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January 23, 2005
The Best Laid Plans...
Seems that despite the builder of our new home's repeated insistence, we won't be closing on the 1st. See, it rained in Seattle yesterday.
I know - rain. In Seattle. In January. It's shocking.
So shocking, in fact, that a professional builder apparently couldn't foresee that the weather would have an affect on the build schedule.
As of last week, the builder and his agent were so positive we'd close on time, I made the mistake of scheduling the movers to deliver our stuff on the 3rd and 4th - a reservation it seems I'll now need to un-do.
The delay is annoying - it means we have to pay an obscene amount to stay in our temp housing (about $100/night), and some as yet unknown but almost certainly similarly obscene amount to keep our stuff in storage. It also means we'll have to sacrifice our nearly perfect delivery dates and get back on the movers delivery schedule, at their convenience.
But what's really annoying is that the builder didn't raise the red flag 'till just over a week before close. For several weeks, he said they'd be done early - glad I didn't bank on that one.
I've lost track of the number of times I've questioned the on-time close. After looking over all the work remaining, and working out the schedule of necessary events (like the inspections, appraisals, loan doc signing, etc. ) I sent him an email a week ago questioning that all the remaining exterior work could be completed in the time remaining - giving him an out - and he insisted we were on schedule.
Seems I'm a better project planner and work estimator than a builder who's been in the business for 15-odd years.
Maybe I'm just a better pessimist.
The weekend was ok - we went to the Seattle Home Remodeling show on Saturday, and from there went to a wood furniture store in the north end. Saw an absolutely beautiful dining table - solid cherry, Amish construction, smooth as a baby's butt. I called it nearly exactly right at $4000 for the table and 6 chairs.
This morning we went to the Museum of Flight with some folks from work - we saw parts of it we didn't even have a chance to run through last time. Afterwords we went down to Bahama Breeze for lunch - pretty good, all in all. Then Dawnise and I broke with the group to do some more furniture shopping.
We might have found most of our bedroom set at Bassett. The only thing we don't like is the bed-frame. It's got a "shin-biter" foot-board, which I'm sure either Dawnise or I (or both) will nail ourselves on at least once. The poster version of the bed doesn't have that problem, but we're not quite convinced.
In other (similarly exciting) news, we bought a mattress the other day. I had intended to buy another from Custom Comfort Mattress, but it turned out that shipping one up here was significantly more expensive than they, and I, thought. We didn't realize, 'till after the sale was complete, that the set price didn't include a frame. Cheap bastards. So until we solve our bed problem, the mattress will be on the floor, which neither of us like. I may just break down and buy a frame for the interim.
So our spirits aren't exactly on the roof at the moment. Got an Eddie Izzard DVD from netflix - going to throw it in and see if he can extract a smile from the two of us.
Posted by dberger at January 23, 2005 6:38 PM