Drama With The Floors Delays Our Move In

Posted on April 2, 2012 by Jay Harper

A week and a half ago our contractor pointed out that some of the varnish that was put on the floors (Bona Traffic HD) was peeling up. The parts that I saw initially were around the edges and I thought it was just because tape had been put on the floors before everything had cured, but it turns out it was a far bigger problem than that…

When we were in the design phase we looked at a lot of pictures of white oak floors. What we both agreed looked best (to us) were whitish floors. Not too white, but just a bit more white than a natural finish. Dan did a some research and found that Rubio Monocoat had a 5% option that should do the trick.

So we started with that and then the question was what varnish should we use. Monocoat, as the name implies, is a one step floor finish, but we were concerned that wouldn’t be enough. We wanted an oil-based varnish put on top, but the contractor and his floor guy talked us into a water-based varnish.

Dan did some more research and found that Bona had a really good reputation. We figured their two part, high traffic version (Bona Traffic HD) would be a good choice and would wear the best. The floor guy liked Bona, so that’s what we went with.

Dan also called and checked and Bona said there would be no problem putting it over Monocoat, but as it turned out – that was just wrong. What we’ve found is the two products are completely incompatible. Once we started looking more closely the Bona was already coming up in a variety of places and just a light abrasion would make it come up just about anywhere.

Unfortunately, by the time we figured it out there were already two coats of Bona on all the floors and nearly all the stairs. So we had about 4,000 sq. ft. of floors that had to be fixed. The floor guy suggested sanding everything down and starting over, but we asked the contractor to test by “screening” the floors (basically a light abrasion pad on a buffing machine). Remarkably that took up about 95% of the Bona – so that’s how we proceeded.

When all the Bona is off, the floors are beautiful – they’re exactly what we were hoping for – a strong hint of white… The photos don’t quite do it justice, but I think you get at least a hint of what it’s like…

white oak floor in gallery

What’s really cool is that Monocoat leaves the floors looking unfinished when they’re actually quite well sealed. Some people on forums say the floors look “hungry”, but as we saw with the Bona – things don’t stick to it.

The other thing that’s cool about Monocoat is that it can be spot fixed. If there’s a problem you just give the area a light sanding and then put some more Monocoat in that area. You can’t over stain a floor with Monocoat because Monocoat won’t stick to itself.

So unfortunately, we had the floors just how we needed them when we put Monocoat on, and then we managed to mess them up with Bona. Taking all the Bona off is taking time. We were supposed to move in today, but this has delayed that. After 6 days trying to fix the problem they’ve gotten the stairs all fixed and 3 of the 4 floors in our unit. Fixing the floor in the rental will happen after we move in.

Dan starts spring break at the end of the week. We’re hoping we can sorta move in middle of next week, with a proper move-all-our-stuff around the middle of the month. Fingers crossed nothing else comes up as a major issue…

Blog posts will be a little sparse until we’re ready to move in. I’m starting to see why all the make over shows have a bit of a blackout right before it’s all done – there are certain things that just don’t show well in pictures at the end because they’re covered with paper, or dusty. As soon as things are uncovered and cleaned up I’ll take pictures do more posts…

What To Do When You Get A Mechanic’s Lien

Posted on March 18, 2012 by Jay Harper

[This blog post is not "legal advice" - readers should consult a lawyer for all legal matters. Instead, this blog posts reflects what Dan and I, as homeowners, have learned by going through the process of having liens put on our homes and being sued by contractors.]

Our townhouse got its first (and hopefully only) mechanics lien last month. Our contractor decided to not have his stair subcontractor (and “friend” – Adam Wedrychoski of ABC Stairs Builders Corp – aka “Traditional Stairs Corp”) complete the stairs because he was too expensive and the budgets had gotten tight. Adam got disgruntled and is now going after us for $9,600.

We’ve gone through this before when the contractor for our apartment remodel (Bill Angelov of ABS Construction) went after us a few years ago (a blog post is pending on that one). We were amused that Adam Wedrychoski / ABC Stairs Builders even used the same lien service Bill Angelov / ABS Construction had used – Speedy Lien. Unfortunately the New York court system, and companies like Speedy Lien, make it so disgruntled workmen/contractors/subcontractors can put liens on your property without any proof that they have a legitimate claim.

