UnrealisticExpectations 3.0

I’ve been in a pretty constant uphill-climb mode for the past week.

But, let’s start from the top, shall we?

When we moved into our house just about a half a year ago, we had lovely new sod dropped in on the ground.  We were pretty much the only house in the neighborhood with lush, green grass.  And constantly running sprinklers.  And too much to mow.

Except under our deck.  Everything there started to die off pretty quickly from lack of sunlight.

Frankly, why we would want to keep the area as it was didn’t make much sense, so we started to think about what we could do, and as life and luck would have it, we managed to get ourselves into a position fiscally to be able to take care of that space.

We decided to go with a paver brick patio (ie Unilock Hollandstone, Autumn Red) and a firepit sandbox for Sydney. Heh. Like diligent consumers, we did research. We got quotes. We even had “a guy” but he came back with a price quote that was only a couple of hundred bucks lower than the guy in the middle–and “the guy” doesn’t even do this type of work as his full time job.  So, unfortunately for “the guy” we couldn’t choose him.

Weather seemed to be battling us, but we got enough of a break last week after the snowstorm–we had 3 snowmen in our yard on Monday–work got started on Friday.  The backyard got dug up, rock and sand was dropped into place and stamped down and everything looked pretty close to what we wanted.

We mad some minor modifications that really “sealed the deal” for us on the design and all of that was taken care of really quickly.  For an upgrade fee, of course. It’s the type of upgrade that was worth it and it’s not like was extreme; Nicolle wanted a little extra space out from under the ginormous deck (12′ x 45′) so that she could put a table and chairs in the sun.  Makes sense.  Better to do it now than to bitch and moan after the fact.

So Monday comes and the crew is back and working at around 6.45a and I’m working from home so I can be available for all of this stuff and so I can handle a couple of other things (read: interviews).  Around noonish, I head out to get an oil change and some tasty lunch, and return to seeing a county truck sitting near my house.

It was an “Oh shit” moment, really.  I thought back to our first conversation with the landscaper and we did very specifically ask about needing a permit and he said “No; it’s not a permanent structure”.

Hey, we’re a little naive with this stuff.

Suffice it to say, we got slapped with a $75 fine and a stop work order.  Rather than getting upset and bitching out anyone, we talked and the landscaper said that he told them he needed to finish the center area or the job would be ruined.  That would basically screw us both, and again, being naive, I let them get back to work as I scrambled to draw up everything and complete all the paperwork for the permits that I needed, including one for a shed I am intending to build pretty soon.

But, I should provide a sidebar here.  I was also at home to have VOIP installed, and the installer… well, he caused problems.

Wehn the VOIP installer arrived, he informed me that he would be charging me $19.95 per telephone jack in my house–just to “turn them on and wire them accordingly”.  I was a bit shocked, since I had asked a lot of questions during the sales process AND since I ran all of the telephone wire in the house myself.  I explained to him that he could hook up his single jack and explain to me what wire colors needed to be turned on at the termination points and I could do just that–he was confused, perplexed and did not know what to do in a situation as this and was worried about the Cat5e and Cat6 wire running through the house.

Look, at the end of the day, a phone line is a phone line and there’s only so many ways you can connect wires, so this isn’t rocket-fucking-science.

But our installer trudged on and really wanted to make that $120 off of me, as if he was on commission.  I called beloved Comcast, but only after first asking the installer to leave.  Twice.

I was speaking with them as he was speaking to his dispatch, and very much not leaving.  I explained to Comcast that he needed to be out of my property and that he was pulling crap…and his call ended.  I told him again, with some serious emphasis on the “leaving NOW” part of it all, and grabbed him and directed him to the stairs.

He, like an idiot, tried to stop.

I, like an angry, angry man, shoved him up my stairs and loaded him with enough expletives to make my truckdriver father blush and made some off-handed reference to my 20 gauge that was upstairs–and that I happen to be a pretty decent shot with.  I did not enjoy this outburst, to be honest, but I don’t like strangers not leaving my house when told to do so.

Long story short, Comcast is making it right and we’ll all be playing nicely, and after a bunch of phone calls and a couple of supervisors who fully understood the situation, we’re going to be back in business before too long.  And I got to get back to my permits…

I found out from the county that I need a couple of visits from health and water, have to pay double for my permit and need a bunch of other crap to happen, but it’s nothing overly-major, really.

Cool.

Well, except for the extra $300 out of pocket that was unexpected.

Except that the landscaper, being a good businessman, offered to eat the costs, in order to do good business, which you just don’t see very much.  So, my plug for SNG Design, Inc is very well deserved.

Now, the rest of the story is loosely up for interpretation…

On Tuesday, I went to work as normal.  There was about 1/3 of the brick laid under our deck and in the area.  The landscaper was there strictly to take delivery of all of the brick that was being used and move it down to the work area.

When I returned home, the entire patio was completed.  And looking pretty kick-fucking-ass, too.  Modesty is becoming of me, eh?

This morning, I left for work as normal.

When I returned home, the entire job site was cleaned and all equipment was removed and repair dirt & seed were in place.

The rest of the ordeal with the permit remains to be seen, but the patio, well, it’s ready to be seen now.

Since you’ve made it this far, you can actually view the patio process in The Gallery.  (Or directly right here at The Patio Saga.)  More photo galleries to come.  Cool stuff.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 23rd, 2006 at 1:33 am and is filed under Raves, Rants, Bloggy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.