September 12, 2008

Last in Line

You may recall from a few weeks ago our meeting with the site supervisor regarding our Bilco door entrance to the basement. As a refresher, the plans for our home said that the Bilco door entrance would stick out 5 ft. from the house. Because we got an extra foot depth in the basement, our doors stick out 8.5 feet. Using the Bilco doors was going to be difficult. I worried that if we ever went to sell our house down the road, the Bilco door entrance sticking out so far on the side of the house would be a buyer objection.

At the time, they told us that relocating the Bilco entrance was not a possibility so we came up with a different solution. It was workable but still not great.

Two days ago, we got a call from the builder representative telling us he needed to talk to us about our Bilco door. We figured they just wanted to discuss the retaining wall. We were wrong.

As it stands now, the building inspector will not approve the bilco in its current location. It needs to be moved. The representative threw some ideas at us like cement blocking the area that currently houses the bilco steps. Mr. BBM and I were irritated. Not only would it look different, but we were worried about water and structural issues since they’d be ripping another hole into our basement and trying to seal up the old hole.

We met with the Supervisor yet again yesterday and picked our new location for the bilco entrance. I pity the dude who gets the job of cutting through 10 inches of ribar-enforced concrete to create the new entrance.

We were prepared for a fight, but apparently the concrete guys think they can pour the wall in so it won’t look all that different from the rest of the basement. When all is said and done, we’ll be happier with the new location in the back of the house. We just wish they would have moved it as we asked weeks ago instead of waiting until our entire house was sitting on top of it, complete with plumbing, electric, and duct work for the heating and AC units.

As we were wrapping up our meeting I asked the Supervisor if he was going to now continue my rock wall. He laughed and said, "Or I could just rip the whole thing out." I looked at him disapprovingly and said, "You are going to finish my rock wall right?" He hung his head and said, "Yeah, we’re going to finish your rock wall."

I then questioned him on why the houses with later settlement dates are so far ahead of our house. I told him we need to settle on time. Our awesome mortgage rate that we relocked in this week expires two days after our proposed settlement date. "Don’t worry about it," he said casually. Apparently this builder does not miss settlement dates.

After we got back in the car Mr. BBM had to laugh. I don’t know what it is about these construction guys but I have absolutely no problem speaking up and telling them exactly what I want them to do. Mr. BBM has decided it’s best to just stay out of my way and let me handle it. Maybe if I had been more insistent a few weeks ago, this wouldn’t have been an issue. Lesson learned.

If you are a martial artist and you haven’t yet visited Bags of Character, please do so. My friend from the dojo has set up shop on my site and she sells awesome bags to house kobudo weapons and swords. I own a beautiful blue nunchaku bag and you should too. Check it out!