Author, Writing Coach, Speaker
I’m hanging in there with the annual A-to-Z Blogging Challenge. For more information on the challenge and its creator visit: http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com
I’m so tired of talking about our renovation that I thought I’d use N for Newlyweds. After all, while the renovation was going on we were planning a wedding. Talk about stress. Here are some pics of the newlyweds–a cheery break from renovation!
Don’t even think about planning a wedding and renovating a house!
Happily Ever After!
I’m hanging in there with the annual A-to-Z Blogging Challenge. For more information on the challenge and its creator visit: http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com
When I made my notes for what I would write about during this A to Z Challenge, I wrote M is for Monkey Glue. Well… not far wrong. M is for gorilla glue but it sure made a monkey out of us.
Before we started our renovation, we purchased two new toilets and had them connected by a licensed plumber. During the renovation, Mr. Contractor disassembled them several times. In fact, he disconnected our guest bathroom way sooner than he should have. I mean living with one bathroom is definitely an inconvenience! I know, we’re spoiled, but I put toilets right up there with cell phones–a necessity!
During one of Mr. Contractor’s disappearing acts, our guest toilet started leaking. We tracked down Mr. Contractor and asked him to come fix it. He did. This happened two different times. The third time it leaked was right before our bedroom flooded so when we had the real plumber in the house, we asked him to take a look. Guess what he found–our brand new toilet had been cracked and glued back together. Oh yes, Mr. Contractor had broken it and tried to hide it. That’s when we made the final decision to let Mr. Contractor go. He did not finish the job. He put us through a lot, but this was the last straw.
This contractor would NOT make a monkey out of us ever again.
When you renovate, you need a plumber for the plumbing. An electrician for the electrical work. Painters for painting. Expert floor people for putting down the floor. When we hired Mr. Contractor, he told us he had an excellent crew. We didn’t know that crew was him and his son. Of course he had to hire out the cabinets and stuff, but I’m sure he purchased the cheapest of labor. Do your homework and know who will be working in your house … and their qualifications.
All day I’ve been singing:
This post is part of the annual A to Z Blogging Challenge, and whoopee, we’re on our eleventh day! It’s K-day. Do me a favor, please. If you haven’t checked out the A to Z Challenge website, and the other participants, go to http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com. You’ll learn more about the challenge and its founder.
Now, to continue with my posts on home renovation: I didn’t want 
new kitchen cabinets. I just wanted mine painted. I had huge drawers that I could cram a lot of things inside; they were very convenient. Didn’t take them long to demolish my kitchen! Here you see the beginning, the middle and the end, just like in a (horror) novel.
Yes, Mr. Contractor shamed us. “It will be terrible to do all this updating and keep your old kitchen cabinets.” He had a point so we agreed, but for some reason I thought my new cabinets would look exactly like my old cabinets–only better. After all, he didn’t ask my opinion or inquire about my needs. There again, my naivete. I should have TOLD him exactly what I wanted.
What you don’t see is my wonderful kitchen drawers. See inside the cabinet? Not even a shelf to place my pots and pans on. I just toss them inside and stand on my head to dig them out.
Also, look at the handles on my cabinet drawers. See two missing? I tried to make them uniform because that corner drawer can’t open because of the handle on the opposite drawer. Ridiculous, right? You’d think contractors, cabinet builders would know “their numbers” and how to measure. Believe me, they don’t!
See how pretty my lights look beneath my cabinets. Of course, I asked my little contractor how I “change the bulbs” when they burn out. Know what he said? “Uhhhh, you can’t change the bulbs… in fact, you shouldn’t use them that much, just when you have company.” Here’s what those lights really look like … they’re pretend!
Life has been interesting during this renovation. I don’t advise anyone to go through it, but if you do, at least be prepared. Walk through each room and know EXACTLY what you want. Don’t assume you’re going to get it just because you say you want it, and don’t assume your contractor knows basic arithmetic. Be smart–take nothing for granted.
See you tomorrow?
This post is part of the annual A-to-Z Blogging Challenge. For more information on the challenge and its creator visit: http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com
… and my saga continues: Mr. Contractor promised my renovation list was a mere four to six week job. That was in March 2014. Daughter was getting married in August. Hopefully, prayerfully, we’d have our home finished for company. Didn’t happen. In fact, the weekend of the wedding, we left a key for Mr. Contractor who said loudly and clearly, “I’ll be completely by the time you get home.” We left three days before the wedding (an hour away) and stayed an extra two days so Mr. Contractor had six or seven days to complete the project. Didn’t happen. He never made an appearance. We walked into a house that was just the way we left it–very unfinished.
There were days we thought our home would never be completed. Days and days passed without hearing from the contractor or his workers. In this day of cell phones and texting, there’s no excuse for NO COMMUNICATION.
How do you force someone to finish a job? You don’t, and you shouldn’t have to. Yes, we had a contract, but we were first class novices when it came to hiring a contractor or knowing what should be in a contract. We put complete trust in our contractor.
