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Alas Completion!
Well, It’s over! I am now in my new house. We made the move in
September. Now that I am in and getting settled, the question I get
asked the most is, “Would I do it again?” My answer is always a big, fat
“NO!” It was more work and more time consuming than I ever imagined.
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The experience of babysitting grown men, making sure they showed up
(most didn’t), paid attention to the details, time frames (a big joke),
returned phone calls (after 3 months of unreturned phone calls from my
electrician I finally hired someone else to correct his problems) and
act as responsible adults was grueling and painful. Thank God for the
men that were responsible contractors, Glen & Bob Tebo. If I ever do
build another house, I would have Glen be my General Contractor (Glen
built all of our porches & decks without a nail visible anywhere!) Jeff
Beaulieu, a great finish carpenter, Jerry from Monte’s Heating, Dan
Antonelli, our roofing contractor, Bob Senter (he showed up on a days
notice and fixed the grading that the septic system installer
butchered), Ken MacLeod, the best hot top guy around, Jason Bouchard who
installed our foundation, Michael from Absolute Marble & Granite (the
best service, quality & prices around) and, of course, the Cronin’s,
(Dad, Kevin, Patrick, John and my son Brian McDermott.) They built my
fireplaces & chimney, installed my tile, custom shower, hardwood floors,
painted, fixed everything that was hacked and butchered and bailed us
out of lots of messes. Also, many thanks go out to our good friend, Gary
Fisher, who flew in from North Carolina for a weekend just to help us
paint.
We couldn’t have done it without the folks mentioned above. If anyone
would like telephone numbers for any of these contractors just call or
e-mail me. They were great! They were what made our house complete!
I won’t name the contractors on this website that I WOULDN'T recommend,
but call me and I would be happy to share my experiences.
I also get asked, “What were your best experiences?” and there were some
great ones........
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The day the foundation went in was very exciting;
Seeing the first wall go up;
The day the framer FINALLY finished framing. I thought we were going
to have to give him one of our bedrooms;
Having my kitchen finished and having it be even better than I had
imagined;
The day Bob Senter removed 6 tractor-trailer loads of Christmas
trees and suddenly we had gorgeous river views;
and, of course, the first day in our new house! |
"What were my worst experiences?" ...
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With a
frozen ground and torrential rains we discovered how badly the
septic system installer had screwed up the grading. It was designed
for all the water to pour into our basement. I spent one day with my
brother & son, Brian trying to find a store that hadn’t sold out of
sump pumps. And then we spent a good week playing with 3 sump pumps
and a very wet basement. We had to pull out our bulkhead and install
a bigger bulkhead twice. And finally have Bob Senter come over and
re-grade our back yard.
With spring rains we had plastered ceilings that were ruined with
leaks. The roofer blamed the framer or the deck installer; the
framer blamed the roofer or the deck installer; the deck installer
had to rip up our rooftop deck that he had just finished installing
to find the problem! We would think we solved the problem and patch
the ceilings only to have it leak again the next time it rained!
This went on for weeks. (This was one of the times that I lost it
and spent a few days crying uncontrollably. I can laugh about it now
when I think of all my friends and family that would start to talk
to me only to have me break into sobs.)
Of course, there were my “siders from hell.” We hired a siding crew
to install our cedar shingles. They came recommended from our
framer. As work progressed we noticed that the shingles were out of
line, crooked & cracked. We asked them to fix them. They would rip
off the bad shingles and re-install more crooked & cracked shingles!
I would have shingles that were 3 inches to the weather next to
shingle that were 6 1/2 inches to the weather! I had rows of shingle
going steadily uphill. After the 5th time of walking around the
exterior pointing out the flaws and them still not getting it right,
I decided to get myself a black magic marker. I went around the
house and X’d all the offending shingles. The supervising sider was
so mad at me that he took off his tool belt, threw it on the ground,
cursed at me like a crazy person and told me if I didn’t like his
work that I should put on a tool belt and do it myself! He then
stormed off the job never to be seen again. |
So, that’s it. The good, the bad and the ugly. On the positive side of
things I have the exact house I wanted. (So, I’m WAY OVER budget.) And I
have learned everything about building a house that can’t be taught
other than by experiencing it. Going into this I thought I knew a lot
about new construction, as a Realtor and being from a construction
family. Boy was I wrong! When you actually build a house and are on site
every day the experience is overwhelming, exciting, depressing,
wonderful and awful.
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