SQUIRRELLY!!!! I LOVE THESE!!!! I HAVE to tell you what DH and I watched last night, the local TV channel, which is local stuff in a sorta 5 minute infomercial style, and the program is about peoples homes(Tours) in Nanaimo, well wasn't it the ART Car Ladies house!!! BIZARRE!!! She is the Art Car President of BC!heh heh! Klinger, Squirrelly, and myself, went to her coffee shop and drove buy her cars and house too! Nanaimo Art House and Art Cars This couple are the Presidents of the Art Cars of BC!!! Mermaid mobile This is her second mermaid mobil, last one was a van, fully decorated, but this is just getting started...WIP!!! Merman's Car Also a replacement for his red Batmobile, (Fins on last car, made from styrofoam...nuff said) This Newest car...a WIP!!! The BC Chapter if Garden Web Mosaic Addicts!!! Here we are having a cup of coffee in the Mermaid's Cup Cafe, lot's of mosaics on everything!!! Kinda sorta a Beatnik flavor...sorta The Mermaid's House!!! Yup, both neighbors on either side have moved away...nuff said??? wink!?

Wow! That's beautiful, Squirrlley! Love the colors...and the pattern! I've been collecting mosaic table top pictures, too. Hope to get to making a small table soon. Kelly: Those 27 years will FLY by!!! Especially during the summers! :) I retired after 23 years teaching... but decided to go back. Am working on a 2nd retirement. Hmmmm... but now that I'm REALLY having fun with the mosaics.. might want to stop earlier. OH... forgot about the $$$ involved. Oh well!!! :) Meanwhile... went to my favorite little TS yesterday... bought a couple of plates to crack... but on the way out saw an OLD skateboard. It was a $1.00. So... I grabbed it up, paid, and put it with the TBM stuff. My daughter's almost step-son is an avid skate boarder so I'm planning to mosaic it for him for Christmas. More added to the list! Katie

Lets be clear, if i see someome is uncomfortable, angry, or simply not interested, its game over, i walk away. I never want someone to feel pressured in their own home. That's not the vibe I'm getting from you. How many people do you think say to themselves “hey, I’m going to sign on the dotted line for these windows with the first guy I meet”? Probably close to none. Maybe, but the average American isn't so good with money. If I decide I'm not knowledgeable about window prices or cabinet prices or whatever, I am very likely to move slower and to decide that I need multiple quotes /discussion with multiple companies before I make a decision. I always tell sales people up front exactly what I intend to do -- how else can they understand my goals and best help me? I hope that I offended everyone here, if I missed anyone my apologies. Peace. Huh? What i mean is that when a woman tells me they arent buying anything on the first visit they usually do. Even those who claim to have been educated in sales, they still buy on the first visit. more so than men from my experience. They obviously realize they need and like what we are offering. Thats what it comes down to. Good for you for closing so many sales. I don't claim to be educated in sales, but I am an educated consumer and want to know all my choices before I buy. Here's an example on a small scale: I take a vitamin that I've been buying from Target -- about six months ago I bought these vitamins on a super sale, so I haven't purchased them lately. This afternoon I went out, and the 2-bottle pack had increased from $27 to $38. That's a big jump, so I checked Amazon on my phone. The 2-bottle pack was $26. WIN ... but I kept looking. Amazon offers another brand with the identical ingredients, which was $17 for an extra-large bottle that's the equivalent of three Target-sized bottles. WIN-WIN for me. You're telling me that I should not use this same thought process when buying something larger such as windows? Dannirose- you have got to be joking!!! What kind of company would risk losing business by telling a customer to get more estimates? None ! Nice try with your tall tale. I'm not particularly interested in whether the company wants me to get other estimates or not. If it's a big ticket item, and I feel multiple estimates are appropriate, I am going to get multiple estimates. Someone else compared this to car sales. I get it; if you leave the lot without making a sale, chances are you'll look elsewhere -- but that's the consumer's right. Plenty of companies have told me to compare their offer with other companies -- but they usually qualify it, saying that I should be sure to compare apples-to-apples, perhaps being sure that the other company includes installation or that their warranty is better. Agree. This website seems to have been taken over by a bunch of bitter women with no business acumen. Its actually weird. I think you mean intelligent women who don't fall for your misogynistic strong arm techniques.

