New Patio Furniture

After 2 hours and a rattling ride in a Home Depot truck, we have a bunch of patio seating parts. Tomorrow we assemble. It's very nice.

I Misplaced My Brain Today

Wow. Not in 20 years of banking have I ever left an ATM card in a machine. Until today. Got a call from the branch informing me where I could pick it up. Shocked, I tells ya! Guess I was distracted by the patio goings-on, despite my efforts not to be. 50 minutes later, changed the card, numbers, accounts, PINs, etc. Just to be on the safe side.

Why the distraction? We have permanent footprints sealed into the concrete. All only from this morning. WTF?? *Sigh* whole thing wasting too much time.

Chewed Out Contractor

This morning. Oscar giving Hubby the usual bullshit until I came out, so he couldn't play the 'other person knew' game. Once I started MY questioning (grilling) he finally admitted the crazed cracks on the top level was a fuck-up (Hubby unhappy that he didn't just admit it up front and had to take me grilling him to get it out of him). Insisted the cracks on the stairs were normal. The rest of the stuff: more bullshit, bullshit, blah blah. Most unbelievable? He actually blamed ME for the project going south, because apparently my checking things out made them nervous which caused them to make mistakes. WTF??, I said, and yelled a bit, which had him backtracking fast, but damage done. Now I'm mad.

Bottom line: Freak occurrence. Also design flaws. Nothing to be done that wouldn't make things worse at this point. We'll just live with it. But I got my point across that if he'd been more honest about what to expect, we wouldn't be as unhappy. I'm used to freak and unusual happenings. No biggie. Just don't fucking lie to us about it being 'normal'.

Hubby and I work really well together: he's more tempered and can overlook his BS meter. When my bullshit meter goes off, I go off with it.

Now we're both really freaking tired of talking about this thing. Moving on. They're sealing it today, we'll go get soil to fill around the edges. The rose bushes'll be the first thing in. Yippee. Then some furniture. Shoot, must scrub and seal the teak furniture. Way too expensive not to maintain.

Patio Crack

Patio Crack Fixed Tomorrow?

Took break from any more patio thinking. Hubby spoke to O on Saturday morn, and he couldn't come due to a religious retreat, but agreed to come over Sunday afternoon. Wouldn't have offered to do that for me, I'm sure.

Discussed, supposed to come tomorrow to fix. I think I'm going to go out most of the day. Still rebuilding the patience reserves.

Rosemary Bush Finally Gone!

Just now, on impulse, went out front and ripped out the rosemary bush. Looks soooo much better now. It wasn't growing bush-like: thick fingers snaked all along the front of the house and looked like some creepy crawly monster was taking over the front of the house. Kept meaning to prune it or remove it, but couldn't make up my mind. Until just now.

Also just replaced the lantana in one of the square planters with the salmon geranium.

Uh-oh: First Crack

Spoke too soon, apparently. Sometime yesterday or this morning, the first crack appeared, in a very obvious place - the left section of the patio landing platform. This was the worry area already due to the hollow structure. 'No problem', indeed. But not going to stress about it, going to leave it to Hubby to discuss w/ O.

Expect that to be the only unpleasant surprise. Famous last words.

Contractor - Found The Right Word

Sulking. That's the word I was looking for. He's a major sulker! What drama. LOL. Had a nice chat w/ Pam yesterday, good change of subject!

New day today, deep breath. Luckily they were here only for a couple hours in the morning. Needed a quiet relaxing day!

Lower Stress Level Now

After a couple more hours assessing the negatives:

- Little crawlspace door looks hideous. Doesn't cover the exposed framing. Was part of the job, became extra $.
- Splotchy water sprinkles over several areas.
- Stuccoed side stairs on door side. Looks weird. Maybe better when painted, should be sand-colored to match the rest of the stairs. Will be doing that myself.
- After being reassured several times the tan color was mixed all the way thru, discovered that actually no, it's only on the top inch or two. Not a huge deal, but dislike the miscommunication/lie?
- Looks like the tops of the retaining walls not being stuccoed. Was part of the job. Not looking forward to conversation.
- Sloppy joint edges.
- Didn't spray any water all day that I saw (curing?).
- Piece of the stucco fell off. Clumsily tried to put it back. Rushed to clean it, worried it may stain the concrete.
- To top it off, I found out at end of the day, that they'd dragged the orchid cart by the none-wheeled metal bottom, to move them out of the way. Marked the driveway concrete. Grrr.

But the big picture:

- Concrete seems solidly done - no cracking, blistering, or any bad problems at the moment, but then I don't know when they'd show up.
- Correct sloping - watched the water running away from the house.
- Colors are exactly what they were supposed to be.
- Can come to terms with all above negs.

Most people will run into turbulence with a contractor. Some things are just not going to go swimmingly. No different here. Just have to stop reacting to his almost childish reactions on feedback. He expected me to be over the moon after the stamping, and when I wasn't, it felt like he just completely got demotivated and checked out mentally, instead of just taking it in stride and addressing my concerns as fixable or not. Really tired of the out-of-proportion demotivating reaction to every little question I ask, like everything is a personal insult. Grrrr.