This isn’t a horrible thing… Liens are good in that they alert purchasers of a property that there may be claims on a property. They also insure that people who add value to a property are compensated when the owner sells the property. But ultimately, they’re just a first step and the workman / contractor / sub-contractor needs to prove their claim in court.

In this case Adam Wedrychoski / Traditional Stairs Corp has no basis for putting a lien on our property. He has no contract with us, nor was there an implied contract with us (e.g. we never paid him directly). He was a subcontractor working for our contractor. If he had talked to a lawyer, he would know that all he is legally entitled to do is sue our contractor. We do have a contract with our contractor, but every time he gets a payment from us he signs a lien waiver stating that all of his subcontractors have been fully paid.

The amount of the lien doesn’t even make sense – which seems typical of liens by Speedy Lien… He took the total amount he would have been paid if he had completed the job, subtracted what he had been paid, and then put a lien on us for the difference. So he’s essentially asking for money for work he didn’t do. Thankfully our court system doesn’t think the same way Adam does.

When we contacted Wells Fargo (the lending bank for our mortgage), what they said worried us – they stop all payments of any kind if there is a lien in place. They wanted us to “settle” with Adam Wedrychoski / ABC Stairs Builders Corp and they erroneously told us that they don’t accept bonds.

Thing is, bonding the lien is the correct way to deal with the situation. It’s actually sort of cool how bonds work… You contact a surety agent (ours is Elmer Hyde Agency), and give them 110% of the lien amount plus a few hundred in fees. They bond the lien, and you file that paperwork along with some other affidavits with a clerk at the court building (harder than it sounds) and the lien is discharged. Once the lien is discharged, it no longer exists. That means your title is clean and your bank will be happy.

If the workman/contractor/subcontractor sues you and the court finds in his/her favor, the bond is used to pay the judgement and you get whatever is left over. Liens are for one year and they can be renewed once – so they can only exist for two years total. If the workman/contractor/subcontractor doesn’t sue you during that time, then you get the bond amount back with interest. However, the workman/contractor/subcontractor can sue you for up to 6 years (in NY), but after the bond expires, s/he just has to hope that you can still pay.

While it may seem odd to welcome a lawsuit, we’ve been through the process before and our attitude is “bring it on”. Adam Wedrychoski / Traditional Stairs Corp is in an impossibly difficult position. Because he is a corporation he is not allowed to show up in court without a lawyer. Because lawyers typically take a percentage of the settlement, they won’t take the case on unless they think they’ll get paid. They would typically get 1/3rd – and 1/3rd of $9,600 ($3,200) isn’t enough for them to bother with the case. And that assumes they’ll get the full amount – which they know they won’t. That means the only way Adam Wedrychoski / ABC Stairs Builders Corp can get a lawyer, and hence the only way he can sue us, is if he pays his lawyer hourly. Bottom line – he will lose a substantial amount of money if he tries to sue us.

While Adam Wedrychoski / Traditional Stairs Corp has to have a lawyer, we’re individuals, so we can represent ourselves (this is one of the advantages of not putting our building in an LLC). The courts are very lenient with pro se defendants – there are actually judges that only hear cases with pro se defendants. Plus pro se defendants can go in and get free help with filing paperwork, etc. So while it can be time consuming to show up at all the hearings, it doesn’t actually cost us much of anything. Meanwhile he’s paying his lawyer hourly, so if you do the math its in our best interest to drag things out and have as many hearings and motions as possible.

If Adam Wedrychoski / ABC Stairs Builders Corp sues us, the first thing we’ll do is a show cause motion – making him prove that he has standing to sue us. He will fail because he can’t produce a contract with us. No contract = no enforceable terms.

Incidentally, people often think that the loser pays the winners attorney fees, but that’s not the case at all (at least not in New York). That only happens if you have a written contract saying that’s what you agreed to – and of course Adam Wedrychoski / Traditional Stairs / ABC Stairs Builders has no contract with us. That is why we’re confident Adam will lose money if he pursues this, but it gets better…

If he does survive the show cause motion, our next step will be a counter suit. The stairs in the rental are not according to plan – they’re too narrow (the stringers are not flush with the sheetrock), and they’re made of red oak, not white oak. On top of that, the stairs in our unit are not square and the contractor had to correct a number of things that Adam / Traditional Stairs didn’t quite get right. In fact things are so bad our architect suggested either we or our contractor sue him for everything he’s received – about $20,000. At one point we detailed a whole list of things that we wanted him to fix and he never came back to fix them – instead the contractor had to take care of it.

