Jessica Ferguson

Author, Writing Coach, Speaker

L is for Living Room

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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’d like to tell you about my living room. It’s a sunken living room and that in itself is a whole new set of problems. Contractors seem to get pretty confused on what to do with a sunken living room. Don’t ask me why. It’s like any other room, except it a step down. Right?

Problems were pretty evident with our living room floor long before the actual flooding. The wood laminate buckled. We learned after the fact, that there were some obvious reasons why. Our contractor had stored our wood laminate in the garage. When he brought it inside, he didn’t let it acclimate to the house temperature. Did you know that was necessary? We didn’t either. But any contractor worth his reputation knows or should know that flooring has to acclimate, so make certain your contractor (or your husband) doesn’t bring it from outside and start putting it down immediately. This is a crucial step. Some manufacturers suggest 24 hours while others suggest a couple days longer.

You should also test to see how much moisture is in your concrete. Wood laminate
can not get wet–on top or beneath. Believe me, we know from experience.

Also, make certain your concrete is relatively smooth, doesn’t have gouges and chips. Those holes and low places need to be filled in. Here’s a good website that will give you information on laying wood laminate. I wish I’d read it before Mr. Contractor entered my life. Read it. Even if you don’t do the work yourself, you should research and read about the procedure so you’ll know if your contractor is doing it right or wrong. Don’t hesitate to call his hand on things.

The pictures here are before the floor buckled and had to be removed, and hubby stacking the floor we removed, trying to salvage it for daughter and her husband.

I know I’m painting a real horror story about my renovation experience, but only because YOUR experience doesn’t have to be.

K is for Kitchen

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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?

J is for Junk

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This post is part of the annual A to Z Blogging Challenge. For more information on the challenge and its creator, please visit http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com

Before and during our renovation, we had to pack up everything … and I do mean EVERYTHING! We always knew we had a lot of junk but this confirmed it. Hubby and I are both packrats–or maybe I should say, sentimental rats. I have dishes from my mom’s house, depression glass I collected over the years, a collection of bookmarks and post cards, pictures, paperbacks, posters–you name it and we’ve got it! DVDs, videos, cassette tapes–Oh my! We still have much of our daughter’s treasures too. I’m not a fan of the old adage if we haven’t used it in a year, get rid of it.  I’ve tried that, and if I get rid of something I usually need it the following week.

The bad thing
about our renovation is that we lost a lot of our storage space. The wet bar was a great hiding place. It had shelves for the fancy glassware my aunt gave me, and drawers on both sides. In the kitchen, I lost shelving and drawers too. And since the contractor lost our cabinet doors in the laundry room, we can’t ‘hide’ anything there.

I’m always threatening to give up writing and create jewelry.
Can I really get rid of my jewelry making supplies, even though I’ve never made anything except this necklace. I want to make jewelry–but it’s hard.

And what can I do with John Wayne?

During renovation, we gave a lot of our furniture, pots and pans to a young woman whose house burned down. She brought her ten year old son with her to help her load up; as he was looking around our garage, I told him, “We have too much junk, don’t we?” And he answered, “Yeah, but it’s good junk.”

Awwww, my little soul mate. I agree! I like my junk, but I guess the time has come to get serious. We need to determine what’s important to us and what can go to Good Will.

My heart is sad as I start this process.

I is for Incompetent

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This post is part of the annual A to Z Blogging Challenge. For more information on the challenge and its creator, please visit http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com



 Incompetent means not showing the necessary skills to do something successfully. So how do you know the contractor you hire is competent? I have no idea. I wish I could have given mine a written test … or maybe a construction test.

Contractors don’t need formal education. I think most of them have worked with family or friends and that’s how they learn the business. That’s how my contractor learned-from his dad-and his son is learning from him. I can’t help but wonder what his son thought when he saw his dad not follow through on things … or when he heard him lie.

My research shows that a contractor in Louisiana has to be licensed by the State Licensing Board for Contractors. In fact, there’s a website listing licensed contractors by parish, by name of contractor or by name of their company. I wish I’d found this before we hired ours. He’s not listed.

For those of you contemplating  a renovation, please check with your state’s Licensing Board for Contractors in addition to getting references.  You’ve heard the old saying Buyer Beware, haven’t you? Protect yourself and your pocketbook!

H is for Home

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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!

G is for Granite

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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

Okay, Day 7. Aren’t the days flying by? We’ll take a look at granite today. Mr. Contractor gave me a choice of three designs. I guess he knew if he brought any more, I’d be thoroughly confused. Believe me, it’s difficult to make a decision on such a small chunk. I learned during this renovation process that I’m not really “visual” I just think I am! Because I had such a time with just three selections, we went to a place that stored huge slabs of granite. That makes it even more difficult because you may have a beautiful piece and then have a horrible, ugly design at one end of it–or even in the middle. Just because you pick out a perfect piece, doesn’t mean you’re going to get it on your counter top.  But I made my decision and when the large slab was delivered, they stood in the drive way and cut the holes for my stove top and the sink.

Now take a look at my kitchen counter. You can’t see them, but the counter top has some ugly “smears” that look like mistakes. Unfortunately, that’s just the way the granite is. I accept it. But one afternoon, I was gazing at my new stove top and it looked a little off. Hey! Maybe I am visual! No, I think I just have a critical eye; I’m more of a detail person. Anyway, I got my yard stick and measured. Guess what. My new stove top is lopsided! Oh well, after the new flooring was flooded, a lopsided stove is the least of our worries. Right? 

