We got to the farm around noon today because we wanted to see how far along things got yesterday so we know what we can move tomorrow and what we can’t. We picked up the van at 9 am, loaded a bunch of boxes in there (we have a huge Mercedes Sprinter van and that thing can hold much more than you’d imagine) and headed over to the farm. The boxes we’d brought with us were all things for the kitchen and we were very happy to see that Macky had hung the cabinets in there and screwed the cabinets together as well. Unfortunately we had to change a few of the screws since they were in the way of the door mounting brackets but hanging them was a challenge we didn’t want to take on, especially if everything came crashing down. So we finished putting together as much of the kitchen as possible (there’s still a few pieces missing) and then unloaded the boxes from the van.
Hubby’s parents were also there when we arrived as they finally drove up this morning to help out. The weather ended up sounding worse than it was although it was very, very windy and it’s better to play it safe when things like that are going on. The only damage the farm seems to have suffered during the storm is the loss of one of the roof shingles running along the edge of the top of the barn. We found it broken on the ground but all others seem to be fine and we haven’t noticed any leaks or anything like that so far either.
What we also found as far as progress from the painter was extremely disappointing. It turns out they hadn’t even started the two bedrooms upstairs and had only put plaster on one half of the office area downstairs. Actually, the entire office was already plastered but the rest of the room where the dining room used to be and the breakthrough is now had received no new attention. The living room was totally finished and looked absolutely fantastic but it’s certainly not big enough to hold all of our furniture from our old house. And the painters themselves were no where to be seen. So a very disgruntled hubby called the painter, who happens to be the father of a good friend of ours (yes, our first mistake) and asked what was going on. He first told us that the work-week ends for them at noon on Friday – wow, what a life. He then said that we at least had one room we could move into (out of 4) and the rest would get finished when it was finished. Definitely no “customer is king” policy here.
I guess at this point I need to go a bit further back in time. This painter has known since September that he would be doing this job. We talked to him again in December and he told us then that he would be starting during the first week of January. We couldn’t start any sooner because the floors were still be sanding and lacquered and this would cause so much dust that we decided waiting would be the best choice.
The first week of January then came and went. So we called him again and he brought by a paint sample book so we could pick out wall colors. We decided going stark white would be the best bet for the time being since we really aren’t sure what we’ll end up doing with some of our furniture and so on. So then he tells us that he’s not going to be able to start the job until February…to which we replied that this would not work at all for our schedule since we need to be out of our rental house by the end of January. His reason for not being able to start sooner is because he has recently gotten a rather large commercial contract and they are really monopolizing a lot of his time and his workers. But he said that we were friends and therefore he’d make the time to get our job done. He figured that he could finish at least 3 of the rooms before our deadline if not all of them. Sounded great to us.
Unfortunately, we all know how that story ended. They couldn’t pull it off and we’re wishing we just let Macky do it from the beginning since it definitely all would have gotten finished in our 5 day time frame, even if it killed him. We told the painters to come and get their stuff since they had no viable solution for us aside from “we’ll get to it when we get to it” and I guess they will be here promptly Monday morning. Hopefully the painter doesn’t go crazy when he starts calculating the costs of this job – it’s not as if he’s ever cut us any favors in the past anyway. But the part that really gets to us is that he took on the job without really considering whether he could accomplish it. He told us that he’d probably be finished with everything within the week and they weren’t even half way there. And if he’d just told us that he had too much on his plate already and just couldn’t fit it in, we would have been fine with that and gotten Macky to do it or whatever. We were very happy to find that the job turned out to be simpler than we first thought since there were some thoughts that some of the walls might start decomposing a little when the paper was pulled off but that hasn’t been the case at all.
Because we already had the rental van and everything else ready (including hiring two of Macky’s guys to help us move the big stuff tomorrow), hubby and I decided we would give the rooms upstairs a quick touch up paint job just to cover up the stains on the walls and paint the office walls as well which had already been plastered. So off we went to the home improvement store to pick up a few paintrollers from Wagner 
As for doing final finishing touches on the two bedrooms upstairs, we are still planning to build out the attic at some point (hopefully later this year) so we figure that when we get that finished, we will just remove the wallpaper ourselves and either learn to do the plaster or get Macky to help, then paint it ourselves. It’s not rocket science and we’ve become quite proficient these days at all sorts of home improvement things. Then we can move stuff from the other bedroom into our old bedroom and redo that room and so on.
Anyway, we’d hoped to get almost all the boxes out of the house to bring to the farm already so there would really only be big stuff left to take care of tomorrow. Needless to say, we didn’t get in more than one trip today because we had to do the painting but the rental van is rather huge and we still ended up packing almost all the boxes from the downstairs room in there which was quite an accomplishment. Things are starting to look like a war zone here and I’m certain it will only get more chaotic here tomorrow. Hopefully the day will yield more progress and less surprises for us, though.
