Drywall

The new drywall guy won't be able to start for almost 2 weeks. To the first drywall guy who split with $4k, thanks for stealing my contractor's $ and setting me back a month, you ass.

Unforeseen occurrences

Tons of them. And just when you think you're almost there, another one pops up.

My contractor Lou had a drywall guy lined up. Someone his father has worked with for 20 years. He gave him a deposit of half the money about a month ago while we waited for the inspection process to play out. All that time the drywall guy was calling constantly asking when we'd be ready.

Last week when we were finally ready, Lou called him. No response. He called again and again. Still no response. Lou went to the site where the drywall guy was working, but he hadn't been there for a few days. Lou and his father went to the guy's house. It turns out he moved a few months ago, no forwarding address. The guy disappeared with $4k of Lou's money.

So now Lou is calling a couple of other guys to come and give estimates for the labor. In the meantime, he's out the money, and if the guy truly skipped town, he has little hope of getting it back.

The drywall guy is American. I bet if he were Mexican there would be no problem - the worst you'd have to worry about is deportation, and the job would be done quicker and probably better.

Framing passed

Good news. This means no more inspections until the final certificate of occupancy inspection. Next up is to get the drywall guys scheduled and finally close off the walls.

And it turns out the egress window question was irrelevant. The guy who came to reinspect said it shouldn't have even been an issue, because there is no access for the fire department in the back at all. Glad I didn't go ahead and replace one of the windows with a casement window.