• Home
  • Books
  • Other Media
  • About
  • Contact
  • Blog

Jessica Ferguson

Author, Writing Coach, Speaker

E is for Educate on Everything

April 6, 2015 By Jessica Ferguson Leave a Comment

Today is E is for Educate … yourself. I can’t tell you enough how important it is to educate yourself if you plan to renovate. There is so much to know–about products, what you like and dislike, about the contractor himself and hundreds of other things.

You may decide to interview every contractor in your area, or you may use a friend or family member. Here’s a site that offers some interesting questions–most of which I agree with. http://www.askthebuilder.com/50-contractor-interview-questions/  While you may think some of these questions sound silly, they really aren’t. You’d be surprised at what you’ll come face to face with. One of the questions on this site is: May I please inspect the inside of your truck or car?  This is supposed to show you the contractor’s organizational skills. I should have asked this question. I don’t think our little contractor had any organizational skills. Once he lost his truck keys and we searched for an hour or more. He finally found them … in his pocket. And yes, he’d searched his pockets several times.

The more you learn about your contractor, the better off you’ll be. You might want to see some of his work, so don’t hesitate to ask for names of people he’s worked for. If you can, interview them to find out just how happy they were with their renovation experience.

Potential unexpected problems you might have to deal with that have little to do with the inside of your house: angry neighbors. Workers have a tendency to block drive and destroy grass by either driving over it or pouring paint into the yard.  Be sure to ask how many vehicles will be in your driveway at one time and if they do daily clean-up. When Mr. Contractor says yes, they do daily clean-up, you should say, “No, seriously, do you do daily clean-up?” The contractor will laugh a little and repeat yes, to which you should say, “Define clean-up.”

When it comes to educating yourself about products… good luck. I spent hours looking at magazines and walking through Lowes, Home Depot and our local Steins. Believe me when I say there are several answers to any one question you ask. You have to determine the right answer. You have to know what stains and what doesn’t, what’s slick and what isn’t. If flooring will buckle under a little water … if paint can be wiped down, or if it’ll end up chipping or peeling.

A site I used to learn about decorating and products is Houzz.  I had pictures and colors and a vision in mind. Once I shared my vision with my contractor, my vision got lost. Be firm. Know what you want and why you want it. I learned that the pictures in magazines and on decorating sites are basically fiction. There are and were a thousand reasons I couldn’t have some of the things I liked. It reminded me of when I took a Dillards newspaper ad of a pretty sweater to my local store and said, “I want this sweater” to which the salesperson answered. “That’s not a real sweater; it’s just an example of the kind of sweaters we sell.” 

Educate yourself, if for no other reason, you’ll have interesting dialogue with your contractor.

Filed Under: A to Z 2015 Tagged With: A to Z 2015, Contractor, E is for Educate, Questions, skills, Uncategorized

B is for Bar

April 2, 2015 By Jessica Ferguson Leave a Comment

What I failed to tell you in my A post is that I’m participating in the 2015 A to Z Challenge. I guess you picked up on that. I’ve done this for three or four years now and I look forward to every April. I’d made up my mind last year that I would blog about our renovation project. I’m off to a shaky start. Can’t help but wish I’d done some pre-planning, but anyway… today B is for Bar.

While in Oklahoma where hubby was on a temporary job assignment, we told a friend there that we planned to renovate our home here in Louisiana. Our friend responded with,  “I’d rather stick a pencil in my eye than renovate.” Ouch! That scared us but we went ahead anyway. Believe me when I say his words have come back to us over and over again during the past year.

My A post was about taking action and I shared my long list of projects. One of those projects was turning our wet bar into floor to ceiling book cases. We’re really bad at our house when it comes to flat surfaces. We pile things on them.  You can see here what I mean. We just pile things … higher and higher and higher. Okay, I pile things–not hubby.

The contractor and his boys had fun tearing things out. They weren’t shy about slinging their sledge hammers. Within moments we had a blank space. A few days later–voila! Book cases.

The thing is the book cases never quite made it to the ceiling. And no, I can’t stack books on the very top because there’s no flat surface, but I can hide them IN the top. Every time I look at my beautiful shelves, I become so disgruntled because I know in a few years, I’ll have so much dust collected in those empty tops that I’ll probably be able to grow plants.

What should I have done? Demanded he tear off the top and take the shelves to the ceiling? I’m not that confrontational. Why couldn’t he have done what I asked in the first place? If you ever have book cases built (or anything else for that matter) make certain he understands exactly what you want. Though for the life of me, I can’t imagine why he was so confused: floor to ceiling means … touch the floor and touch the ceiling. Doesn’t it?

Tomorrow I get to tell you all about my contractor. That’ll be a trip. J

Filed Under: A to Z 2015 Tagged With: A to Z 2015, renovation, Uncategorized, Wet Bar

Reality Faith.
Reality Fiction.

"As for us, we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.”
Acts 4:20

Get my newsletter

Want to receive my newsletter with news & book release info? Click here to subscribe!

Connect with Jessica

  • Email
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter

Blog Archive

Join the conversation

  • Diane Weidenbenner on IWSG: The Mentor
  • Shannon Lawrence on IWSG: The Mentor
  • Jessica on IWSG: The Mentor
  • Pamela Thibodeaux on IWSG: The Mentor

Copyright © 2023 · All Rights Reserved · Privacy Policy · An Oxblaze Media & Marketing Website· Login