If you are planning a renovation, definitely have a contract between you and your contractor. Not only should you itemize what you’re paying him to do, but have a begin date and a completion date. You should also add something about cleaning up as they go. Don’t have a generic statement like–contractor will clean up. They could pile trash to high heaven and not clean up until they end the project! You’ll definitely want them to clean as they go. Here’s a sample renovation contract that you can tweak to fit your requirements. Read it carefully and make sure you tweak it in your favor!
Your home is … well, it’s YOUR home. Believe me when I say it’s nothing but a job to the contractor. The Better Business Bureau is there for a reason. Angie’s List is there for a reason. Protect yourself and your home. And do a lot of praying!
The A to Z Challenge is zipping by. There are so many wonderful posts by 1,860 participants. Check out all A to Z contributions HERE. The brainchild of Arlee Bird at Tossing it Out, the A to Z Challenge is all about blogging the alphabet daily during the month of April (except Sundays).
We’re on our 4th day and D could stand for a lot of things in my world of renovation: the doors to my washroom cabinets, for example. Who knows where they are? I still don’t have any. Or D could be for desk, because hubby found one of the workers standing on top of his desk to scrape the ceiling. D could stand for disappear because each day, hubby and I had to find somewhere to go, or hole up in the back bedroom.
For me, D is definitely Dust and Destruction.
I thought I asked all the right questions about packing things up and moving our furniture out of their way. I knew… deep down in my gut I knew it wouldn’t be as simple as he made it sound. Why didn’t Mr. Contractor just tell us we needed to put our furniture in storage? Oh, yeah, it as only going to take four to six weeks, if that long.
Tearing down walls, scraping ceilings, tearing out cabinets… we were naïve. But, Mr. Contractor told us no worry, we could just move all the furniture to the south end of the house while they worked at the north end, and vice verse. Believe me, it really doesn’t work that way. Mr. Contractor failed to tell us we would also be dealing with painters and cabinet makers and that they would have their own work schedules. But let’s get back to the dust.
When Mr. Contractor and his team of one (his son) came in with their sledgehammers, they were like giant termites on crack, leaving debris in their wake; the dust was horrific and it traveled. Boy, did it travel! There was no escaping it.
We’d purchased banker boxes for most of our books, and got boxes from Wal-Mart meat department for everything else. Our garage was so full of furniture and boxes, we couldn’t put our cars inside. My “office” which wasn’t going to be renovated in any way was totally destroyed because of all we packed in there. You can see it here. But, inside those boxes, everything is dusty.
Thankfully, we had some black tarps and visqueen (plastic sheeting) in our garage to cover our bed and piles of clothing. You can see below how thick the dust is on the black. Believe me, it was worse than it looks!
We hadn’t prepared adequately to live a year without certain things. Since Mr. Contractor told us four to six weeks we were living in the house as it was being renovated. The dust was so bad, I became hoarse and at one point, lost my voice completely. I couldn’t even squeak. And Mr. Contractor was still pulling his disappearing act.
From what I hear, all contractors are notorious for their disappearing acts because they have several jobs going at once. If you decide to renovate, you might want to ask how many jobs your contractor does at one time. Of course, whatever he tells you, add to and take from. In other words, you won’t get the whole truth. The best thing for you to do is empty your house of all furniture, move out and let him have it.
I think our presence and having all our belongings still in the house actually hindered progress. Then again, when a contractor disappears for several weeks and during that time there is no progress … well, it’s just hard to know what to do.
For those of you considering renovation, you’re in my prayers!
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?
Happy IWSG day—the first Wednesday of each month. IWSG has never missed a posting day (even though I have!) so I’m combining my A to Z Challenge and my IWSG post. I hope it doesn’t seem too discombobulated. Anyway, many thanks to Alex Cavanaugh for creating IWSG. It’s a much-loved, very special organization.
It’s hard to believe April is here all ready. For almost a year, I’ve been looking forward and thinking about my A to Z theme. If I was smart, I would have prepared each post ahead of time, but not me. When it comes to the A to Z Challenge, I like to live dangerously. Off the top of my head the night before posting–or morning of. Okay, here we go, we’ll see what happens!
Like the TV ad said…we were ready to make our dreams a reality. I’d wanted to yank up carpet and knock down walls for a long time. The 30+ year old home hubby and I purchased in 1996 definitely needed a face lift. But, the time was never right. Hubby worked out of town, we had a daughter in private school, then college … we just didn’t have the money to invest in home renovation. So last year, one year after hubby retired, we decided to take ACTION. I could hardly believe it! I began my list of desired improvements and started my research. Exciting times—or so I thought.
Kitchen: Combine kitchen & dining area, new flooring, new countertops – granite or …? Backsplash, New stove top, new dishwasher, microwave and oven. New garbage disposal, doors on bookcase under bar, remove built-in desk and build shelves with doors, new cabinets? We’ll see.
