Josh and I have been planning on putting new carpet in the finished side of our basement since we moved in and identified The Odor as dog pee. I had tried all the products bearing guarantees of smell stoppage. Each claimed they were the only one that could really remove dog odor. Two rug-burned knees and two burning nostrils later, I arrived at the knowledge that new carpet was the only real solution. We put it off for ten months, but the time had come. We picked out carpet, got our surfaces measured, hemmed and hawed, and finally picked out tile for the entry (to replace that peel-and-stick, one-square-at-a-time garbage). We waited and waited weeks for our products to come in, only to find out that half our order had been delivered to a sister store across town. FINALLY we got set up for installation.
That was last Friday.
They worked all day, removing the old (and remarkably stained) carpet and putting down the new. In their defense, they had to carpet our stairs, and I'm sure that was time consuming and not at all easy. Long story short, they weren't able to finish the job, and we were left with a rectangle of naked concrete where our tile was to be installed.
It took a week for them to come back, between our schedules and theirs. They sent a guy here yesterday to install the tile and when he arrived, he commented that he didn't have nearly enough material to prep the surface, which was nowhere close to being level. (For some reason, it sloped downward toward the outside from about six inches back.) Might I add that I had mentioned this at least twice to the salesperson and the person who came to our home to measure our floor, to ensure that they would include leveling the floor in their installation price. Anyway, back to the story. He drove across town to get more stuff, came back, and prepped the floor. He said it'd take two more days, one to lay the tile and another to do the grout. He told Josh (I heard him say this), "I sign in at 9 o'clock, so I should be here by 9:20 or so." He then went on to explain how he used to sign in at 8, but now he has kids in school, yadda yadda yadda........ so I am sure I heard the time correctly.
At 11:45 I called the store to find out where our installer was. They referred me to another number. The man I spoke with said that he would be coming out this afternoon. I said, "Do you have any idea when? He told us he'd be here at 9:20. I have been waiting around all morning." The man said, "Oh, I'm sorry about that. We didn't know anyone would be there this morning." We have a name for that in the English language; it's called bull$%$. Come on now. He called the guy's cell and called me back, and said that it would be between 1 and 2 o'clock.
You have now wasted my entire morning, I wanted to say.
Anyway, the guy shows up at 1:45 and says, oh. There's only underlay here. I'm going to have to come back tomorrow to do the grout. I say fine, the guy that was here yesterday (did I mention we are now dealing with a different guy?) said he was going to have to come back twice. So the guy lays the tile, says he'll be back tomorrow, which I had to change to Monday since we are both working 7a-7p all weekend, and he says he'll come here first, before his other job, since this will be a quick job.
We'll see. I hope he does, but I feel bad for the people who are expecting him around 9:20.
Just one more slight irritation: each 12" x 12" tile that we purchased is made up of several smaller tiles, like a crazy quilt, if you will. When he laid the tile, he neither laid each in the same direction nor made sure to alternate, so some of the tiles are going the same way but most of them are not. Come on! You get paid to do this! It's not all that obvious, and I certainly don't care to delay this whole process by even ten more MINUTES, but I would like to mention that these are the details which separate a good installation from a great installation... you know what? "Great installation" was already off the table anyway. I'll just let it go.
PS - I do love the new carpet and tile. Please don't let my frustration make you think that I'm unhappy with the new look.... ;)
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