In case you’re wondering, Adam’s / ABC Stairs Builders Corp’s lien is an attempt to get paid for having to fabricate and install the flight of stairs from the parlor to the 2nd floor three times. When this was all going down we insisted that he do shop drawings, he refused and promised to fix any problems that resulted from not having shop drawings. I even mentioned that understanding up in a blog post. He even started before our architect gave him the green light. If he had just waited for approval to start we could have avoided at least one of those fabrication/installs. Plus, we’ll have our contractor, and our architects testifying that that we did in fact insist on shop drawings and that he agreed to fix anything that was a problem.

There is simply no way he can win his case, but I’m pretty sure we can win a fair amount of money on our counter suit. That means if he sues us, between lawyers fees and our counter suit, it will be a lose-lose proposition for him. Which is why our attitude is “bring it on”…

Thing is, all of this affects our contractor more than it affect us. The contractor is liable for the actions of his sub-contractors – including any liens they put on us. So the bond money is coming out of what he would have gotten at the end of the project. All Adam has accomplished with the lien is hurting someone who used to consider him a friend.

The bottom line is, be careful in dealing with contractors and subcontractors. Lien waivers and receipts of “final payment” are always a good idea. And summarize important conversations in writing/email after they occur so there’s documentation. Then when you get a mechanics lien, just bond it and put the ball back in the workman/contractor/subcontractor’s court.

Honestly, I think a lot of (sub)contractors don’t understand the process and have never heard of a bond. They just hear that liens scare some homeowners into settling. They don’t understand that they may actually have to sue the homeowner to get any money. They definitely don’t seem to understand that filing a lien starts a process which could result in them losing a considerable amount of money…

As a homeowner just realize you don’t have to settle with someone who is putting a lien on your property to harass and intimidate you – you can bond the lien and regain the upper hand in the situation.

Higher End Marble

Posted on March 17, 2012 by Jay Harper

The Carrara counters we got were far from being super expensive – they’re pretty generic Carrara. If you’re wondering what else is out there that’s better, here’s a few pictures I snapped at HG Stone that show just how beautiful marble can be. If we had a high end European kitchen we might have shelled out the money for one of these…

There was a bluish slab with wavy veins…

bluish marble with wavy veins

And a gray marble with a golden vein running through it…

gray marble with gold veins

And then there was this light colored marble with golden veins – very pretty!

striated marble with gold veins

And then there was this light colored slab with a big dramatic gray vein running through it…

marble slab with a big, dramatic gray vein

And sometimes it’s not about linear veins at all – you get big round patterns in the marble…

marble with round circular patterns

By comparison, our Carrara slabs are rather humble. But they’re perfect for our purposes.

Picking Carrara Slabs For Kitchen Counter

Posted on March 17, 2012 by Jay Harper

The last post was about the rental kitchen, but we’ve made progress on our kitchen as well. The cabinets are gray lacquer – Ikea’s Abstrakt Gray. Here’s a picture of the kitchen, but realize that most of the cabinets have a protective blue plastic on them. The only area in the picture that’s the correct color is to the left of the range, on the side of the fridge.

parlor kitchen cabinets

Picking a counter material was tough. Black counters look really good against the gray cabinets, but the stairs and the range hood we picked are all about white – black would have just been wrong. A color would have complicated the design, and a busy grain would have been distracting. So we settled on Carrara since we’re using it as a reoccurring material throughout the house.

The problem with Carrara is that most of the Carrara these days is really gray. And gray Carrara next to gray cabinets would just look muddled. At the same time it doesn’t make sense to spend the big bucks on primo Carrara to go along with Ikea cabinets. Ikea kitchens are decent these days, but not that good. So the challenge was to find Carrara that was at a reasonable price point but still pretty white. Luckily we found some at the second stone yard we went to – but just barely. A new shipment had come in and we picked it while it was still in the shipping container – there was just one block that looked right and we only saw about 18″ of it, but when we saw it two days later it was pretty close to what we were hoping for.

