After having spent more than ten thousand afternoons taking a nap and more than ten thousand mornings eating breakfast on the verandah, it's hard to believe that "Riverbend" didn't even have a verandah when I bought the place and immediately had one built.
That was thirty-three years ago, and the verandah is showing such signs of wear and tear that nothing short of a complete rebuild is needed.
I couldn't tell a good carpenter from a bad one if he hit me in the face with a claw hammer, and so I asked a friend if he had a friend who could do the job. He did, casually inspected it, and then quoted me $18,000.
I have little experience with tradesmen - of which most were bad - but I remembered the advice to always get three quotes. The first one was for $41,747.43 - I loved that 43 cents! - but didn't include an overhead beam which needed replacing, for which he quoted me $110 an hour. As I told him, "Not in my wildest dreams ..." He wasn't surprised at all.
The second one quoted me a not-quite-so-outrageous $24,499,20. It ticked all the boxes - as they say - and I thought I was on a winner!
But then came "Old School Quality Building" who had been the first one to show up for an inspection of the job but had been delayed giving me his quote, for which he apologised. $17,316.20. Old school indeed!
I immediately sent back an email, "Thank you for the time you took to look at the job and in preparing your quote. I really appreciated the thoroughness with which you did your inspection. I have never undertaken such a big job before, so please give me time over the weekend to think about it. I am keen to get started, so I'll get back to you early next week. I am also keen to establish a lasting relationship with a reliable carpenter as this old house is beginning to need more and more work done on it, which I hope you could help me with."
Think about it? Of course, I needn't think about! Three quotes and third time lucky! And so in my next email I said, "How soon can you start?"
