|
I can sorta see how you might assume that if all you're familiar with are mass-produced builder's grade doors you see in most modern homes.
|
#
?
Jan 5, 2022 02:22
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 30, 2024 14:32 |
|
|
DR FRASIER KRANG posted:That's a dumb as hell assumption to make unless you installed them yourself. If I installed them myself I’d definitely make no presumptions on uniformity.
|
|
#
?
Jan 5, 2022 02:39
|
|
|
I installed five identical, store-bought doors in a client's home. NONE of them (after installed) were the same dimensions. Three even had different heights due to the existing flooring. The doorways were already rough-framed by a previous contractor who would have burst into flames if he so much as touched a level.
|
|
#
?
Jan 5, 2022 03:21
|
|
|
Slugworth posted:This feels like a strange assumption to make. Ehhhh not if you grew up in cookie-cutter ticky-tacky houses built from the 80s on. I've only ever lived in old houses (one built in 1725!) so I was shocked to find that my 1930 bungalow's original-install double-hung windows were all exactly the same size. And no: none of the doors are.
|
|
#
?
Jan 5, 2022 04:54
|
|
|
How is the one built in 1725's heating? Sounds like a bitch to retrofit anything but fireplaces. e: My 1931 house has gorgeous original single-hung windows in various locations, and I will be damned if I replace them. I may have storm windows made.
|
|
#
?
Jan 5, 2022 05:27
|
|
|
I have restored every single window in this house, and had storm windows made. Funny you should mention fireplaces. That house was in Cannes. Never really gets cold there on the Mediterranean. It snowed once; that made the front page of the Nice-Matin. The house had no heating system. Two of the upstairs bedrooms had working fireplaces, as did the parlour. It was wired with a ring mains system around 1935. Every switch & receptacle had its own fuse. I was the designated fuse-mender. PainterofCrap fucked around with this message at 06:10 on Jan 5, 2022 |
|
#
?
Jan 5, 2022 06:07
|
|
|
If someone has only ever dealt with standard size Home Depot straight off the rack stuff I guess that could make sense. But how can you measure the hinges and not figure out something is up? Like, I've never lived anywhere with custom doors. I don't know a single person who currently does. But I still know hinge height varies. Blue Footed Booby fucked around with this message at 06:10 on Jan 5, 2022 |
|
#
?
Jan 5, 2022 06:08
|
|
|
Blue Footed Booby posted:If someone has only ever dealt with standard size Home Depot straight off the rack stuff I guess that could make sense. But how can you measure the hinges and not figure out something is up? Mk. I Eyeball, or “both are rectangular and both are doors I walk through no I will not be accepting input”
|
|
#
?
Jan 5, 2022 06:18
|
|
|
Just Winging It posted:I can sorta see how you might assume that if all you're familiar with are mass-produced builder's grade doors you see in most modern homes. Mass produced builder grade doors also come in sizes. If nothing else you're dealing with width differences depending on what was installed.
|
|
#
?