Master Bedroom: paint, new floor
Master bathroom: new shower, shelves over built-in chest, shelves over bathtub, paint. And new floor.
Guest Bathroom: new countertops and sinks. New toilet, new floor. New tub?
Son’s room: paint? New floor?
Daughter’s room? New floor?
I’m late! I’m late! For a very important date!
Today is IWSG day–the first Wednesday of the month. IWSG stands for Insecure Writers Support Group and was founded by Alex J. Cavanaugh. You can follow other IWSG members here and on twitter using the hashtag #IWSG.
Our purpose is to share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds.
We’re wrapping up renovation at our house and then, after putting everything back in its place, I’ll be in a position to tackle another kind of renovation. Novel renovation! Short story renovation! Mental renovation! I can’t wait!
You probably remember that I said I planned to go to the library every day of renovation and write. Did. Not. Happen. Why on earth I thought I’d be able to do such a thing is beyond me. I’ve never renovated a house before. I’ll give you a tip. Move out completely. Rent a pod or a storage house and get all your furniture out. Otherwise, you’ll go stark raving mad!
When it comes to renovating novels, I suppose we might say the same thing. Some people segregate things. One day they might tackle characterization or setting. The next, they look at the plot line. I hear Scrivener is great at helping compartmentalize things like this. I’m slowly learning Scrivener so we’ll see.
Even though I’m late posting IWSG today, I wanted to post to encourage you all. (And I didn’t want Alex to get me!)
On another note, I’d like for you to read an interview with me and my partner, Jan Rider Newman at The Review Review. Leslie Schultz spoke with us about starting our literary magazine, Swamp Lily Review. The Review Review quoted me at the very top of the website! I’m thrilled!
Definition of inconvenience (n)lack of convenience: the quality or fact of being inconvenient or causing discomfort, difficulty, or annoyance
annoyance: something that causes difficulties or annoyance
cause difficulty to somebody: to cause somebody difficulties, especially relatively minor or unnecessary ones, or ones involving unwanted extra effort, work, or trouble
As some of you know, hubby recently retired after working 47+ years for the same company. We’ve looked forward to renovating our home, getting wood floors, ceramic tile in the bathrooms and kitchen, new appliances and kitchen cabinets and tearing out a totally useless wet bar to make bookshelves. Wet bar to the right.
We’ve been under construction (demolition) since March 6th. What an INCONVENIENCE. I almost feel as if this 
is self-inflicted pain. I know once everything is completed, we’ll be thrilled, but until then … I’m not able to put my mind in writing mode. Or maybe I should say rewriting mode since that’s what I’d hoped to do during this time. We have two more bedrooms to move stuff out of, but there’s no place to put their contents until we get some floors down. Our garage is full.
Here are a few pics so you’ll understand what I’m going through and if anyone has questions about how and what they should do to “prepare” for such a renovation, just ask. I have a few answers. Hubby is standing in what used to be our kitchen, playing with his iPhone. Twitter keeps him sane. To the right is the bathroom. Very INCONVENIENT when they decide to tear up both bathrooms at the same time! The other night we took a shower is our smaller bathroom by flashlight. Wow, new experience!
Renovation is a lot like tearing a novel apart and putting it back together again–correctly–or maybe the new way you see it in your mind. What do you think?
To the right is in my office. The path leads to my desk. We stored most of our books and breakables here because renovation is NOT happening in this room. I can only take so much … INCONVENIENCE!
Do you have any tales of inconvenience? Do you think you could write while this is going on? Have you renovated before? Maybe I could learn a few things from you. Share!
I’m blogging my way through the alphabet with more than a thousand others who are doing the same. Please support the bloggers of the #AtoZchallenge by visiting, sharing or commenting. It’s fun! Certainly more fun than this INCONVENIENCE!
This month I’m covered up with way too many things to post a worthwhile message for you. On Thursday, house renovation begins. Hubby and I have been boxing up everything, trying to get ready for new floors, new paint, new cabinets and more. Our wet bar is being demolished and we’re adding floor to ceiling bookshelves. Hopefully, it will be a nice little reading nook. We’re amazed at how much “stuff” we have–especially books. Because of the wall to wall, floor to floor book cases in my office, and my huge desk, that room will not be painted or get new floors so we’re stacking boxes of books from other rooms there. Here’s what my office looks like today: 
While the house is being revamped, I hope to go to the library to write. My plan is to read over The Groom Wore Blue Suede Shoes, make a few changes then bring it out as an ebook. I hope I can read through it fast because there are other things I want to accomplish. I need to finish Circus Girl. The completed manuscript was requested by an editor last year, but I didn’t get it finished. I don’t know if I should contact her again or not. I’m sure she’s deemed me a slacker. What would you do? Then the next project is A Bad Guy Forever. I’m almost finished for the LAST time! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve rewritten that book. Everyone seems to be writing and publishing so fast and I just poke a long. I’m also working on two NF books. One is moving slowly–the other, almost finished. 