Creosote is the Enemy

Never heard of creosote? Neither had I...until yesterday. Mike has a wood burning stove in the basement. It is his baby and he loves it. Mike's Mom said he has always had a love of the fire. So, we just started to burn it 24/7 on Sunday. It is supposed to help heat the house. Well, I was bringing some wood in from the stack in the backyard yesterday and I noticed a black substance on the chimney. Upon further inspection, there was a ton of this stuff weeping out of the mortar and running down the chimney. Come to find out, this is probably creosote. It is a by product of a wood burning fireplace or stove. However, this product should not be able to seep out of your chimney out onto your brick. It should be contained in the flue liner of the chimney.

Needless to say, we called the builder and of course he'd never heard of such a thing. He called the brick mason and of course there is no way under the sun that this could be happening. Mike's parents made an emergency visit to the house to check it out and they too had never seen such a thing before. Great! Well, this must be fixed. The builder is to come by and look at it today. In the meantime, there will be no more using of Mike's beloved wood stove until this issue is resolved.

This is what our chimney looks like:

Packing Day!

Just taking a break from packing. Moving is the pits...but finally moving into my new house is great! I better not goof off too much, I've got to turn in a timesheet to my 'boss'!!

Cabinets are Here!!

Well, our cabinets were installed about a week ago. I was very happy with how they turned out. The granite should be installed this week. Loser Builder says that he hopes to be done by next Friday, the 17th. I wouldn't bet on it, but we are getting very close. He better be done by the end of the month because I'll be homeless then. But I can't worry about that now...I'm sure our friends Rob and Carla will let us sleep on their couch for a while :)

The green cabinet is in the guest bathroom and the other cabinet is in the master bathroom. There are two of the same cabinets in the master bathroom, one for me and one for Mike.

These are the kitchen cabinets. I must say that the dining room paint looks really neon green in the kitchen cabinets picture number two. Hmm, it doesn't look that green in person. Anyway, the cabinet maker said we shouldn't put them in so early. He said we needed to wait until the floor was sanded and finished. Of course, Loser Builder didn't agree so they were put in before the floors were finished. Well, after a week of being in the house, the corners of the island have been scuffed and scratched so bad that they are going to have to be repaired. I think someone draped an electrical cord around the island. All this damage and the floors haven't even been finished yet. I'm trying to not worry too much about it. I've told Loser Builder that his loser subs have already damaged my pretty cabinets. So, we'll see how much damage there is when it's all said and done.

Follow Up

Just to follow up on my post from yesterday...Loser Builder actually handled the situation the best I could hope for, short of apologizing. He said he would replace all the sheetrock that got wet and any insulation, if necessary, at no cost to us. He actually called me yesterday afternoon to tell me that they had completely shingled and flashed the cricket that was built behind the chimney...which should have been done before my house got flooded...but better late than never.

I was exhausted after getting no sleep Tuesday night and I was literally in bed by 7pm last night. Man do I feel better today!!!

The Nightmare Continues

Well, just as I suspected, the house has a leak problem. I don't know why my builder couldn't have foreseen and prevented the problem himself. I laid awake last night listening to what sounded like the Great Flood II and all I could think about was how much water was getting in my nice new house. So, I got up at 5 this morning, after about I'd guess 3 hours of sleep, and went to the house before work. This is what I found:

Apparently, Loser Builder didn't think it was important to flash the chimney. Now, I'm no expert builder, but even I know that if your chimney isn't flashed, you're asking for trouble. Well, Loser Builder and I are going to have words first thing this morning!!!

House Pictures (Again)

Well, the house is moving along on the inside. The mason is still pacing himself on the outside. I think he'll be done by Christmas!! To make matters worse, it's raining this week!! My Loser Builder is still not my favorite person in the world. He never does what he says he's going to do, but I think I've already blogged about my dislike for him before. My main worry this week is the rain. Since the chimney isn't done, we've had water in the house recently with the rain. Loser Builder hasn't done anything to fix this problem yet and it's supposed to rain all week. So, I'll have the pleasure of going by after work every day this week to make sure it's not raining in my house. Here are the latest pics:

House Pictures

Just wanted to post some updated pictures of the house. Things have finally started to move again. They may actually be done laying brick this week, but it is raining today, so maybe not. However, they have made good progress in the last week and a half. The interior has also started to come along. They have been installing trim for the past week and a half, interior doors have been installed and the ceilings have been painted. So, I'm getting more and more excited about having a nice new home to move into!

I was really excited to see the arches over the garage doors. I thought they came out looking really nice. There was some drama with the builder over the arches and we're still not sure that the height from the ground to the top of the opening will be big enough for the Tahoe. So, there may still be some drama to come. I wish I could get a good picture of the entire front of the house but there is a big construction dumpster right in middle of the front yard!

I Hate My Builder!!

Sorry, but this one will not be very entertaining to read. We met with the builder at the house yesterday and the realization finally hit me that hell will freeze over before our house will be done on time. Mike asked Jeff ("Loser Builder") if we were on schedule to be done on time. Loser Builder's response was "I don't know, when is it supposed to be done??" Are you kidding me!!!!! We've only been on his case since before day one about getting it done in 9 months. Of course before we signed the contract this was "No problem!". About the time Loser Builder made that comment, I thought I was going to pass out, literally. But that's another story (I gave blood yesterday). Extreme Home Makeover is in Charlotte this week and they are building a house in 80 hours and I can't get my house built in 9 months!!

We are supposed to close on our construction loan and convert to the final loan on October 22nd. So, if we don't, there is a penalty for every day we go past the original closing date. Not to mention that our lease at our crappy rental house is up at the end of October too. Have I mentioned that I hate my Loser Builder??

I haven't really gotten too mad or depressed about it until now. I know there is nothing I can do about it, but when you sit down and think about all that is left to be done, you just know that at the snails pace that Loser Builder works at, it's not going to happen. Since the sheetrock was put up TWO weeks ago, essentially nothing has happened on the interior. The brick mason decided to make an appearance at the house a few days so far this week. So, that was impressive! It is just really really frustrating!!! Oh well...I just wanted to vent. I think now I'll just sit at my cubicle and pout all day, thank you very much! :(

Sheetrock, Finally!!

Well, the house finally got sheetrock. After many weeks of promising sheetrock, the promise was finally fulfilled. All looks good except for the placement of the lights in the living room. The lights have been roughed in for probably a month and a half. But once the sheetrock was installed, it became obvious that the lights were off center from the fireplace in the living room. We're going to have two ceiling fans in that room and they should be equidistant from the fireplace. However, they are not. Now is the worst time to get those moved. We had every opportunity to notice the mistake before now, but we missed it. So, I'm sure the builder and electrician will be thrilled! But I've got to get that fixed because it does look bad. Maybe now the fun stuff can get started, like the hardwoods and tile.

House Update

Well, there isn't much to update. This week they installed insulation and...yeah, that's it, that's all they did. The brick mason didn't step one foot on the property all week. He had some lame excuse like his wife had her gall bladder removed. WHATEVER!! Anyway, this week our builder is not working but he says the sheetrock should be installed this week. I'll believe it when I see it. I just wish it was done and over with. If it gets done on time (ha ha) then there should be a little over 3 months to go. Below are the latest pictures...