Jan 5, 2022 14:31
|
|
|
Long effortpost of a home reno tv show disaster, via @aubryeliz on instagram. When Instagram "home design influencer" gets a show on Magnolia network and becomes her own GC. The homeowner telling the story is some flavor of instagram momblogger, but previously spent 15 years in the construction industry and her father is a lifelong GC. So many red flags pop throughout the story, but every time she gives villains Candis and Andy benefit of the doubt because maybe it's weird and different because TV and my sorta-friend wouldn't screw me over like this, right? Hi! It’s time to tell the story of my made for tv kitchen renovation. I’ll be uploading the story in 17 subsequent posts, meant to be read in order. I’ll be disabling the comments on all posts except for the very last one, in an effort to keep any conversation manageable. ♥️ In August 2019, I started conversations with Candis and Andy Meredith about turning my kitchen over to them to be renovated for a television show they were hosting for the new Magnolia Network. The network was just a buzz of an idea then. It was only a few months prior that Chip and Jo spilled their guts on Jimmy Fallon about a network and the world didn’t know any details beyond that. My kitchen was the last room in the house that held any evidence of its life as a rental property for the 15+ years before I moved in. I was also finishing out a bathroom renovation that I managed on my own. I learned a lot of first-time lessons managing the construction, had a fresh case of decision fatigue and was thrilled at the thought of turning my next project over to professionals who would shoulder the burden of the logistics, finances, and the design. I filmed an audition tape – propping my phone on a pile of books on my kitchen table – to send to Andy before they flew out to Waco for some pre-production meetings. I was invited to meet with the producers the next day. I skipped out on a morning of chaperoning Girls Camp and met with Candis, Andy, Kristel and Ann. The original call for projects asked for all rooms, all sizes, and all budgets. We talked about the possibilities of doing the lightweight job – painting over cabinets, removing uppers, etc. – or the full gut job. I was open to either possibility, depending on what they needed to fill in their lineup. Budget was my only hesitation with the full gut job. I told the room that I figured a full gut would cost $40,000 to $50,000. Candis replied to the room “$40 or 50? We can do it for $20!” Maybe naively, I assumed there would be some kind of promotional consideration involved in a television kitchen if they could do it for half the price. Free labor? Trade discounts on materials? Hearth and Hand products for life? It was too early in the process to ask those questions – I wasn’t a guaranteed episode yet. I practiced a little bit of discipline and let the process move at their pace and let the experts do what they do best. There was a couple of text messages back and forth in the coming months, checking in on if plans were firming up and if I should march down the path of securing a home equity line of credit for a home reno project or not. On October 4, a producer asked if a camera crew could come the next day to film the introductory walk through and interview. I was hosting out of town company, so we postponed until Monday. That gave me time to clean up a few piles, choose my tv outfit, and scramble to the bank to learn how quickly (or not) I could get my hands on $20,000. On filming day, camera crew mic’d me up before Candis walked in the door so we could film the welcome-to-my-home and everything after as authentically as possible. Nothing was rehearsed. It was reality television in its truest form. Maybe it came so easy and natural because we already knew each other. We were social friends – running into each other and making “we should collab!” promises at events and parties over the past five years. We had each other’s phone numbers saved in our phones but didn’t use them beyond sharing details about the perfect shade of red lips. We walked through the house together, sharing pain points and possibilities. The only time we cut the camera was when Candis gave me a heads up that she was going to ask the budget question. We hadn’t talked budget since that morning in her office in August. I was freshly panicked over how the timeline would shake out. A HELOC is similar to a refinance and would take 4 weeks or so to get cash in hand. Fortunately, my parents were in a position to help out in a pinch and, recognizing this was both an incredible opportunity and would improve the value of my home. They loaned me the money with the understanding that I would pay them back after the project was done and I could refinance my home. When the cameras rolled again, instead of $20,000 like Candis said we could complete it for, I offered up a $25,000 budget because no one wants to be the dumb homeowner with an unrealistic budget.   