Our fabricator had to buy two slabs to do our kitchen since the slabs are smaller than the granite we bought for the rental. (This afternoon when we saw him he was grumbling a bit about the cost of the slabs). Here’s the one we’ll use for the island…

carrara slab for kitchen island

The template for the island is the big one to the right. The bottom is towards the door, and you can see where the sink will be on the other side. We are a little worried about the cantilever portion breaking since marble isn’t as strong as granite. Since marble is most likely to break along veins, we kept the heaviest area of veins over the dishwasher where the marble will be most supported. The veins are much less in the cantilevered area.

The little template to the left will be the piece that goes under the microwave in an area that’s not too visible.

We almost went with a stainless counter along the wall since stainless is a lot more practical than marble next to a cooktop. But I’m not a big fan of different counter surfaces in the same kitchen (in most cases). And a white counter will look better than a stainless counter, so we went with the Carrara. Plus stainless cost a bit more. This is the slab that will be used along the wall – on either side of the range…

carrara slab for kitchen island

The two slabs are neighboring slices from the same block – so the veining is pretty much the same. But instead of using the bottom of the slab, like on the island, along the wall we’ll use the top part of the slab (where you see the tape). The big template will go to the right of the range, the little template will go to the left.

One other thing – 90% of the time people say Carrara in the kitchen should be honed, not polished. Apparently you can seal honed marble better than polished marble, and polished marble gets scratched up pretty easily in kitchens. But as Dan pointed out, honed marble next to high gloss cabinets would be a bit odd. Since the cabinets are high gloss, the marble needs to be polished (visually). We’ll just have to work harder to keep it looking good. And if we hate it, apparently wiping it down with vinegar and letting the vinegar sit for 20 minutes or so will dull the polish and make it look more or less honed.

Believe it or not, the fabricator is working over the weekend on the counters and they’ll be installed on Tuesday. It will be great to see that final piece really come together – the kitchens will look so complete.

Colonial Gold Won For Counter In Rental

Posted on March 17, 2012 by Jay Harper

[UPDATE: I've swapped out the pictures of the slab we got with a new better one that shows how the pieces will be cut...]

After my post the other day we decided against Rosewood granite for the rental – it just competed too much with the brick wall. Yesterday we went back to the stone yards and looked for other options. This time we took samples of the cabinets with us and it really helped. Some of the granite slabs just went better with the color of the cabinets. The one we chose was “Colonial Gold” granite.

On the slab below the peninsula will use the lower half of the slab. It’s reversed from the picture of the kitchen below… So the darker side will be next to the sheetrocked wall and the lighter side will be next to the hallway and brick wall.

granite slab for rental apartment

Since it’s a light colored granite, it’s going to be a pretty light/bright kitchen – almost white on white. The good part is the Colonial Gold won’t compete with the brick wall, but the dark bits are still strong enough to stand up to it (hopefully). Here’s the picture of the cabinets and and the wall again…

rental kitchen cabinets

There’s a slightly darker more yellow version of Colonial Gold called Colonial Creme. When we went to a different stone yard earlier in the morning they had slabs marked Colonial Creme that were as light or lighter than the Colonial Gold we bought – so the naming seems to depend on the source.

Here are few other slabs we saw that were either contenders or generally interesting. I gotta say, there’s so much cool granite out there – but of course there are a lot of factors that make each one best for a particular use…

Here’s one Dan really liked and wanted to use in the rental kitchen. It’s cool, but I’m not sure if it would have been as successful as the Colonial Gold…

varigated granite

Here’s one that looks like wood – it would be pretty overpowering as a kitchen counter, but I think it would make a great coffee table…

wood like granite

This was another that might have worked as the counter in the rental – light color with dark rust-like spots. But it didn’t work quite as well as the Colonial Gold.

granite with rust-like spots

Today we’re off to meet the architect at the house, then we’ll go see the stone fabricator and discuss cuts so we get the most interesting bits of the slabs in most visible location. Then after that it’s back to the house for a meeting with the ironworker about the rear deck/pergola.