tammy and the T Rex", a ridiculously STUPID -4star movie, that they could handle a kitchen remodel. Now, if any of you go rent that movie and actually finish it, you MUST email me! Why? Because there is a scene or two in the movie that you will wish you could 'do' to either yourself or your subs to communicate. And 'no', it has nothing to do with sex. :)

Here is a link that might be useful: Looked it up for you! They give it a 3.9 out of 10 rating. They lie though!

Well, these were during estimates and bids,but still:

* the contractor who nodded and understood when I said we had three layers of previous construction to rip out, but then inisted he would build the addition to match it and GO OVER THE PREVIOUS CONSTRUCTION WITH DRYWALL TO AVOID RIPPING OUT ANYTHING!

*the contractor who winked and "tounge-clicked" at me when I said I wanted soapstone and said "If you will spend that...I will get your husband to buy you granite..."

*the contractor who contradicted every decision I made, and said "you should ask your husband" even though when we did the walk-through MY HUSBAND WAS THERE WITH ME!

I bought my gas stove online & it arrived on a pallet & set in the new kitchen. Finally everything was ready for installation & I called an authorized appliance repair dealer to hook it up & make any necessary adjustments to keep the warranty intact. I told them it weighed over 400 lbs & at least 2 men would be needed. Of course they didn't listen & sent 1 little old man who said "Oh, I think I can push it off the pallet by myself." I told him "I'm sure you can but if you damage it, you have to buy me another. Please write a check to me for the price of a new one to hold as a deposit." The look on his face was priceless when he heard the amount! A phone call was made & within 1/2 hr, a strong, young man showed up & everything went smoothly.

OK, I have a new one ...

I met with my builder yesterday to discuss (among other things) paint colours for interior painting to be done this week. Let me preface this by saying that he is a lovely older gentleman who is very reasonably priced and a real craftsman who clearly takes great pride in both his design and construction skills. We have worked through several design challenges together, sometimes he has the cool idea and sometimes I have the cool idea that solves the problem. It is really nice that he respects my input and gives me credit for coming up with good ideas.

Yesterday when we solved another problem around paint colours, he blurted out "gee flatcoat, I wish you were WEALTHY ! Then we could do this again on more older homes !"

Tee hee. I'll take it as a compliment :-)

OK, here's a possibility. Go to the local sign or photocopy shop and have them print, in big, bold, plain(for stupids) writing, "There is a hidden surveillance camera" or omit the surv part if you live in an area with real, real stupids, "which is recording every move(ment)"!!!!OMG, my stomach really hurts. "So, if you belong here, stay and do your duty"(!!!!ha, nah, don't say doody, unless you think it clearly applies to your locale. "Joggers, go at home or go ahead 1/4 mile, but not here"(I'm a mom of a marathoner, but a considerate marathoner) or, "If you can't hold it, go home! This ain't your home!" Plaster these signs INSIDE and outside the porta..
OOOOH, I have a great idea. Instead of 'violaters will be prosecuted... something like, violaters will be given a free, disposable, mop, plastic gloves, strong trash bags and YOU will be responsible for cleaning up your mess. Who defines what is a 'mess'? Your co-workers. If they don't think it's a mess, then they can help you clean it up. If the consensus agrees that it IS a mess, then the consensus (colleagues) can video your clean up activities!!!!This is so much fun!
Pecanpie, I spit out my champagne(cheap 9.5% low carb) while reading your post!
It was downhill from there......Breathing is difficult.
This is a 'save for posterity'(don't go there) thread. Time capsule worthy. Love it Bev I will breathe normally soon.
Ok, I can't resist. We have a beach cottage where, (I wish
I had written this line...no, I'm not a snob, but) the handymen have more tattoos(sp) than teeth.

two other sign ideas:
Trespissers will be shot on site.
If you void where prohibited, you will be prosecuted.
Casey

bump