Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Like a Whole New House...

Carpet's in. Looks fantastic. If I didn't know better, I'd want to live here. Only I'd have put in hardwood. But it looks great.

It looks so good, actually, that I'm really sad that Whiskey and Snoopy won't get to see it. In fact, it looks so different, if they came in, they'd probably wouldn't know where they were and want to mark their territory all over again. On the other hand, likely the reason they'll never see it.

It was actually remarkable to me how different the house sounded with the carpet and furniture moved out, even just for a few moments. I've heard the echos before in other similar circumstances, but it really is incredible how much noise carpet and plush furniture collects.

That said, the installers** did a great job. The seams flow together beautifully. The new carpet smell mixed with the old dog couch smell is so....well....yeah, I'm opening a keg of Fabreze tomorrow.

**Do you tip carpet installers? I was really torn on this. I contracted a job, but it was through a large department store, and these gentlemen worked for a contracted installer, and the installation was a special deal. Therefore, since it wasn't a direct contract, it seemed like they were providing a service, which often means a tip. They also did a very nice job, and I know it took longer than they expected. That said, when they told me how long they planned for the job to take, I was a bit surprised, and didn't think they could possibly be right. They weren't. I Googled "Gratuity Guidelines" on the Internet while they were here, and read a lot of different mixed opinions on whether tipping or not was appropriate. In the end, a few things stuck with me:

1. A comment I read... "If you can't afford a tip, then you can't afford the service."
2. If I hadn't felt like tipping might be correct, then I probably wouldn't have even considered it in the first place.
3. The guys were very conscientious, and worked diligently the entire time they were here to make sure everything looked good. Unfortunately, I've come to expect people to work to get a job done while doing it well is secondary, and these fellas weren't' that way at all.

Thus, I went ahead and tipped each of the three guys who were here. I was really pleased with the work, and despite the fact that I'm trying to save money right now, figured they could probably use it more than me. That said, they seemed surprised when I did tip, so I don't know what to take from that. Either way, if people wanted to comment, I'd be interested to hear feedback. I know my Canadian friends will think I'm an idiot, but they think all Americans tip too often as it is.

Anyway, at this point, I've only got to give the bathrooms and kitchen a good final cleansing, have the gate on the fence fixed, and do the final paint touch ups on the baseboards and a few other spots, and I should be good to go.

I picked up an information sheet on a comp down the street that was priced on the high end of what I expected, so hopefully I can undercut them a bit, garner some interest, and still come out from selling the house reasonably well in the down market. I'm crossing any fingers, toes, and other flexible appendages that this will move quickly.

Not many body parts are crossed, however after three softball games in the past two nights. We had a 7:30 game scheduled for Monday night. When 7 pm rolled around we were advised that we'd also have to play a 9:30 make up game that night, as well as an 8:30 game Tuesday night.

We won two of three (this is men's league) with the one loss being a nail biter in extra innings. I've finally started hitting the ball a bit harder, but it's been pretty difficulty for me to get my timing down playing slow pitch so infrequently. It's been a lot of fun, though, and a we're playing at a pretty good level compared to the 1-4 coed Thursday night team. At least it's some exercise, fun, and the weather has been very pleasant when I've been in town to play.

I think that's about all I've got. If not, well, I'll post again later just because I can.

Be well.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

"I know my Canadian friends will think I'm an idiot, but they think all Americans tip too often as it is." - That's only Blue cuz he's old and cheap. :P

Unknown said...

Tipping is fine. I tipped the washer/dryer guys that brought the appliances 10 bucks each for installation of the washer and haul away of the old ones. And the guys that brought the second dryer got 5 bucks each since all they did was install a dryer.

Anonymous said...

My brother says you always tip if you get good service/workmanship. Therefore as we have work done at my moms...if it's good, we tip. All the workers seem to be surprised by it though. He basis the amount of tip on how long it took them to do the job well.