Renovation nightmare Journal – episode 14

So, what did we have this week…
Nothing!

Here is why nothing has been done in these last 4 weeks and why nothing will be done before tomorrow…

It seems that for renovations you need a letter of commencement from the county you belong to.
What is that letter you are asking…?
That’s a good question, just another thing to slow you down, or should I say, stop you all together if you don’t have it.
This letter was supposed to be done with all the other documents for the renovations. Before starting the work you suppose to get this letter from your county. When the inspector is coming to your home he might ask for it and if he does, you should be able to produce it.

We had a few inspections since the beginning of the project but they didn’t ask for this letter. You would think this will give your contractor enough time to make sure this letter is in the papers. Furthermore, since one of the inspectors asked for it before I left the country about a month ago, This was supposed to give the company enough time to get this from the county, a whole month! But still, this was not done. And nothing was done this month, we are just standing still in the same position.

So when I came back I started pushing to get this letter. This takes about a week to get since the county needs to record it (whatever that means)
Why couldn’t we have the inspection this Monday you ask, well in this case, it is not my contractor’s fault, here you should blame Martin Luther King federal day. So, the inspection will be tomorrow.

After that one, we need to have another inspection on Wednesday. For what you are asking, prepare yourself… this is not a joke!

An inspector will be here on Wednesday to check…. The screws!
YES! Unbelievable isn’t it? They have a special inspection for the screws. We need to use specific ones that they are demanding and to make sure that you are not fulling around they have a particular inspection for it.
So here you go why before Thursday probably nothing will be done here…
I think this also answers the question of why renovating a small apartment takes so long.
Have a wonderful week guys. I hope we will not be missing or have any loose screws… 😀

Renovation nightmare Journal – episode 13.

A few things you should know, that I didn’t before you begin renovating your apartment. Read until the end, don’t say I didn’t warn you 🙌

It seems that there are silent rules that are known only to the contractor and his crew. They probably assume that everybody knows about them, but in fact, they invented these rules, and the people that are renovating stumble upon them along the way, and they have no idea why these contractors think that it is ok to work by these rules.

In addition, this will answer all my friends that are constantly asking me why it takes so long to renovate a small apartment…🙈

I will list the rules here and if you have never heard about them, I suggest you will remember them in case you are intending to renovate any time soon or in the future.

1. Dates – Working dates will be given to you, but you should never rely on them. What do I mean by that? For example – your contractor will say that they will come to work at your house on a certain day, but they will not be there on that day. When you call and ask where are the workers, if you are lucky and he will answer you, he will say, oh.. no they couldn’t come today, or he will say, I tried to call them but they said they had to go to another site, they will come tomorrow.
2. Time – When you are renovating your time means nothing to everyone related to the project. What is that mean? They don’t have a problem keeping you home all day long with no explanation. And they will continue doing so, regardless of how many times you complain or get upset. For example – They will schedule a time with you to be at your place at 9 am. At 10 am you will call to check why no one has come already. If you are lucky you will get an answer at 11 am saying, oh yes sure they are coming but they will be at your place at 12 pm, they just went to Home Depot to buy materials (BTW Home Depot excuse is very popular with the contractors – Home Depot is a cause for delaying a job a day or more). When no one showed up at 1 pm you will start calling and texting if you are lucky you will get an answer at 3 pm saying, oh they couldn’t come today, they got stock at Home Depot, traffic was terrible, etc… When you demand an answer they will say, oh, there was a change of plan and furthermore your place needed a plumber again because they need to replace a pipe so there was no point sending the man without the plumber… Was there a point in letting you know that no one is coming? Was there a point in keeping you home until 4 pm for nothing… 🙈?
3. This Rule Is One Of The Most Important Ones! Beware of complaining too much – Do not complain too much as I found out the hard way that when you do you might upset the contractor and then he will punish you by not answering your calls for a few days and getting your project set back a week if you are lucky. It’s ok if you are upset, but never make the contractor or his workers upset!
4. When the workers finally get to your house and work, don’t let them go anywhere, especially!! Never let them go to Home Depot, and don’t let them out of your site. If they will go to buy something in the middle of the workday, they will never come back on the same day 🤦‍♀️
5. If your contractor needs to submit a permit/application/paperwork to the city, don’t expect that to be done in a day or 2. Whenever they need to submit something it takes them a week to deliver the papers. I can’t even begin to imagine why it takes a week to do that. When they finally submit the paperwork, you should pray that they submitted everything and nothing is missing. If they miss something, add another week to that schedule…🙈
6. Don’t give them your house keys. You might want to do that thinking they will be able to come and work if you are not home or if god forbid you had to leave for a few days… They will not! They will not use your key to work when you are not there and they will probably lose your key anyway. and say that they couldn’t go in becouse they didn’t have the key.