Patio - Different Expectations

Ahhhh....we've come to a basic truth about how we see the finished product. O thinks irregular edges and water spots on the concrete are just fine. Broom hairs that got left behind are also ok in his book. He thinks of them as unimportant 'details'. I think otherwise. Expected smooth edges like the industrial concrete I see elsewhere. Turns out he charged me less because he didn't think he had to really deal with a more professional look, but he now realizes I really wanted that. Too bad we didn't figure that out BEFORE the pour. If I'd known that earlier, I could have shaped up the edges myself when the concrete was still wet.

I'm equally responsible. I did see irregular edges in his other projects, but didn't think to question him about them. He also didn't care much about the hairline crack at the thin edge of one project. That should have clued me in. He's more focused on structural soundness, etc. That aspect of the project I'm very confident in.

He's unhappy now that he thinks he didn't deliver what I wanted, but I'm a bit more hardened about his sensitivity to any criticism. Annoyed and done with feeling bad about 'hurting his feelings'. He just has to deal. He's the contractor.

Bottom line: The finished product is something I like and can live with. I'm just not thrilled right now. I'm paying more attention to everything right now 'cause it's new and there's nothing out there. I think once I get used to it, and start putting furniture out, I won't focus so much on all the imperfections. Overall it turned out pretty good.

Bad part of this whole thing is now he'll charge me extra on any future work, thinking I'll be 'this picky' on everything. His planting & designing abilities, now that's superb. No problems there. But bummer. Must go shopping for another guy, I think.

Patio - Day Twenty-Eight

The patio is poured!!! Major work done. 1 major error, couple slight ones. Overall, great job, I think. I'm just more relieved it's done, and picking over the various slights than just enjoying the finished job. I'm a perfectionist, and there are several sections where it's not a perfect line, so that annoys me. Etc. The stamped parts are beautiful, and the colors were excellent.

Right on schedule and on budget. Contractor definitely lived up to expectations.

Finishing touches later in the week. Then comes stage 2. Never-ending.

Patio - Day Twenty-Six

Excellent. O stopped by in the morning as requested to check out the foundation, confirmed everything was ok, and said he could take care of the broken beam that's making the countertop separate from the wall. Easy fix, just sister in another beam next to it. Terrific idea. I *could* do it myself and save the money, but I don't want to bother.

Pour scheduled for Wednesday. Woohoo.

Patio - Day Twenty-Three

Stress city. Yesterday O re-inspected the house foundation to make sure everything was good for the pour next week, and pointed out a hairline crack that wasn't much that he was going to fix. Just for kicks, later I went under the house to check things out, and freaked out when I discovered another crack on the inside. Wondering if it goes all the way to the outside, which I can't really tell since there's all kinds of soil there now. Put in a call for O to check out first thing Monday. But now I'm having all kinds of nightmare scenarios where the foundation is spreading like wildfire. Couldn't sleep last night.

Patio - Day Twenty-Two

Enough breaks in the rain that the guys laid out all the rebar today. Picked out colors from swatches too, although I'm aware that the color will not really look like the swatches at all. I did approve the main color from yesterday, so it was just the outline/stairs that was under discussion. Will just go with O's recommendation, and cross my fingers.

Gave me a good sketch of next week's actions - pretty much all done in one day - which day dependent on weather. Approx. 3 hrs of pouring, then the rest of the day smoothing it all out, putting in the color, and stamping, I think. Will have 7 or so guys, lots of noise, he warned.

Patio - Day Twenty-One

No activity since Monday, as he's getting all the supplies together. Everything on hold anyway since yesterday, due to the heavy rain. Will pick up again next Monday, after everything dries. Friday/Saturday are also holidays for all of the crew, as they celebrate Easter.

Met up with O to check out the finished color of another project, and we apologized to each other about the other day. Very professional, very casual, very nice.

Patio - Day Seventeen

Minor scrap with Oscar today. Was just asking about the stairs pouring process, but a combination of him sounding a little patronizing like I shouldn't worry my little head and me sounding like an interrogator, was not good. Was annoyed for a while.

Took us over to check out a CV finished project. Hubby very impressed and pleased with the finished product. OMG, the homeowner, though!

Patio - Day Sixteen

Work going well. Guys took the day off yesterday to do their bread-and-butter landscaping regulars. Today a guy doing the fill, but ran out this afternoon, and just hanging around now. Glad for the break, was getting a bit strained having the guys around all the time, jackhammering on Wednesday too. Wore down my nerves.

The retaining wall completely up. Had to raise it up a bit on the right side, facing the main patio door, and doesn't look too attractive now, but can be disguised. Tradeoff for eliminating the other set of stairs. Can live with it. The platform's blocked in.

Ohhh, Oscar & guys just rolled up, lots of noise. Wonder what they're doing this late in the afternoon!

Patio - Day Ten

Yay, the guys were laying more concrete blocks all day. Wow, it takes a long, long time. They did more in one day than Hubby and I could probably do in a week. I'm sooooo glad we decided to eat the cost and hire people. No freaking way we could have done this without some major suffering.

Had a moment of panic when looking at the very tall retaining wall. Oscar agreed to lower it down at the steepest spots, but now I'm realizing I'm being a spaz. It's only tall at one small area, and the majority of it's a regular height. Will tell him to just go ahead as planned on Monday.

Patio - Day Nine

Guys removed the board forms from the foundations and started building the concrete blocks.

Not Much Patio Activity Today

Guys came by twice, both times just to drop off a lot of soil.