As soon as we were done filming, we talked over logistics. Three weeks of construction, that would start the following Monday. It was going to be fast and furious because they had 13 episodes to film before Thanksgiving and if they got to the finish line, they’d reward themselves with a trip to Paris over the holiday. Each episode would be split between their own home (Home) and client projects (Work) – Home Work! I had a week to box up and clear out my entire kitchen and utility room and be prepared to live without a kitchen and laundry room for three weeks. She’d send over the release forms, wire transfer info, and a contract ASAP so crews could demo and construction could crank. Candis’ final words to me, while sitting on the couch in my living room were “there will be times you’ll be really mad at me and don’t ask my guys for their papers.” I packed my kitchen, moved pantry staples into the guest room, moved my fridge into the living room, and boxes were everywhere in between, throughout my 1250 SF home. Once demo started, no space was off limits from the chaos. Between the urgency of it all – so many projects in such a short time frame – and leaning heavily on the friend card, when things didn’t follow what would seem like home renovation protocol, I was told to roll with it and trust in the process. While some things were conveniently delayed, like the wire transfer information that didn’t come immediately, some of it was unsettling like the lack of contract and inconsistent schedule from the crews. Andy told me the guys worked by the project, not the hour, and since they were working on so many projects at once, their schedules wouldn’t follow a pattern I should expect to rely on. My commercial contractor dad suggested I take detailed note of their schedules, activities, time stamps of materials that arrived and the quantities in case something unfortunate happened and a supplier threatened with a lien on my home. Since most of the construction happened while I was at work, I’d take walk through the kitchen every night and take inventory of what changed from the day before, snapping photos along the way. Immediately, the communication was disastrous. Distrust between Candis and the production team was clear. I heard different stories from every party in every call and text. Candis was overwhelmed by her workload and Andy was nowhere to be seen. Candis asked me not to communicate with the producer, undermining her competence and role when I asked for clarity. I didn’t know it at the time, but there were four homeowner projects happening at once in addition to their own home, filming across a three-hour drive. I begged for a scope, schedule, and budget – foundational details project managers provide to their client. I saw none, from start to finish. Any anomaly to my experience in construction, as a daughter of a contractor and as a project manager in the construction industry for over 15 years, was chalked up to "that's how it works for TV". Anytime a suggestion was made - on or off camera - about a feature, I would ask if it was in the budget. Candis assured me every time it would be okay. I walked out of my bedroom one morning, fresh from the shower, to find Candis, a camera man, and a contractor filming and working in “my” space behind the barrier that separated the work zone from the rest of the house. They pulled me on camera to decide what size of the deck they should build off the back of the house. I wasn’t aware a deck was in the scope of the kitchen remodel. Candis’ design eliminated the back door and severed access the backyard and basement to my home. She suggested I didn’t need a second egress, but I insisted it was required by code – and functionality, as the one living in the home. Her solution was to knock out a window, turn it into a door and build a deck. My first question was if building a deck was within budget. Candis told me she was sure she could fit it, since I added that extra $5000 into my budget in the intro interview. I would later learn during an appraisal that the unpermitted change to the access would result in functional obsolescence, lowering the value of my home. Without ever laying eyes on a spreadsheet or receipts and her delay requesting the wire transfer, I had to assume she was in control of the budget. EDITOR'S NOTE: PERMITS, SCHMERMITS. WHY NOT MAKE A BUNCH OF INTERIOR SPACE IN A 1,250 SQFT HOME UNFIT FOR OCCUPANCY TO ADD A DECK?       