So, if you didn’t know these rules you should, I spoke to a few people renovating their places, and these rules apply to all.

Please keep this in mind. If you are renovating that means you don’t have a life!

Have a wonderful week everybody. I would love to have your comments here 😎

Renovation nightmare Journal – episode 12.

How long does it take to fill out an application and submit it to the city? 🤔

Sorry for not writing anything in the last 2 weeks. I was out of the country and I only came back yesterday. But the nightmare continues in full force.

Can you guess if anything happened while I was gone? Yes, you are right, absolutely nothing! 🙈

The only thing they needed to do is to get approval for the electrical changes we are making. Since we need to reconnect to the electrical box we needed to get FPL approval. This required an additional application to be filled out and submitted by the electrician.  How long does it take to fill out an application and submit it to the city? I really don’t think it should take 2 weeks, even if there are a few holidays in between…

If you are still wondering, no, the application was not filled by the electrician and it was not submitted to the city. Another 2 weeks have gone down the drain.

When I got to my apartment I found a letter from the HOA. Well, if you think the city is annoying and doing everything they can to make your life miserable… well the HOA is much worse! If you are living in an apartment and you are thinking about renovating it, DON’T DO IT! You will be much better off selling it and buying one that is already renovated. Dealing with the city, the HOA, and the workers is a full-time job, and I hope you are not working becouse if you are, you have a problem.

When I left 2 weeks ago I had a problem with one of the toilets, it was not installed correctly and it was leaking, so I was using the other one (lucky me I have 2). When I came back yesterday and I use the other one, it seems that the other one is clogged… So now I have none.  I was promised that someone will come to fix it today… But no one did. Do you still want to renovate your apartment? Try living in a place with no toilet… 🙈🥴

I was very upset since I came back, and I was debating with myself whether I should continue writing this journal. I hope I am helping someone with this.

I am really tired of this. As of now, there is no ending date to this nightmare.

I wish you all a wonderful new year. May this year bring you love, prosperity, health and happiness.

The nightmare continues…

So what did we have last week? Great news they finished the bathroom! But don’t get too excited as of yet…

*Whether you are looking to do renovations in your place, or you already did renovate your place, in that case, you know what I am talking about, you never know when you will need to make some changes to your home, you should read this, it might help you in the near or far future.

I managed to shower only once before my shower was shut down again. Yes, I know it is unbelievable. I was taking my time enjoying my new shower… 10 minutes later there was a knock on my door, they were knocking and ringing the bell impatiently. Opening the door I see 2 building maintenance guys saying your bathroom is leaking we came to check it. And they did. After that, I got an email saying I am not allowed to take showers anymore as I am flooding my neighbors until this is fixed. It was Friday afternoon… no one will come to fix it at this time, so of course, this was pushed to Monday 🤦‍♀️

I can’t even begin to tell you how upset I was. Waiting for this shower for 2 months, and finally, get it and have it shut down again…
They don’t know what’s wrong, today the plumber is supposed to come to fix it. I just hope they will not have to remove tiles from the wall…

In addition to all that Jazz, all other work was stopped a week ago as we are waiting for our planes to get approved by the city. Why waiting for approval again you are asking?

