Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Praise the Lord we have stairs!

I don't know what happened, nor do I want to know.

All I know is, my dad called me this morning and my stair rail is completed and being painted this afternoon. It will be ready for installation tomorrow.

I could jump for joy!!!!! One more hurdle over and done with. They think we will close next week sometime.

Which means we should be moving next weekend! I am so excited. I can't wait to be in our new house.

Monday, January 26, 2009

Frustrations

I am peeved. I am beyond peeved.
The house is done. Everything has been installed and it is move-in ready. Except one small detail.

There are no rails on the stairs. Honestly, this wouldn't bother me if they'd let us move in. I'm not planning on using the stairs for awhile so I don't see the big fuss.
The stairs will be done, we just don't know when.

Here's the story of the stair that couldn't:

My father is a civil engineer who has worked for a iron fabrication company for 30 years. Jes and I thought iron railing would be pretty and Dad could get us a deal. So we had him draw up a plan for the rail and after some tweaking we approved it. This was about a month ago. We had to wait until the wood flooring was installed on the steps to get the measurements right. Jesse and I were very excited because the rail we picked out is the same rail we saw and fell in love with at St. Patrick's Cathedral in Ireland. It's very cool that we could get the same railing as that place.

I don't know what or who caused the next big slow down in production, but the rail wasn't even ordered until 2 weeks ago. Then it was found out that it wasn't in stock and had to be shipped from Texas. Originally, the rail was going to be installed by the 17th. Then it got pushed back to the 20th. And then again to the 23rd or 24th. Then on Friday my dad calls me and tells me that they got the rail on the 20th, but hadn't started it yet. (They've had it in stock for nearly 5 days at that point).
Today I find out that my dad's company is owned by a bunch of a-holes. Now I've known that for some time now, but never thought they'd be like this to me. BTW, we are paying for this rail out of pocket and have already given them a check.
They have decided to put all other jobs ahead of mine. They told my father today that they weren't sure when they'd be able to get to my job.
Daddy threatened to quit, I had to talk him down.
We were hoping/wanting/needing to close this week. My lease is running out and I need to start moving into the new house before it does.

My real estate agent is trying to see if there is anyway we can close without the rail being installed.
These people are holding my house hostage all because of some petty differences with my father.
So I'm hereby announcing to the world and anyone who will listen...

If you ever need to build iron railing for your house/apartment/hotel whatever... Do not use Allen's Steel Products in Arlington, TN.
If they treat a family member of one of their long time employees like this, there's no telling how they treat their bread and butter customers.

I'm sure everything will work out in the end, but they have some seriously bad kharma coming there way. I wouldn't want to be them for all the money in the world.