Home Remodel @ MindSay 
After my favorite Jewish carpenter, Neil, was too busy to do the next step on the “cheapie 50,000” kitchen I decided to go shopping for a new carpenter. Everything seemed good during the interview: he was pleasant, seemed amiable, perfectionistic and willing to do the work for a good price. So last night he brought his tools over to set up in the garage ( I thought this was a good sign) and said he was an early bird and would be here at 8 am.
Well , the tool preparation turned out to be because he did not drive but rather took the 44 bus. Okay, no big deal. He was rather chatty and had a lot of questions which I chalked up to wanting to be perfectly clear about what he wanted. After an hour of more chat and measuring he announced that he was taking the glass doors to the table saw. Hmmmmmmmmm, after about 30 minutes of silence I asked jim what was happening and he said T had taken the doors on the bus to where his table saw was and then was going to go shopping with $20 that we gave him. This did not appear a good sign at all. Somewhere around 1 pm, after I had gone out to the bank and the hardware store and the container store and eaten a leisurely double dip chocolate almond waffle cone from Baskin Robbins the phone rang. T was asking if he could “borrow” Jim for an hour. I brought the phone to jim but listened in. seems the hinges were going to be different and even though he was making the doors smaller there would have to be a 1.4 inch gap between the door and frame.
My executive decision was that upon his return ( by bus) I would pay him $50 for his time and give him a bus ticket and call it quits. If he had scaled down the doors I would pay him $100 give him a bus ticket and say we’ll go on from here alone. But the issue of tools was still facing us ( oh he had already borrowed a foot stole, tape measure and level) so I volunteered that Jim would drive T and his tools home as long as he lived close enough not to have to cross the bridges mid-afternoon.
So 6.5 hours later we were back to base one, out a day, out $43. had some I assume stolen hinges because T said the man “gave” them to him. And jim decided that as soon as he purchased a table saw he would do the project himself. This was my first contractor failure but I think we got off well before he destroyed our doors, expected to be paid more or had us waiting around every day with endless questions. In hindsight he had said something about carpenters “living” in the house and I wonder if we were expected to set up the guest room so he didn’t have to go back and forth on the bus. Lesson: make sure your carpenter has a car, tools and a little money to buy supplies for which you reimburse him when shown the receipt.
Now a pizza is in the oven so we can eat fast and get to a modern dance concert at the PCPA downtown. And Jim has finished two coats on the library shelves so by Monday we may actually empty the boxes and get to work on the crown moldings.