Candis made it clear that she staffed her crews with willing, yet vulnerable people. The laborers were sweet men who would sing How Great Thou Art in Spanish at the top of their lungs while they worked. She chose unlicensed and uninsured workers to complete tasks like electrical, gas line work, and digging footings for a deck that leveled the drainage across my property. EDITOR'S NOTE: SURELY SHE WASN'T ALSO SAVING A LOT OF MONEY USING UNLICENSED AND UNINSURED WORKERS WHO SHE BELIEVED DID NOT HAVE FULL PROTECTION UNDER THE LAW. I waved the red flag to Candis about a potential drainage problem (truly, only 15 years with drainage engineers could train a girl to know how vital, no matter how boring, proper drainage is) and she told me she’d take care of it. It was November then and I wouldn’t know that they didn’t fix it until they were long gone from the project and the first spring storm came. I panic-sand bagged 8 inches of water away from the basement door to save myself from a flood. Neither did I know that they built the deck on top of sod and sprinklers with zero plans to re-routed them before I could turn my sprinklers on for the season. Nor did I know the pine lumber used to build the deck would remain partially unstained through the winter, compromising its longevity by the minute. Or that they constructed the stairs on top of grass and would rot in the mud without proper protection. In the end, the friends and family discount I got from a neighbor landscaper cost me $18,000 to make right what they did wrong… all in pursuit of this thing that solved Candis’ design dilemma in my kitchen. Her crews created fundamentally dangerous problems that compromised my safety and were completed only as far as they were visible on television. The fact the workers did not have the right license/insurance was a risk for me, but it was a much greater risk for them. What if they’d gotten hurt on the job? Who was looking out for *them*?    But, in the moment, I toggled between nervous stress about the quality of work being performed and desperate pleas to see ANY progress in my home. After the initial demo and a start on the deck, crews were MIA for weeks. It was clear that construction would take more than three weeks. I still would have been amazed with a finished project in twice as long. We met in person the day before my birthday, on November 15, when I told Candis that my only birthday wish was to have a peak into her brain to know what the scope, schedule and budget looked like. She promised all of those things over a birthday treat. I saw a vision board of potential ideas and a screen shot of IKEA’s cabinet planning tool. It WAS thrilling. Seeing the design elements and the promise of a kitchen by Christmas was enough to keep the worries at bay and the momentum chugging, despite what was actually happening – or not – in my home. At 2 a.m. Thanksgiving morning, I got a request to transfer funds to their account – from Paris. They cashed in on the trip they were rewarding themselves with for finishing all of their projects. Since banks weren’t open, I couldn’t transfer funds. Monday morning came with more reminders about how immediately they needed the money, since they had been using their own money on my home. Within a day, I had wired $13,000, half of the total budget – at their request. Following their trip to Paris, they cruised through Mexico. The reports we got back home from a staff member who went along was that they had a great, expensive time. My frustration grew as it had been six weeks in duration, but only seven or eight working days were spent at my house. By December, dry wall had been hung, but not mudded or taped. The subfloor was made up of a hundred scraps of wood like a patchwork quilt. EDITOR'S NOTE:  Construction went completely quiet. No crews in sight. Ten days would go by between responses from Candis. It was clear the entire project (operation!?) was in trouble. As homeowners, we connected the dots of things we overheard – things like crews walked off the job, cancelled contracts, and were left unpaid for Christmas. A collective sense of panic was building.     Operating from a very desperate place, I reached out to anyone I knew who was connected to the project – other homeowners, siblings, and friends of the crew. It’s hard to articulate how vulnerable that place was… to feel like I was being held captive in my own unearthed home while screaming and shouting for anyone to hear me but being ignored. Not only was the chaos of living in a construction zone suffocating to a nervous state of mind, but I was also trying to operate a seasonal business that depended largely on the Christmas holiday for its financial viability. Creating content in my whirlwind of a home was nearly impossible and my business suffered for it, no matter how many times I communicated my needs or pleaded for any kind of reciprocated communication. At a Christmas party with friends, I told a friend who would be finishing her basement for the show in the next round of homeowner renovations that if I knew at the start how miserable and unnerving the process would be, I wouldn’t have gone through with any of it. And I meant it. I asked Candis for a meeting before Christmas so we could reevaluate where we stood, what the budget and schedule looked like, and what decisions they would need me to weigh in on. I knew that if I didn’t do my part to usher in progress, weeks would go by without any movement and we’d be well into January before I saw anyone in my home again. She was open to a meeting, I proposed a few times, and then she went silent. It wasn’t until after Christmas, with a lot of begging, that I was able to meet her in person. She told me the same thing she had been telling me for weeks – she was waiting on receipts from her guys