Well, you should know, every time you make a change to the renovation it has to be approved by the city even if it is an insignificant change. We decided to make the lower ceiling a bit longer instead of only above the kitchen. The inspector checked the plans, yes they do that in each inspection, and this is why we didn’t pass the electrical inspection. Instead, we needed to get the plans modified by the architect, which took a week to get, and then we needed to submit the plans again to the city to get approval, hopefully, we will get approved in 2,3 days. No matter what we do, if everything goes fast we will lose 10 days, if not, we can lose 2, or 3 weeks…

OOPS, it’s Christmas already…

And still, nothing is ready…

Happy Holidays to all of you. I hope to have a shower before Christmas… 🙈

Happy Monday everyone.

Episode 9 and I still don’t have a shower or a kitchen 🙈

This week we finished the ceiling above the kitchen area and the drywall in the bathroom. Finally, we pass the drywall inspection and we can start installing the tiles.

*Whether you are looking to do renovations in your place, or you already did renovate your place, in that case, you know what I am talking about, you never know when you will need to do some changes to your home, you should read this, it might help you in the near or far future.

last week we had a few inspections, one of which was electric. The electrician waited here from 9 am to 3 pm. No one came. Calling the inspector multiple times also did not help as he didn’t answer. The next day we found out what happened, he was too busy and had too many appointments so he decided that it would be a good idea not to come to the meeting, not to reply to calls, and not to let us know that he is canceling this inspection.

I have no words to describe this 🤦‍♀️

I know I always do my best to respect someone else’s time. I tried to be on time when I have a meeting and if I am late, I will call. I don’t know what gives him the right to disrespect us and to treat our time with complete disregard. The electrician and his worker were waiting here for 7 hours, I lost 3 days, becouse the inspection was pushed forward 3 days, and basically, I lost the week becouse he came only Friday and all work will be pushed to Monday.

Another thing you should keep in mind before you start renovating, don’t do the same mistake I did.

When I decided to renovate I was looking for all the materials that I needed. For example, I went to look for a new floor. I found the floor I liked and I bought it becouse I was afraid that they will run out of it and then I will need to start looking again. I didn’t think it will take so long to start the work/ finish the work. Well, it is not finished yet… I had many boxes of floor left since the lady in the store gave me too many boxes, but now I can’t return them becouse 6 months have passed since I bought them and they have a return policy of 90 days. This is not the only material I have that I cannot return.

Also when you buy a few months ahead of time sometimes things are changing and you will find out that either you change your mind about some of the materials or they don’t fit what you need anymore. In that case, you will not be able to return it.

Have a wonderful week, I hope to have my shower done this week 🙏

🙌 Happy Holidays!

👉 Please keep in mind, when you are renovating, holidays are not your friends.

*Whether you are looking to do renovations in your place, or you already did renovate your place, in that case, you know what I am talking about, you never know when you will need to do some changes to your home, you should read this, it might help you in the near or far future.

As I mentioned before this relates to Apartments/condos, not houses. If you are renovating an apartment, every holiday is a STOP sign. It means no work. the building is closed to workers, sometimes a day before and a day after. In my case, the building was closed on Thursday and Friday. Why Friday you ask? becouse they can. The HOA office decides when to shut down work and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. So last week we had only 3 days of work, out of these 3 days, we had 2 inspections.

About inspections…

When you schedule an inspection, again, no work, you don’t know until the morning of the inspection when the inspector will come. If you are lucky he will be there in the morning and sometimes the workers can keep working after that. If you are not lucky, he will be there in the afternoon meaning, no work that day. Basically last week, I was left with one work day. It’s amazing how easily a whole week is shrinking into one day. I was also sick with the flu, so it was basically a waste of a week.

Not looking forward to the end-of-the-month holidays 🙈

Still don’t have a shower and a kitchen… yay 🤦‍♀️

Will keep you posted.

Well, it seems that when you are renovating an apartment, the deadline for the project is written on ice.

*Whether you are looking to do renovations in your place, or you already did renovate your place, in that case, you know what I am talking about, you never know when you will need to do some changes to your home, you should read this, it might help you in the near or far future.

