The Sub-Contractor Blues (Day 320)

One of the most-heard remarks about being your own contractor is the problems you can have with subcontractors showing up or on time. So far this hasn't been a real issue because we were on a slow and flexible schedule. But when you need to make hay, do you think the sun would shine—NO.

We passed our inspection hurdles last week (Wed afternoon), so I called Dan (D&D insulation) and let him know we were ready to go on Thursday am. The key thing here is that we have to get the insulation inspected before the drywall goes on, so that starts to form a little chain of events. No inspections on Fridays.

Meanwhile, Frank the drywaller is hiring additional crew for our job (its been slow to date) and he'd also like to go shoot something to eat this fall (they call it hunting). He needs to schedule delivery of the drywall from Evergreen Products in Sequim. No big deal, but it can't be there when the insulators are working and you can't hang drywall if its not there.

To complicate matters a bit more, Richard Gifford the septic guy seems to have lost his phone. Last week he said he might be out on Sunday (Labor Day weekend) to finish the trench filling and regrading. Then someone might have mentioned the possibility of a long weekend, so that plan went up in smoke (no pun intended). Now its Thursday and two of my 3 current subs are AWOL, and the 3rd is chomping at the bit to get going.

On a positive note, the Ellis boys finished the soffit and are off the job with the exception of hanging the entry door between the garage and mudroom. I want to leave this off until all the big stuff is in the house, like appliances and furniture. I'm back up on the scaffolding hanging shingle nos. 4300-4500 this week on the gabled dormers. Having fun now.

The Wooden Boat Festival is this weekend, so I'm hoping for a little down time and boat gawking. I'll leave my checkbook at home.