Pssst, wanna buy a condo?

All the major remodeling jobs are done and we're almost ready to start showing our place next week.
Most everything went pretty smoothly. The painting/repair guy did a heck of a good job on all the stuff we hired him to do. He fixed all the little things that needed fixing and he did a great job on putting in the tile on the floor in downstairs half bath. His paint job on the ceilings and the walls is pretty darn good as well. The only complaint I have with his work was that he got a little messy with some drywall mud one day and he got it all over some furniture and a lampshade and some other stuff, but he did the right thing and he knocked off some on his final bill to make up for it.

If only the counter top and carpet installation had went as smoothly as the other stuff did.

We purchased the counter tops and the carpet from a big box home improvement store who's name rhymes with "blows" and at this home improvement store they make you pay for everything up front, the materials and the installation both. And they run, they don't walk, they run to the bank to deposit your check. Then they order your materials and they tell you that an installer will call you when your stuff comes in. So basically after you pay for everything in advance you've got to wait for your stuff to come in and you're at the mercy of whichever installer happens to be line when your stuff comes in.

Since the counter tops we picked out are made here in Johnson City we did not have to wait the full four weeks they said it would take to custom make it, we only had to wait two. The installer called me when it came in and we set up a time for him to be at our place. On the day he was supposed to be here he called fifteen minutes after he was already supposed to be here to tell me that he was going to be another 45 minutes late. He kept saying, "I'm gonna be late, is that okay?" I refused to tell him that it was okay because it most certainly wasn't, so I said nothing and finally he hung up and arrived about an hour later. He looked like he was hungover and had been sleeping under a rock all weekend when he rolled up to our condo.

The counter tops that we were replacing were not very big, our place isn't huge by any stretch of the imagination, and yet it took him almost seven hours to take out the old counter top and to install the new ones. Since the bastard did not start until almost noon he did not finish until almost 7 that night. If he had started at 8 or 9 in the morning then he would have been done in plenty of time for us to put some stuff back in the kitchen and make dinner at decent hour.

But as it turns out the counter top installer was nothing in comparison to douchebags who did our carpet install. Again, we had to pay for everything up front and then be at the mercy of the ass wipes who they sent out to install the new carpet.

In one respect the carpet guy was smarter than the counter top guy because he never committed to a time that he would be here to do the install. So that meant that we'd get our carpet, that we'd already paid for mind you, when ever the hell he decided to show up. On the day when they were supposed to be here, last Monday, I got up early because I expected the carpet guy to be here at a decent hour, however it turns out that I was living in a dream world where workmen who do installation for big box retailers actually give a shit about customers. Eight o'clock rolled by and no call. Eight thirty, nothing. Nine? Nope. Nine thirty? Oh hell to the no. Then at about 9:45 I get a call from the carpet guys and they tell me they'll be at our place around 11 or 11:30.

They finally roll up at about 11:15 and they started to work about 25 minutes later. I tell the guy who looks like he's in charge that I want them to start upstairs and do the hall way first, then the stairway, then the landing, then the living room, then the dining room. I tell them I want it done like that so that they do not track up the new freshly laid carpet. The guy then looks at me and he says, "So, that's the way you want it done huh?" I had to bite my tongue to stop from saying, "Yes, you inbred fucking idiot, that's the way I want it done! Now you and your heroin addicted partner get to fucking work before the sun goes down please!"

To make a long story longer, they took all day, all afternoon, and into part of the evening to do the install. They made a huge mess, left carpet strips and bits of scrap carpet crap all over our new carpet, at one point they had our carpet stretched upside down out in the parking lot, they left big bits of carpet outside, and they did not finish the install until almost 7 in the evening. I was ready to strangle them by the time they got done. They didn't give a shit when they got to our place, they didn't give a shit about working neat, about vacuuming up their debris, or about finishing at a decent time. After they deigned to load up the old carpet and padding and as we were cleaning up after them the one in charge comes in and says, "Oh by the way, don't pull any threads that are sticking out, cut them, because if you don't then you may unravel that part of your new carpet." First off, they should have cut any threads they saw. Secondly, they should have been doing the clean up that we were doing when he came back in to pass that bit of wisdom on to us. It took us until about 8/8:30 PM to get our place to where it was livable and we finally got to eat some supper around 9 PM. Bottom line, we'll never use Lowes for big jobs like this again.

But we're happy the worst is over and we can finally start showing the place next week. Now, who wants to buy a nice 2 bedroom one and a half bath condo with new kitchen counter tops, new carpet, and that has been freshly painted and fixed up?