This weekend was very challenging for me. Since I started renovating my home every weekend was challenging, but this one was more than the others. The realization that there is no deadline for this nightmare is starting to weigh on me.  Usually, when you start a project you must have a date when the project will end, a specific project you are working on should not run indefinitely. Well, it seems that when you are renovating an apartment, the deadline for the project is written on ice.

You are probably thinking this is insane and unreasonable, there must be a finish date, a date when the project is done. You are right, I thought so too.

Why there is no such date you are asking? Well, let me tell you why.

If you renovated an apartment – not talking about a house because in a house you will not face the problems you are facing with an apartment/ Condo. You need to keep in mind that you will stumble upon all kinds of obstacles that will pop up whether you are doing everything correctly or not and these obstacles will push the ending date further and further away.

There will always be reasons why the work is getting delayed. If you are working with a contractor, keep in mind that it is never the contractor’s fault, they will never give you a specific date and it will always be depended on something! It could be your fault for asking to change something, or the inspector’s fault that didn’t pass you the inspection and work cannot continue, the building’s office for creating different rules every other day, or elevators that are not working, or the workers that didn’t come, or they did come but they went to buy something in home depot and didn’t come back… and so on and so on.

This weekend I realized that this project is going on and on and I cannot see the end of it, and that made me upset.

Another obstacle that you will be facing is that you will be getting a job, or if you are already working then this will be your 2nd job, whether you want it or not. This job’s name is “The Pusher”.

What or who is “The Pusher” and what he needs to do you are asking? Well, the pusher’s job is to push the contractor/workers/city /HOA office to do the job they were paid to do. I don’t know if it is the same in other places, but here in Florida, if you will not push to get the work done, you will end up renovating a small apartment for up to 1 – 2 years. My neighbor renovated her apartment – smaller than mine, and it took her a year. If you are not willing to be “The Pusher” or you have no time for it, you better get someone who can do this for you otherwise it will take you 2 years to renovate a small apartment.

So what is the situation now?

No kitchen, no shower I cannot have any guests in my home, and I also don’t know when this nightmare will be over!

We are fast approaching the holidays, this week we have Thanksgiving, and we must finish this before the end of the year’s holidays, becouse I have guests coming to visit me at beginning of the new year.

Please pray for me… 🙈

Happy Thanksgiving to you all 🙌💁‍♀️

* This blog is my experience and my opinion only and it is not to reflect on anyone’s work except my own subjective thoughts and experience.

No, I am not referring to taking things. The workers are really nice and trustworthy. So, what am I talking about?

Renovation nightmare Journal – episode 6

Whether you are looking to do renovations in your place, or you already did renovate your place, in that case, you know what I am talking about, you never know when you will need to do some changes to your home, you should read this, it might help you in the near or far future.

Little progress in the last few days. Nevertheless, I have decided to go back home. Since there are no more big metal electric wires monsters attacking me everywhere, this had been taken care of.

I want you to keep in mind that if you are renovating your home, not only do you need to supervise the supervisor/ or get someone else to do that, but you better not leave anything out of your vision if you want to use it again.

No, I am not referring to taking things. The workers are really nice and trustworthy. So, what am I talking about?

Well to my surprise whenever one of the workers needs something they will take it, and you probably have to through it away after they used it becouse I am sure you will not want to use it again. After I realized that, I gave them a tour of the house pointing out all the things that matter to me.

For example, I had a white towel in my leaving room that turned into a floor wiper. I had another towel next to the since that was used to shut one of the pipes and mind you, not one of the good ones. I would definitely never use that one again. I came home one day to discover my new sofa turned into storage for boxes and stuff. I had to go over the house and point all my stuff telling the workers not to destroy them, please.

I assume the reason that happens is becouse they just don’t think about it. But when you work in a house that is not empty and people are living in it, you should.

So next time you are renovating, keep that in mind.

I want to conclude this episode on a positive note. The only room in the house that is almost ready, not completely ready, but almost.

Here is my half bath before and after.

What do you think?