Disclaimer - We are the contractors in this story who saved the day, testified in court, and established a great relationship with the homeowner. An educated consumer is our best customer. On GC's and subs- 1- Give me a good price on this job and I'll shovel you tons of work. This is an old tactic used by GC's to drive the cost down / raise profits. After the first job the sub is fired and quickly replaced. Subs who haven't been burned by this before, or are hungry, are young, or didn't know this happened to them are easy prey to this scam. If the sub stays on and wants to get paid his full amount, he is quickly replaced. 2- My subs have been with me a long time. What is a long time? Months or years? Did you speak to the sub himself? 3- Most GC's have bare general knowledge about what their subs do. They don't have the specific knowledge of the trades. If you have specific concerns about waterproofing, it's best to ask the sub directly before the job starts. Having done your homework on John Bridge, or Fine Homebuilding will help you immensely. 4- GC's are salesmen who add 25% to 35% to what the sub is charging to make their living. IMHO most GC's view subs as commodities not skilled craftsmen and are not willing to pay a skilled craftsman the rates they deserve. The best craftspeople I know around the world are all self employed and don't work for GC's. Most work aside the GC, directly for the HO. On the rare chance I do work under a GC, the HO is actively involved in the process and has usually brought us in specifically. 5- GC's prefer to price items by the square foot or some easy (brainless) method. I find this a great disservice to the HO. If I am tiling the floor of a car dealership (wide open space) the price per sf will be lower than a dentist's office (tiny rooms and hallways) IN these instances a per sf price would be useless. Then we get into prep work, access to the jobsite, working conditions, and a myriad of variables unique to each jobsite. Is there a gate that needs to be kept closed all the time? Limited hours we can be on the site? Is the building heated and cooled? There is no way a flat rate of $/sf is useful when it comes to certain trades. 6- GC's are not inclined to pay for prepwork. They pay for finished product. While we all want the finished product to be gorgeous, prep work is critical. Certainly in a shower, waterproofing is what you are really buying. Tile is just the pretty surface. This is why so many showers fail. I've actually had a GC say to me - "I don't pay you for prep work, I pay you to install tile" Prep work usually drives up the cost of a job considerably. Customers sometimes don't want to hear this or think we are adding to the scope of work unnecessarily. We don't work for such folks. 7- Why don't contractors just tell HO's they are busy and will have to wait? When a potential customer calls, asking when they want the work completed is my first or second question. This comes with a lot of risk, mainly losing the job all together. My 40 years experience has taught me that most HO's call contractors when the HO is ready to start the project and is eager to get things rolling. Telling a HO they will have to wait a few months in the first phone call is usually the kiss of death. My thought is - Would you want to hire a contractor who isn't busy? Granted there are job delays and cancellations, but a good businessman knows how to keep his schedule full and workers busy. It takes some sales skill (and empathy) to save that first phone call from going down in flames and losing the opportunity to educate a customer on the process of hiring a qualified contractor. 8- Not so news flash - Not all great contractors are great businessmen. Makes sense once you think about it though. The manufacturers have reps to show us their products, there are trade schools and unions, but teaching a contractor how to run his business is woefully lacking. Being a craftsman in any trade doesn't make you a good businessperson or a good salesperson. Some good contractors become subs as to have the business side of their job taken care of by the GC who feeds them a steady stream of work and a reliable paycheck. Pounding the pavement, making sales, maintaining a website, and giving estimates all take effort, skill, and time not everyone has. 9- Not so news flash #2 - Not all great salesmen are great contractors. This is the hard part for the average HO to sort out. A slick talking young man in a pressed shirt can have all the right sounding answers. So what's a HO to do? Start by asking; Who will be coming into my home? Will they have seen the jobsite in person or pictures before they knock on my door? Or are they just given my address that morning? Ask what products will be used and why. Talk to the manufacturer's reps for those products. It's a good sign when the rep knows your contractor. It's a good sign when the rep backs up what your contractor claims. Ask the Rep about any installation tricks/hazards to watch for. Every manufacturer has YouTube videos giving detailed instructions which MUST be followed. An educated consumer is our best customer. 10- Not so news flash #3 - There are good people on YouTube and then..... there is the rest of the crowd. As mentioned above, the John Bridge Forum and Sal Diblasi's videos are spot on. So are the videos made by the product manufacturer or a trade association. A HO will have a hard time discerning the good from the bad YouTube videos without trade knowledge or a trained ear which is why I recommend the manufacturer's videos and talking with their reps. The reps get paid for this, its their job. When you find a good contractor who provides excellent service the best compliment is to recommend them, give a good Google / Angie's List / Yelp review. This will also help other HO's in their search. I could go on for pages, but y'all are probably bored by now. If you have specific questions, I'd be happy to answer.