Lesson Learned

As some of you may know, our last home was quite the fixer-upper, and Mike and I did our own work with the help of our fathers. Well, we thought it would be best for us to hire out for our fireplace work, definitely for what needed to be done to bring it up to code, but also the cosmetic/trim work. Well, let me just say I could have saved us a lot of money by just doing the work myself. The carpentar did a great jpb with the drywall and texturing, but the trim (putting in shelving and desktop among other things) was done very, very poorly. I didn't post pictures yet because I was too devastated at the finished project. I spoke with my realator (since she referred him to us) and she spoke with him and got him back here to fix his mess. Well, he did some of it, replacing the shelving and desktop, and that looks pretty good, but I am still not happy with it, not to mention the things he did not fix. I, being the type of person who doesn't like to "make waves", gave him his final payment despite me being dissatisifed, and will have to wait for my father to come out in August to finish the work and make it look great. Needless to say, I will not hire this person, nor will I refer him to ANYONE.
I have learned from this, thanks goodness, a few things: 1- Get a specific list of what the contractor understands I want done and will be doing for me. 2- Don't worry about "making waves" if I am not satisfied; I'm paying for a service, and I need to expect that to be fulfilled to my satisfaction. 3- Don't under estimate myself. I could have gotten this project done, for probably less than half of what he charged, but I didn't give myself the credit I deserved. So, for now on, I am going to take on projects myself (as long as I know what I am doing).
Now, I have a lot of touch-up painting ahead of me, as well as painting the new shelves and I still have to tile (I think that'll get done this week). After that's finished, I'll add those photos to our website. In the meantime, checkout the latest photo of Elly, it's quite cute.