This weekend my wife and oldest daughter Robyn bought their dresses for the upcoming wedding. Instead of a long, drawn-out ordeal travelling from store to store looking for *the* dress, each found what they were looking for at the very first places they went. For an occasion like this, you don't mind spending the money (Liz and Robyn were a little afraid to tell me what the wedding dress cost, but when they did I was relieved because it was much less than I had prepared myself for).

That's the good.

On Friday, the kitchen floor people came out and removed the new floor that they had botched. Somehow, somewhy, when they moved the stove to get at the floor underneath, instead of removing the temperature probe from the oven, they took the readout from the counter and tossed it inside. That night, I went to preheat the oven and was almost overcome from the fumes as that plastic readout unit melted and made a huge mess in the bottom of my brand new oven. A half hour of scraping and scrubbing got it out, but I was *not* a happy camper.

Yesterday the subfloor guy showed up to fix the problem that contributed to the screwed up installation of the floor. He had given me a ballpark estimate of the cost based on what we could tell him because he didn't want to cut the floor up ahead of time. He was concerned that with Liz on a cane, it would leave him open to liability if she tripped on it. He came highly recommended by several people, and I was prepared to fork over the top end of his estimate, while hoping it would be closer to the low end.

No such luck. After an hour of looking at what needed to be done, I finally asked what it would cost to do the job right (instead of the cheaper mickey-mouse alternatives that we'd been discussing). I knew what really needed to be done, but he didn't want to have to say it.

Ouch.

Well, it's done. It's beautiful, as much as a sub-floor can be beautiful. He was a craftsman, as carpenters go, and in the end the new floor will be better for it. Tomorrow the kitchen people show up again and install the new floor. That part of it (removal and install new) is free for us, because they goofed the original. Liz will be watching like a hawk, because she's still pissed that it had to be redone. Plus, now she knows what a good job should look like.

So we've spent our 3-day weekend with more contractors making a mess in the house, and spent way more money than was originally planned, but that's ok. Robyn's wedding dress is absolutely beautiful, and Liz is gorgeous in her new dress.

Posted by: Ted at 11:01 AM | category: Square Pegs
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