Fairoak House was our fourth investment of 2007 and it turned out to be one of our most challenging. It was the first project where our contractors were going to do all the work, from start to finish. We were very excited not to be in his painting and at the same time very nervous because having someone do all the work was new to us. We consist of me Jared and my wife Amanda.

Our schedule to do the remodeling was two weeks. Our contractor (we’ll call him Brad) assured us that it wouldn’t be a problem and they could even do it faster than that. We agree on a price and deadline and sign our contracts.

This is a 1400 sf 4 bed 1 bath home that needed quite a bit of work. The exterior needed painting, the bathroom needed to be completely stripped and remodeled, the kitchen was outdated and needed to be replaced, there was a wall that needed to be knocked down to open up the kitchen/living area, all new lights, paint, carpet, wood laminate flooring, new oven and I’m sure I’m forgetting a few things. Once Brad started, we ran into some unexpected problems. Leaks, leaks and more leaks! The house was empty for almost a year and for one winter so some of the pipes were not winterized properly and expanded and burst. It was such a hassle that he added another week to the project.

Once the leaks were finished we found another problem. Brad was lazy and didn’t show up for days at a time. Once we finally got him back to work, he did the bare minimum and disappeared again. So there we were, a week and a half into a project and we couldn’t find our contractor. I left tons of messages and nothing. That Friday I decided to fire him but when I went home they had already collected his tools and left.

This was bad enough, but two days before they took off we bought another house that Brad and his guys were going to remodel for us. We were definitely in a bad place! We ended up finding another contractor through some contacts of mine and the house was finished. We also spend time in the house painting. It ended up taking 5-6 weeks instead of the 2 we thought. We have definitely learned a lot from this painful experience. We’ll be more realistic on the time frame a project like this should take, plus we’re done using backyard contractors to try and save money.