The title says it all. While on our hike yesterday, when every rock looked like tile to us, we got this text:

“Unfortunately due to personal issues my wife is going to finish the duration of this project with you most of it’s down to just numbers and she does all of that part with the company anyway her phone number is…thanks for everything take care”

I don’t know what those personal issues might be, but this text came fairly soon after he had requested extra funds, and instead of a check we had submitted a spreadsheet detailing how we’ve paid him significantly more than he’s actually paid for contractors and materials (he’s behind in paying them), and that we weren’t going to pay him any more until the project is complete.

We were supposed to have only paid 50% at halfway, and 50% when the project is complete. But we paid extra because we weren’t being careful enough keeping up with the exact numbers, and we knew we had added a number of items to the original scope.  It made sense to pay additional since we had increased the size of the project.

But then recently we could tell he was starting to struggle with the project, so we removed a lot of the extra items that he had not yet started. (We’ll still do those items, but we’ll handle them ourselves.) Removing the extra scope made the percentage we’ve paid go up to 80%. (50% or 60% of a larger project = 80% of the original project). At 80%, we are very vulnerable to him simply taking the money and walking off the project.

I don’t think we mind having him gone – turns out he wasn’t really value-added. But he owes his suppliers and his labor. We need him to continue to pay for the materials and labor that we’ve already paid him for, so the work will continue.

I started out gamely chronicling the tile saga. Then I started showing some frustration. Then I stooped to using an obscenity in a blog tile. Final stage – we have now just gone stark raving mad.

John had Friday off, and in order to keep our sanity intact, we decided instead of going straight to Albuquerque to look at tile, we would first go on a hike, and then go look at tile in the afternoon (when the thunderstorms start).

We took a few beautiful photos of our hike, which I will post. We also took about 50 pictures of rocks (don’t worry, I’ll only post a representative few). “Why rocks?”, you might ask. BECAUSE THEY LOOKED LIKE TILE! I tell you, we’re losing it.

Here’s the standard scenery shots:

Here’s a few of the many, many rock shots:

When I started this blog, I was going to keep it light and happy, but I’ve decided that authenticity is a stronger value of mine.

To recap briefly: John and I spent an enormous amount of time trying to choose tile to replace the carpet downstairs. He wanted dark, I wanted light, and we had just about given up, when we discovered a store that carried our existing tile! So we gleefully ordered more of our existing tile, waited a couple of weeks for it to arrive, waited a couple of more weeks for our tile guy to have time to install, when we then discovered the dye lot was vastly different and it was a complete mismatch.

So we had him take back up the part he had just installed. The remainder of the tile was not readily returnable, so we ordered MORE of it, with the intention of eventually installing it in one of the rentals. So we’re now out a couple thousand dollars for tile that we don’t really like or need. Half of it is in the storage unit, the other half will be coming in soon, and will need moved to the storage unit. Have you ever moved tile? It’s like 50 lbs per box and there’s dozens of boxes.

So then we had to choose a different kind of tile (again). This consisted of us running around to every tile store in Albuquerque (again), except this time I just trailed behind John like a teenager saying, “Whatever. It’s fine. You choose. That one’s fine too. Yes! It’s fine! Can we go now?”

So we chose one. And ordered it. It was due in today. You see where this is going. No tile. Maybe in 2 weeks? Maybe not ever?

They do have it in 20 x 20 squares.

But John wants rectangles.

Meanwhile, we finally found a wood floor guy. Not the one who was allegedly run out of the county by the police when he was supposed to be measuring our floors for a quote. The one we went with is the one who tried to give our time slot away, even though we had accepted his bid immediately. Maybe I didn’t tell you about that. At any rate, we have our time slot back, for now at least. It’s a jungle out there! (As my grandpa used to say.)

So this morning it dawned on me that we could just do downstairs in wood. Our original tile is still intact in the kitchen, laundry and bathroom. The tile guy had been told to pull up all the old tile, but he hasn’t yet. So I quickly called him and told him, “Don’t do anything! We don’t know what we’re doing yet!”

I’m afraid John isn’t going to want to do downstairs in wood. He’ll worry about durability. Dogs. Entryways. Water stains. But I don’t mind dinged up, scratched and stained hardwood. It’s all about character!

In addition to dogs, we have houseplants. The only time I’ve ever damaged a hardwood floor had to do with a house-sitter overwatering the houseplants which were set on plastic since we were just moving in, and the water got under the plastic, unnoticed, and was trapped there for awhile. But that was an unusual situation, a very long time ago. Typically, my houseplants are up on plant stands.

I have dozens of houseplants, many of which are quite large.

This bird of paradise used to be on the front courtyard in California. It seems happy inside, it bloomed over the winter.

And anyway, there’s no way they would all fit downstairs. Even if there was tile down there, half of them would still have to be on the wood floors upstairs.

I’d do the kitchen in wood too, but I know John won’t go for that. Actually, it would look so much better to do the kitchen in wood too, because it’s just a little walk-thru kitchen with the living/dining area on one side, and the family room on the other. And there’s a long, slightly crooked threshold between the kitchen and the family room. So tile in the kitchen, with wood on both sides of it, would disrupt the flow of the house.

PLEASE can we put hardwood downstairs, including the kitchen? I’ve had wood in kitchens before and it’s fine. All you have to do is not start the dishwasher immediately before leaving for a 2-week vacation (that’s how the wood was ruined by the previous owners of a rental we used to own). Of all the times for the dishwasher to fail, it was immediately after they left for vacation. But what are the odds of that happening? Particularly now we learned from their mistake and know not to do it.

But even if we did somehow manage to ruin the wood in the kitchen (which is not going to happen) but if we did, we could just replace it with a few boards we saved in our garage. Or if it’s a catastrophically large area (really not going to happen) but if it did, we would just replace it with tile at that point. And we’d be no worse off. Plu-ee-ee-eees??

OMG you guys, I had such a crazy dream!

I dreamed that I got a full-time job and John quit his job. But in addition to my job, I was also still coaching my clients in the evening, and I was managing the rentals, and paying all the bills, and keeping up with the house, and the laundry, and groceries, and cooking, and making sure the dogs went to the groomers, and all these many, many things, and John wasn’t doing anything except for hiking all day long! He was just out by himself in the desert for days at a time. And when I suggested that he do some of the work, he said, “There’s nothing to be done, you’ve done it all.” I was so mad that I’m surprised I didn’t wake up and start hitting him!

So then I said (in my dream), “I want a swimming pool. And I want you to dig it yourself.” Which sounds terrible, but is actually fairly funny, because John always wants to do everything himself. I always want to hire people because he doesn’t have time to do it all.  But he likes to do things himself because that way they’re “done right.” And in real life I do want a pool, but John has been ignoring that impractical wish of mine, because there’s nowhere for a pool on that hill.

In my dream, he dug a swimming pool. And it wasn’t just a rectangle in the ground. He dug caves and underwater passageways. He installed underwater lights and different color tiles. And it was so beautiful that I wanted to become a fish so I could live there.

I wish I could post a picture. But taking photos of our dreams is something for a different generation to figure out.