What Could Go Wrong?

The construction of our house would take about six months. The first phase was to clear the land and properly position the house on the property. Because of the steep slope, we had to start construction about 50 feet back from the street. I never considered the upward angle of the driveway! The garage had to be placed way back where there was no slope at all. There also had to be a sweeping stairway to the front door. There are 39 steps in an angled stairway. What a nightmare for the furniture movers, especially our baby grand piano!

I visited the site when the shell was up, and the exterior walls were being installed. I immediately realized we had not included a stair rail in the design. AHH, addendum number 1.

I walked around and saw an obvious mistake. The men doing the work had substituted a window for a door coming out of the garage in the backyard area. I went to speak to them, but no one spoke English or any other language I had ever heard. They were obviously Central or South Americans, so I tried Spanish, and we could understand each other. I kept saying “puerta, and they kept saying “ventana.” Luckily, the foreman arrived, and we settled the problem. It was indeed “puerta,” a door!

Their plan to build the house clearly said, “reverse plan.” They took it as reverse the reverse plan and partitioned the rooms backward.

I immediately called the builder and had that taken care of. I was nervous; what else would they do when I wasn’t there?

I had to believe that the builder would keep an eye on things.

Unfortunately, some of the people he used to do inside work, from plumbers to electricians, were terrible. They installed the faucets so close together on our bathtub that you couldn’t turn on the hot and cold simultaneously. The holes were drilled, and a solution was reached to put in smaller faucets. I still hate it, but the tub was super expensive, and no one wanted to take responsibility for purchasing a new one. We live with it. The first floor's main bathroom is tiled, but I wanted continuous hardwood floors throughout the first floor, except for this bathroom. I came to look, and the hall bathroom was tiled. That was fixed. The electricians, who we nicknamed, Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee, screwed up everything they touched. I have light switches all over the house that turn on nothing! They are high up and down low. One is right in the middle of a wall. Instead of putting the house controls to the heat and air conditioning in a hallway, they stuck them on a prominent wall in the living room. There was nothing I could do.

The basic house was more than I hoped for, but almost everything has been replaced or changed since its construction. The builder sold the business to someone who had been with him for a long time. While I was still trying to get some things changed or taken care of, this person told me, “You have to cut the umbilical cord.” In essence, they stopped assisting me.

I love this house. Of course, I can’t change the slope or the hike up to the door, but to have the view, it was a tradeoff. If I ever have the opportunity to build another house….. I will pass on it.