1st day of laminate 8-12

Today was the first day of installation for the laminate flooring in the kitchen, dining and laundry rooms.  Larry had been up since 0500 working away at whatever...I was attempting to stay asleep...I gave that up around 0700.

The installers arrived, and shocker, they had the vinyl for the guest bathroom with them...it wasn't supposed to be in for another week.  That made us scramble to get the trim in the bathroom and a couple of other things ready in there...we thought we had more time. 

Now, what is the matter with people?  It is a sad state of affairs when in every line of work from medical to floor installers that few seem interested in doing their jobs right.  You have to keep an eye on things or they don't get done the way they should!  The real pisser is we are paying a lot of money to supposedly reputable companies...not some guy working on the side out of his garage, so you hope that they know what they are doing.

The guys brought in the stuff and the leader of the two was unhappy that they had to remove the baseboards.  That was in our agreement...do they not read their work order before they head out?  In the bathroom they were telling Larry we can't lay over that old stuff...well yes we know that, yet again...YOUR job to remove it.  So okay...lets move on.

There was an area between the cabinets where there was old vinyl that they had to "float" with a cement material to level things out.  The owner had told us where that would need to be floated out to  to make it right.  Well the guy stopped halfway short of that.  Larry asked him why he didn't go further and the guy started mumbling about not getting paid to do that and of course Larry said well, yes you are... a lot of money.  Then the guy started disparaging who he worked for by saying the owner was making the money and he (the guy) was an independent contractor...BUT he would do as Larry asked....  Okay then.

I must say when they got to the parts where nothing is straight...in spite of the grumbling I could hear...he measured, and measured and remeasured and did do really nice cuts around everything.  It is nearing the end of the day and he is now in the laundry room and Larry takes a peek at the progress and watched the guy lay a couple of boards.  Larrys asks him...we understood that in wet rooms the boards were supposed to have a bead of glue before being clicked into place....WELL, Larry got an earful about how if anything ever leaked it would run out all over the place and wouldn't matter...blah, blah, blah.  Larry said what about the warranty...and the guy said well if it wasn't glued it would void the warranty...WELL DUH!!!!  He then told Larry to call the owner and have him bring the glue over if it had to be glued (I'm paraphrasing), which Larry wasn't going to do.  THEN the guy said well at least you didn't wait until I had laid the whole room before saying something....EXCUSE ME!????  THAT pissed Larry off....not  our  job  man!!!   Then the guy ripped apart all the boards he had put together in the laundry room and back into the kitchen a bit and left for the day. 

Before this had happened Larry went into the bathroom, the toilet is of course pulled and Larry looks into the sewer pipe and there sits part of the old toilet ring and pieces of old vinyl...destination OUR sewer pipes and septic tank...ARGHHHHHHHHHHH.  What is the matter with people!??????  There are so many out there wanting jobs and the ones that have them don't seem to give a damn.  (Now, I know that isn't everybody...but for some reason it is most everyone we have dealt with lately, except for our lovely contractor). 

Needless to say Larry was on the phone to the owner, who we like a lot, and he was appalled.  Larry was listening for quite awhile and then Larry says, yes I agree.  Well, the owner knew that now we would lack faith in the product, the installation and the company because of this bozo and that was what Larry agreed to.  So they talked for a bit, Larry said he didn't want the guy coming back with attitude and botching the job any worse.  The owner finished talking to Larry, told him it would all be taken care of and that he would call back.  After about 15 minutes he did...told us he fired the guy...at least from this job and that he...the owner would be out in the morning to finish the job.  Him we have faith in, so tomorrow will tell the rest of the story!  The owners butt is on the line too with the installer not installing the product according to warranty instructions...big liability.  Whew.

It was too hard to work with them doing their thing in the house.  I did get the trim they would need for the bathroom painted and I painted the baseboards in the master bedroom...I was out of the way.  Larry did some things in the shed and outside, we went to the store and that was about it.  He did manage to get some other stuff done in the house off and on.

So that was another interesting day in the Cool Moniz home remodeling project!  It is going to look so pretty when it is all done, trimmed out and clean!!!  We want to get all the rest of the painting done this weekend so with the carpet coming on Monday we will be done with all the painting and messy work.  So close!!!!

We have to finish soon just so Larry will take it easy maybe.  He has been hurting worse than he has in years...which is bad/good for me, because I can't complain or quit when he is working so hard.  I just complain and grump in my head a bit...but knowing we have to get done and are so close I just give myself a mental slap and carry on...ha ha ha!