It has been nearly two months since the patio project started. We are nearly complete.

We have a good solid roof with a finished ceiling, fans, and light. The fireplace received an upgrade from manufactured stone to real stone. The furniture arrived and has been put in place. Just need gutters and to rid of the big pile of scrap lumber which will hopefully happen today.
The supporting posts are pressure treated lumber so they can not be painted for another month.

Lessons learned during the project:
- You get what you pay for and not much else. There is a difference in approach from the high end to the low end builders.
- Real stone beats fake stone. Pay the extra for it.
- Old stone masons make tighter joints than young ones.
- Faux tongue and groove plywood ceilings look cheap compared to real tongue and groove ceilings.
- Be precise about what you ask for and put it in writing. Else its gonna cost you or you may get your builders interpretation of what you ask for.
- The laborers are messy when the boss isn’t around. They don’t care about your lawn or the bugs they attract by leaving food laying around.
- Light trim kits come in black or white. You can always spray paint them.
- Tile installers always need more tile than you purchased.
- Furniture will arrive two weeks before you can put it on your new patio, thus forcing your spouse to park in the driveway while the furniture is stored in the garage.
- Improvements and upgrades add up. The contractor adds on his cut too.
- Just after you have spent a gazillion dollars on furniture you see deals everywhere.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 30th, 2009 at 9:50 am and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.