Relative Something

Initially, it was only supposed to be gutters for the back side of the barn, but when the company showed up to quote that project, they noticed the gutters on our house. I have had an inkling that there was something wrong with our gutters since last year. They were more than happy to point out the shortcomings. It was a bad design that didn’t last, installed poorly by a questionable company that also didn’t last, so we were told.

I didn’t feel the need to check his facts, because I could see that water dripped from places that didn’t make sense to me. Something wasn’t working right, so we told them to include the house in their quote for new gutters. Mark this down as another home maintenance thing that we didn’t have on our to-do list, and don’t really have the budget to afford at this time.

It’s never stopped us before.

We accepted their quote and authorized the work, which got scheduled weeks out, into late November. They finished the barn in a single day while we were both away at work. When I got home that day, I noticed tracks in the gravel and wondered who the heck had been driving around our barn. I completely missed the new gutter hanging overhead. I think it was because they did such a fine job that it looked like it had always been there and never caught my eye.

After the day they expected to start had passed, I called the company to check on the status, still clueless that they had completed the barn. That was embarrassing. The scheduler was describing the plan for the house, which was fine, but I was wondering about the barn, too.

“We already finished that,” I was told.

Oh.

Anyway, then winter weather arrived, causing the house project to be delayed. I figured that meant until spring, but I have already written here about their plan to work on it regardless the snow and ice. That may be a good thing, I don’t know. I’m sure hoping so at this point, because when they came to uncover the old gutters, they discovered other problems occurring from the ice buildup and suggested one big contributor to the problem was that the venting in our soffits was insufficient.

The project expanded to having them pull the wood to open the soffits for increased ventilation, and then refinishing it with metal fascia and soffits that match the new gutters. How are we going to afford that? Their no-interest, no-payment financing plan, that’s how. Looks like our savings for the next year won’t be going toward an exotic vacation. They’ll be socked away to pay for our new and improved gutters and soffits.

I sure hope the payments don’t end up being due at the same time we will need to pay for the fractured window replacement and the new storage room about to be built downstairs. Something tells me we should be real careful about allowing any mission creep to occur when that builder arrives to do his work.

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