Thanks for the comments. You may be right that I am overreacting, things definitely started on a sour note, so maybe I am more sensitive than normal. Our project was not a cost plus 10% basis - it was fixed price for the job. I've never heard of cost plus 10% for anything other than designers, but perhaps it varies in other areas of the country? When the GC bid on the project he went to great lengths to tell me how much attention he pays to details and how other poeple are sloppy, but he takes great pride in making sure everything is done to the highest quality. Well that may be true, but I wouldn't know as we have been dealing with his sloppy subs throughout the project, not him. Then there was the fact that his partner offered us $4000 for our old kitchen and then decided he didn't want it after all as soon as it was demoed and all the pieces were sitting in our living room. As we are in a city row home we had no where to store anything and the impression we got was that he hoped we would just say take it for free to get rid of it. It defintiely put a bad taste in my mouth. He ended up taking it away and storing it in the house he had been going to put it into and we were able to sell it as a package on craigslist for the same price - could have got way more if it had been here and people could have come and viewed it. I will also say that having done many projects with different GCs I have never had one who was present less than this one, and given the number of problems we had with the project I do not think this is ok. It's one thing to trust your subs, and another thing to leave it to the home owner to have to spot and address every mistake made by the subs with no presence from the GC at all. It was very stressful for me as I am always the one who was home and always had to point out when things were wrong.... which I think is the GCs job and why we hired him. Also for the record I have requested a list of 'additional charges' several times, and haven't received anything - this may also have contributed to my frustration over hearing that the remaining couple of small things which we discussed from the beginning were now going to be an 'extra'. It makes me worried about what to expect when the bill finally comes. At this point I just want to pay for what we need to pay for and be done. It's a shame, we gave our last GC so many referrals, but I just don't know that I am comfortable referring this crew. I know some of his clients hire him on the basis that he does all the work personally. I guess we should have just done that. Live and learn.

Thanks - Thermatru says no sanding b/t coats, but I had to sand the top of the bottom sash, it was so bad. Hoping to avoid sanding the windows so much. Guess I'll put another coat on today (again, they recommend 3 hrs b/t coats but now it'll be 18). I know I should continue with waterbased, but was wondering at this point if I could just use a waterbased Minwax wipeon poly (after sanding) that won't show brush marks? Or do I have to stay with Thermatru? I might do the garage window (like attic, full soffits, but gets much colder) with Thermatru, but I've decided I don't want to use this on interior (conditioned space) windows, UV inhibitors or no. Any recommendations for those windows? I've done the jambs and sills in Minwax oilbased Wipeon poly (3 coats). Thanks

According to the product brochure for Cabot Semi Solid stain it says "Do not use on decks." I would suggest contacting Cabot technical support for further advice. Marty

thanks suburbanmd for taking the time to respond......I thought it would be worth asking. Despite others opinion about the "pain in the a**ko's", I have really liked mine. The worst part is the lack of repairman available to work on them. I actually got the dryer working yesterday - problem was simply the switch inside the door wasn't making contact with the pin on the door. However last night it shut off and was glowing orange inside. It starts back up but with a grinding noise and the drum is very hard to turn when the machine is off. After much research into the wee hours, it could be the rolling components such as the drum roller or bearing. I do hope it is one of these as these are still available...the belt is no longer available. Any thoughts of what it could be? Do you know if a non-asko belt could be found to match the OEM belt?