My son and DIL just had a house built for them and they encountered the same change fee – which they got waived for one particular item, since no one had informed them it wasn’t a standard part of the design.
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@coralbrook , I have a friend who lives on Del Mar Ave in Ocean Beach. In fact, I believe you looked at her house for a flip probably about three years ago. Now a house across their alleyway is under rehab and she wrote this in an e-mail. It shocks me at the lack of oversight. I thought you would find this interesting.
"The house across the alley that the building crew almost took our garage out with a steel beam that was too large to take down the alley, blocked our gate all the time & moved our trash cans so couldn’t open our gate - I’ve heard zip for a long time. No workers @ all. And they were working 6 days & sometimes 7 each week. I walked around front zip going on. It’s 2 stories out front but from the back it’s 3. All the neighbors around us were saying how come we didn’t get any letters from the coastal commission. As when our neighbors next-door did their addition before we ever moved here they had to get approval from the coastal commission and then all the neighbors got a letter telling about the addition. Their house was the same age as the house next-door and when they tore theirs down they had to have a abatement companies come in because of all the asbestos this crew behind us just beat everything up and threw it in the dumpster. That house was the same age as the house next-door to us so there had to be some asbestos in there. Anyways the project has been shut down as it’s too tall. Seriously the permit people didn’t realize that inspectors didn’t realize that the contractor didn’t realize that?!?! So it’s sitting doing zip right now. But the way this company that’s been building it has been doing business it makes me wonder about them because my father was a builder always said you get what you pay for & I’m thinking they went with the lowest bid. "
Very interesting. I’ll have to drive by and check it out
I haven’t provided an update for a month! I cannot even begin to go through all the details, trials and tribulations. Let’s just say that we are going to be a month behind schedule because the owner just cannot pull the trigger on anything. Not even a toilet!
Right now I have to spend the whole weekend revising the schedule and turning all the tasks around upside down. The critical issue we have is that the Owner just could not decide on tile for Master Bathroom. This started with a field trip to Floor and Decor on February 20th, after I had sent her photos and ideas for over a month and warned that tile selection was critical. It has been ongoing with trips to at least 4 other tile stores since then. I finally got her to select tile on Tuesday March 23. Of course, it’s from a fancy tile store (Bedrosian) but it was at least on sale. I call up to order her tile and find out that it is backordered and a ship ‘might arrive’ into port about April 15. Not expected to be ready until May 1st.
Obviously they are not moving in May 1st! Now I am scrambling and rearranging everything so that we will start installing floors next week. And then we have to tile later. This is not a good situation. I do not want tile guys cutting tile and traipsing around up and down stairs and brand new flooring. Nothing I can do about it
I loaded some photos with explanations. Hope they are self explanatory. Kitchen is installed but we have no lights to get installed into the house. But, that is a whole other saga. Out of 30 lights we need, TWO HAVE BEEN PURCHASED!
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At least she has her bath mats ; )
Seriously though, how completely frustrating. This really sounds like one of the most challenging jobs 
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Oddly, I had two links for this project. One had the nice Mexican looking sinks (I think those are in the Adobe house) and the right one doesn’t!
@coralbrook I guess I should delete or at least ignore the wrong one. But nice to see the sinks!
and a ship ‘might arrive’ into port about April 15
I certainly hope those tiles aren’t waiting to get through the Suez Canal!
The house is really starting to come together, and the custom work is stellar.
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Send me her lighting list and a budget–I’ll have them bought by this afternoon. I need something fun to do!
I bought everything for my home back when internet was slow. Flooring, tile, lighting, fixtures, sinks, countertops, paint. You name it I bought it. My builder had his schedule—“We NEED this NOW!” (so I feel your pain.) Builder was building his own home at the same time so I often ordered for him too (quantity discount for flooring was especially great!)
Tile is the hardest I think because there are SO many options so I often went with the tile people’s suggestion mostly because they had seen many more installations than I ever would. Don’t believe I’ve ever been steered wrong. I hate to say this but…how can you pick out bathmats when you don’t even know the color of your tile? lol
And can someone send me the link to the pictures again? Ugh. I’m missing out.
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done but CC still blocks out the flicker part ; )
thank you!
Looking beautiful!
Powder Room is going to have some fun wild wallpaper, a floating modern vanity and the wood flooring that runs through the house
Cannot find a picture of vanity right now
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Hall Bathroom has a Kohler bathtub, turquoise subway tile, custom vanity (Wow, it’s so easy to put these links into the posts now). Now Owner is panicking that floor tile might not look good with countertop quartz selected and she wants me to stop installing everything. I told her I will not stop, she will have to come over Monday night after countertop installed and approve. Main issue is that she is not available to come to project at any time except weekends. We just cannot stop everything and wait a week for her to come look at something.
Bath Niche tile
Floor Tile which is really large to miminize cleaning grout lines
Ooh! Love the niche tile!
You have a great eye for decorating choices. Is there any way you can be bold and say, “I will go with option abc, unless you give me a different preference in 3 days” ?
This is what is happening. Months before we even started digging holes for foundation I asked her to please go through Houzz or any other sites and save photos of things she liked. She loaded quite a lot of photos into an Ideabook we share. I could tell from her photos that she liked multi-color/texture kitchens and neutral coastal contemporary living areas.
It took 4 weeks to get her to decide on the lights for the kitchen alone! I sent her 3 choices based on her kitchen inspiration photo. Instead of selecting anything from the 3 choices, she went down a rabbit hole and sends email after email after email or text with ‘what about this one? What do you think?’ I have to respond to each one because that’s my job. Most responses are “if you go back to your inspiration photo which we used to design your kitchen, this lighting does not match the style”. In the end, she came back to one of the three I proposed. But it took 4 weeks!!
Right now I am trying to get her to decide on the dining and living area lights. She was so freaking all over the map that I told her she needed to back up and make a general decision. Either coastal contemporary lighting style or modern white/gold lighting style. You cannot mix the two in the same living area. I sent an email with choices for each style so she could at least decide which general direction she wants to go. She is still all over the map and is now sending crystal Liberace chandeliers texts and emails (I nixed those immediately). I just give up.
Maybe you could post links to your choices and we’ll vote. Just tell your client that everyone you showed pix to loved whatever wins general consensus. Nothing like peer pressure to force a decision! I always wondered why most builders limit choices on fixtures so severely–now I know. Fair warning though–while they can overpower a space I’ve never seen anyone complain about a chandelier in the dining room.
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CB, I hope you are billing her for the time of yours she is wasting. Maybe it’s time to say “I need choices by date or I am putting in the cheapest HD fixtures I can find and you will have to deal with it with someone else when the project is over.”
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I like the tiles. I’m waiting to see the samples that our tile person is supposed to deliver to our builder. We’re tiling the entire house (deep south, wheelchair friendly, on insulated raised slab) and are concerned about getting the main area tile from a single lot so the color is consistent.
Hope your Kohler tub is on hand, because the two Kohler tubs I selected were discontinued right before our plumbing supply person placed our order. We had to scramble to find replacements because I am beyond particular about the depth and width of the soaking tubs. Luckily, she came up with two great options.
Still waiting to hear from the lighting showroom whether all of my selections are available. It can be hard to coordinate multiple fixtures in related areas, so if any one is not available then I’ll have to start over completely.
You have the patience of a saint, CB. Good luck getting this project completed while you still have your sanity.
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There was a chandelier type light in our first house dining room. It was the second thing to be removed from the house (the hideous wall paper went first). I’m not a Crystal chandelier type of person and it totally did not go with my furnishings.
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