While out shopping for flooring for the previously blogged about contractor fiasco, I was at my local Home Depot. Many times they have end cap specials or weekend markdowns. As it turned out the best deal on laminate flooring I could find was at Lumber Liquidators for 6mm maple finish for $.78 per square foot but 40+ miles away. The local flooring contractor supply house agreed to match the price for the same merchandise so the deal was made locally eliminating the need for a trip and keeping the business local. As a rule you should use the internet to seek out the best in pricing and then don't be shy about asking the competition to match or beat the price.
Although I didn't find the laminate I wanted at HD I did run across a carpet special that was hard to beat. I don't know whether it was local or a chainwide event but they were offering whole house carpet installation no matter how large your house, for $139 total as long as you purchased the carpet there. I felt this was hard to beat and as long as the house was going to already be in turmoil I would also replace the long suffering carpet in my house. They had some great deals on in stock carpet so I made the deal. As opposed to the lying, cheating and shoddy work of the laminate installer, HD was the epitome of professionalism. They made an appointment to come measure for the carpet, showed up on time. They made an appointment for the installation and made 3 phone calls for verification and time coordination and the installation crew showed up right on time and much to my pleasure they did a great job. Nice guys, thorough in all of their work and at the completion presented me with their boss's business card and an unexpected 1 year installation warranty. FOLKS I CAN NOT SAY ENOUGH GOOD ABOUT THIS EXPERIENCE. About 3 hours after they left the boss called to verify my satisfaction and the performance of his crew. What a way to do business!
To complete my contractor experiences on a high note I want to mention one more important operative in this otherwise trying scenario. I am proud to say that I am a father and a grandfather. I have 3 sons, John 45, Donovan 40, and Joseph 28. The youngest is the father of my only grandchild, Tristen William Warren who is now 5 and has exemplifies the old adage that “if I had known how much fun a grandbaby could be I would have had him first”. Along with my sons I have also been something of a surrogate father to several young men along the way. These kids were contemporaries of my kids, friends who were usually the ones that my sons brought home and for various reasons they stayed or seemed to be there at the dinner table or asleep on the sofa on Saturday or Sunday morning when I would get up. Many because their home lives weren’t good, one from a broken home that was forced to live with grandparents who just weren’t ready to raise another child and didn’t understand him. Another whose step father was twice the age of his mother and just wasn’t interested in being a dad to him. Then there was Alan, or Erik as he is known these days. A brainy little kid that I thought would surely be a rocket scientist, but because of a pretty much dysfunctional family became lost and suffered many difficulties. It is Erik who came to my rescue this week. He lives about 100 miles away from me but when I communicated how upset I had become over the contractor situation and the mess that my little home had become last week, showed up on my doorstep on Monday morning to try to make things right for me. He came fully equipped with every tool and piece of power equipment is little car could carry and in 3 days he has managed to get me back on my feet. He repaired screw ups left by the unscrupulous contractor, moved the furniture for the carpet crew and got it back in place, trimmed off the bottom of all my doors, put my safety railing back up, cleaned out my closets and spare room piling a vast mountain of trash on the street just in time for the trash truck to pick it all up this morning and most importantly spent time with me to get my nerves and emotional side back in balance. He even got “Nate” back his sofa to hold down. Nate was just about as lost as I was with the mess and spent most of our first night back in the house just wandering around all night looking for a comfortable place to lie. His charge? First he wanted me to make him chicken and yellow rice like I used to make, and asked for $25 to pay for his gas and a new circular saw blade. Now I’m not much of a cook, always claiming that the best thing I made for dinner was reservations, but I did make the requested dish and I must say it was wonderful and even made enough for Erik to take home to his wife and mother and some to share with the Whitesides across the street from me. They are the kind folks that I have written about who are always checking in on me and sharing dinners with me. I also managed to come up with a little more than the cash ge requested. Enough that his wife will not object to him coming back another time to effect some more minor repairs and projects that I just can’t get done.
Just what an ole Dad needs, a good friend, an honest, reasonably priced contractor and most importantly a much adored member of my extended family.
See Erik I told you Id make you an internet star!!!
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