I feel for you. Good luck with the resolution of your dispute. We bought a spec house several years ago that had just started construction and worked with the seller/builder to complete and buy the house. That was our first foray into home building. It was a complete nightmare. Unbeknownst to us, the seller was using an unlicensed contractor who cut a lot of corners. We were moving from thousands of miles away and were completely unaware of several major deficiencies until we moved in. It took us a lawsuit and over 2 years to get all the issues fixed, and during those 2 years we felt like we were living in the middle of a construction site bc he'd come and start projects and leave them uncompleted literally for months. One time, he tore out our entire shower one afternoon and didn't return for 3 months to put it back together, which he was able to do in 1 day. It was a nightmare. I guess the good thing was it was a learning experience for us. It didn't scare us away from homebuilding, but rather it made us feel more empowered bc we had a better idea of how to do things right. Now, we are onto our 3d and final build, and still we have little issues come up inevitably. They are frustrating but we are patient bc we know that they will get resolved based on the contract and our meticulous record keeping. It sounds like you have those things in your favor as well. Anyway, when issues do come up, what surprises me is the automatic defensiveness and knee jerk reaction to disclaim responsibility. It pains me to have to school people, and I wonder why those that work on the house don't realize that we'd all reach our end goal much more happily if they completely owned up for those things that they are responsible for without complaining about it. It also kills me how they make you prove up the clearly wrong things they did--like you did with your stairs. It has your running around gathering a ridiculous amount of evidence for a simple point. Anyway, good luck with everything. Dealing with a dispute over your home is no fun.

I kind of spoke on behalf on the contractor, now let me voice the other side. Many painters aren't good business people for many reasons one of which is not articulating very well what they do. An unexpected skill in my job is translator. I translate to the painter what the homeowner is "really saying", I translate to the homeowner what the painter is "really doing". Many painters quote by "feel". They just know how much all things paint stuff should cost. Done it long enough they know how long it's going to take, how much paint, difficulty i.e. moving and protecting furnishings, setting up ladders & scaffolds, etc. Itemizing all that with prices can be tough for someone who doesn't relish articulating the finer details of what they do to begin with. And you do have a point that I wholeheartedly agree with, many of them just assume that we all see what they see in terms of scope of work. I know I most certainly did not. Took me a while to understand all the layers and how they contribute to the bottom line. $50 - $150 can be attributed to region, what's considered "standard" for a specific market. East coast costs compared to on-the-border costs where I am in the southwest almost always differ greatly. Second biggest factor in determining just how much a bunch o'color is gonna cost you is difficulty in execution. You're paying for skill, not just labor (like washing brushes) when it comes to execution. Where do the colors change - 8ft, 10ft, 22ft ceilings?, how many transitions, and the actual colors. Transitioning midtones room to room is a lot easier than incorporating several dark accent walls in a sea of light Latte-colored walls. When I spec color, I'm totally aware of just how is it going to get done, how much is it going to cost and do we have that kind of time and money to work with. Sometimes I have no choice but to come up with less complicated options. So it all depends. And that's why a range of $50 -$150 is a good benchmark to reference in broad, non specific discussions like this one.

FWIW When GW was taken over by iVillage a few years ago, there was a very similar huge uproar on several of the forums about that same phrase in the (then-new) iVillage terms. Some of you oldtimers may remember this, newbies wonÂt. Everyone (including moi) was very upset, threatened to never again post or embed photos, or write anything clever or share anything novel that iVillage might decide to legally "steal" and use for their own profits  like writing and publishing a book containing all of our threads, photos and ideas. Well, to my knowledge, that never happened. iVillage never used us like that. We may have lost a few members over it, posting was down for a while & tempers were up, but eventually the hoopla died down and people continued to post, continued to share photos, and nothing untoward happened. I am no lawyer, but I do think it is prudent for us to weigh the odds in a situation like this. Does photo-stealing happen? Yes, obviously. But how many times? How many members have found their photos from GW somewhere else? Two? A handful? Is it really worth it for all of us to stop sharing photos here  spoiling something that is an integral part of the GW community? I think not, but YMMV. At least, I hope it doesnÂt come to that. The odds are in our favor that it wonÂt happen. Could I get struck by lightning when I go outdoors? Of course, but that doesnÂt mean I become agoraphobic. Just something else to considerÂ

So long as what you write is factual or clearly stated as your opinion then there is likely little the builder can do, unless there is language in the contract to prevent it (I doubt even that would hold up in court, but you are getting into the realm of not worth the effort then). Make sure you qualify your assessment of the results as your opinion, and then present the factual data that led to that opinion. So don't say things like, "the floors were not installed properly." Instead say something like, "I don't understand how these floors could be considered satisfactory." Then provide evidence to support your case. You can be sued (really you can be sued for just about anything), so there is some danger of a lawsuit, however, I suspect it unlikely. The last thing a builder who did a poor job wants, is a court hearing the case and deciding he did a poor job. Right now you are probably a mostly toothless dog nipping at their ankles, the court room is just as likely to be a big set of teeth as it is to be a leash. I suspect you will get a few cease and desist letters rather than a full blown court case, but anything is possible. I advise you to have your attorney spend a few minutes looking over the blog before you post it, just to make sure. I wouldn't bother linking to their site, and you can even avoid naming them on the blog if you want, if stuff you post as evidence has their name on it. ---------------------- If this is for the good of other people who are considering this builder, then I celebrate your wanting to do it. It is good to put this out there to inform others who might be considering this builder. However, make sure your expectations were reasonable, if you accepted a low bid then you must accept a lower quality work.