On Thu, 1 Jul 2010 10:49:20 -0400, "Nancy Young"
> wrote:

>Lou Decruss wrote:
>> On Thu, 01 Jul 2010 08:36:59 -0400, "Jean B." > wrote:
>
>>> The moral of the story: check, check, check (even when you are
>>> dealing with pros). Also keep an eye on things as they are being
>>> installed so you can detect problems before they cannot be
>>> corrected (or it would be MUCH to disruptive and add way too much
>>> time to correct them).
>
>> wood. The owner, cabinet designer and interior designer all blamed
>> each other but in the end the owner had to eat over 20 hours of labor.
>> The hot water heater for the flat had to go inside a cabinet in the
>> kitchen. They thought they had it all worked out but of course it
>> didn't fit to we had to take a cabinet apart and rebuilt it to make it
>> work. It needed to be deeper and taller. That was about another 20
>> hours of labor because the plumbing rough-in had to be modified.
>>
>> Mistakes can be expensive.
>
>You ever catch that show Renovation Realities? I would say half
>time you wonder if the people spent even 40 seconds planning
>the job, and the other half thinking that poor slob, who could have
>seen that coming? All kinds of bad surprises in renovations.
>I had a couple in my kitchen redo, but luckily, not too awful.

Never saw that show but I've seen other ones with surprises in the
walls, floors, or ceilings. Remodeling is very hard work to bid. One
problem is people watch a 30 minute TV show about a bathroom that gets
remodeled in a weekend and think it can really be done and wonder why
a contractor wants so much money. If they open up a wall and find a
surprise they can't just overlook it because if a problem shows up in
6 months it looks like it was their fault. A simple faucet change can
turn into a major project if the shutoff valves are bad and need to be
replaced and an iron nipple falls apart when you try to take the valve
of. Next thing you know you're opening up a wall. Newer houses are
better now for some reason but homes built in the early 80's are total
crap. I drove through a project I worked on back then and it's a
total disgrace. Nothing was back painted and I saw many times
painters working in the rain.

Lou