Have you ever renovated a house? Tell me how it went for you.

F is for Flooring and Flooding

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We’re into our sixth day of the A to Z Challenge. I hope you’ll check out the other bloggers and leave comments on their sites. As much fun as this is, it also takes work and commitment, but comments make it worthwhile to us. We love to know what our readers are thinking!

My A to Z Challenge theme is Renovation. Hubby and I went through “renovation hell” and I’m sharing it with you. Today is F day and it stands for Flooring and Flooding. You can imagine where this is going, can’t you?

Yep, we got our new floors down all through the house, and then a pipe burst and flooded them. Water gushed in our bedroom and down the hall. What a disaster. Our floors were beautiful. We had to turn the water off because, of course, this all happened right before bedtime. The plumbers came out the next morning and it took awhile to find the source of the break. The floor was pulled up and four large squares were cut in my beautifully painted walls, searching. Finally, they determined it was in the slab. I don’t know the correct lingo, but they had to do some rerouting to be able to give us water again.  What a mess! It didn’t just affect the bedroom and hallways. It affected the kitchen because it’s on the other side of the bedroom. Soooo, this is what my new kitchen looked like for more than a week with loud fans blowing, to dry the water. Yep, had to cut holes there too. In Louisiana, wetness can cause black mold to grow. We took every precaution.

If you ever have a pipe burst in your house, don’t waste time, turn off water, take pictures of clean up and call a plumber, of course. And then, it’s in your best interest to hire a remediation company to help you identify wet spots and deal with your insurance company. Your homeowners policy does not insure you against mold damage, and mold begins growing within 36 hours. Remember, you as the homeowner are responsible for limiting the damage to the property. That’s why YOU start the clean up immediately and take pics to prove it! Your agent will not be concerned with mold in your house since he doesn’t provide coverage.  Regardless of how your agent resists, get him out there to VIEW the damage as soon as you can–not a day later, not two days later, as soon as possible. This renovation project has been one year long head-ache but we’ve learned a lot. The main thing is … you’ve got to look out for yourself. Many (most?) people out there had rather lie to you than tell you the truth. Some people are just lazy workers. Others just don’t know what they’re doing and bluffing their way through life. Do I sound pessimistic about the human race? More every day! That’s why my E word was Educate yourself!

I can’t wait to tell you what the plumber found, but that’s on down the A to Z road.  Hey, got any questions for me?

E is for Educate on Everything

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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.

D is for Dust and Destruction

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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!

 

C is for Contractor

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This is the third day of the A to Z Challenge. And here it is 11:10 pm CST. I’m just now writing my C post.  My word today is Contractor. 

Someone said you should ask him two questions: how long and how much. Believe me, we asked and those two questions have a way of changing, almost daily. If you watch any of the HGTV renovation shows, you know that.

We hired our contractor because he’d been used by some of our neighbors. It wasn’t that they gave him a glowing recommendation, they said he was the best of the worst. That, along with our previous experience interviewing contractors got this guy the job. And his personality. A good personality always helps, doesn’t it? He told us our renovation would take four to six weeks at the most. If we had known … but that comes later.

I blame myself for this huge mistake. I like to hire people I don’t feel intimidated by, someone I think I can get along with.

Evidently Mr. Contractor watched way too much HGTV, and considered himself quite the decorator/designer. Every thing I suggested, he told me why I couldn’t/shouldn’t have it: from paint colors to ceramic tile to granite to … everything! Actually, I think he had a little passive aggressiveness in him and that’s why the book cases don’t go to the ceiling. Though one of you suggested only writers/readers understand the concept of floor to ceiling. Maybe that’s true.

Still, I got the feeling Mr. Contractor wanted to give me everything I wanted… to a point.

Example: the ceiling fan in my living room. I told him I wanted it to give off a lot of light and he agreed. My old ceiling fan didn’t have a light so I was ready to have an overhead. One day we came in and there was a beautiful ceiling fan but the light was a little of nothing. He was so proud of it, raved about how it matched things so well. I didn’t have the heart to tell him I didn’t want it. Should I have told him to take it down? Yes, it’s pretty… just not functional for readers.

Was I supposed to go to stores and pick out everything I wanted? Because I didn’t. Mr. Contractor picked things out and gave me choices. That was okay I guess. No stress for me. But who’s in control here?

Like all contractors–or so I’m told–he disappeared for days at a time. He’d tell us he’d see us the next day then we wouldn’t see him again for a week. I still don’t like the colors he painted my kitchen, dining room, halls. And because of the color and design in my ceramic tile, it looks dirty all the time. I sound like a complainer, don’t I? Look at the pic–this is how we lived for months!

Did I tell you during this time, we planned a wedding too? Renovation started in March of 2014
Daughter got married August 23, 2014
And the renovation went on and on and on…

I don’t think there’s a question you can ask a contractor that will get you the right answer. Or maybe even a straight answer. So my advice is, if you decide to renovate your house, make it easy on yourself and don’t! Just buy a new one.

Tomorrow D is for doors, dust and den, I guess.

Did I tell you Mr. Contractor lost some cabinet doors? Maybe my D word should be Don’t!