before she knew where the budget sat. She did, though, tell me that there were four solid weeks of construction ahead. I communicated my timeline restraints – hosting house guests in February 2020, plans that I didn’t see as her concern in October 2019 when this three-week project started. EDITOR'S NOTE: HAVING LIVED WITH MAJOR PARTS OF THE HOUSE (INCLUDING KITCHEN) TORN UP FOR SEVERAL DAYS IN A ROW DURING PROJECTS, LIVING LIKE THAT FOR 2+ MONTHS WITH NO END IN SIGHT SOUNDS HORRIBLE     Between the Christmas break, more homeowners evidenced themselves and we were able to compare notes and find solidarity in a situation that no one else understood nor could we speak about to anyone but each other. Those friendships are bright spots, even two years later. We all had been told the same story to pacify us during the lack of construction. “The cabinets have been ordered!” “There are three on back order!” All of our cabinets had exactly three on back order and everything was always stuck in Vegas. I’m a seasoned enough online shopper to know that FedEx things get stuck in Jemaica, NY and UPS packages get stuck in Hodgkins, IL, but never Las Vegas. The stories were so abundant, it was hard to keep track of which lines they had already used on us. My cabinets were ordered at least three times between November and January. Still waiting for receipts in January, without progress on my home, I reached out to a friend who worked for Magnolia to express concern for the disconnect between what was happening on the ground and what the Network may or may not be aware of. I also took a deep dive into How TV Works. TV 101 says that a network (Magnolia) buys finished products (television shows) from production companies (Candis and Andy and their partners Dan and Ann). The network green lights the concept but doesn’t meddle with the details of the episodes. But, having been invited into the Magnolia family with several invitations to their vendor fairs and celebrations since 2016, Hello Maypole being included in the Market’s birthday parties, having met Chip, Jo, their parents, staff, management, and friends… I KNEW Magnolia was built on higher values that what was happening on the ground in SLC. I KNEW that if they were aware of how dire things were for us homeowners, they’d intervene. Candis and Andy used Magnolia’s name and reputation to entice homeowners to join their show. Magnolia had skin in the game, even though TV rules say networks are hands off.   Within a day of the bug I put in my Magnolia friend’s ear, I got word from Candis that Magnolia got in touch with them and gave them a very stern talking to. It was an awkward conversation, of course, but worth it to know there was a watchful eye. I’m not sure who said what to who, but I was hopeful that it would result in progress in my home and the completion of their show. The progress and my hope were short-lived. The patchwork subfloor was replaced with twelve scraps of wood instead of the 100 that were there before. More walls were mudded but flooring still hadn’t been ordered and my kitchen was still a blank box. EDITOR'S NOTE: REMINDER THAT THIS TAKES PLACE IN EARLY 2020, BEFORE WOOD PRODUCTS GOT REALLY EXPENSIVE. NO EXCUSE FOR THAT DUMB TETRISING OF THE FLOOR PANELS EITHER WAY, BUT THE MATERIALS WEREN'T EVEN EXPENSIVE! The floor was to be The Feature of the kitchen. We had been talking about floor samples since December 17 and it took a month to see samples in real life. They arrived the day I went to the urgent care for what no one knew at the time was covid so the most important color decision of my entire remodel would be done entirely through screenshots. When I circled my favorite four, Candis ordered her favorite eight colors to go down on my floor. Tiles were to be done on January 23rd, and then the 27th, and then she cancelled the whole thing, citing lack of communication, found a new company who would install it on the 28th, and then the 28th became the 31st and then the 1st of February and I had absolutely zero faith that any of it was real. I was certain I was being fed a line – the same line I had been for the three and a half months before with missing crews and poor work performed one or two days at a time, totaling less than two weeks of actual work days in my home. By February 5, with houseguests arriving in two weeks, an empty box of a kitchen, no progress since December, and the fifth delay on flooring, I was prepared to quit the show and take the project back as my own.        I sent a frank “figure it out by Friday or I quit on Monday” text, which was followed by a nonsense phone call that included lines like “I want to be on the same team” and “I want us to be friends” and “when things like this happen, I want to go out for ice cream together and shake our fists at the world” and “Utah influencers don’t like me because I’m not Mormon” and “you don’t appreciate me for the things I do for you” and “I can’t give you a schedule because then you’ll hold me accountable to it” and “oh, and while we’re having a hard conversation this is probably an appropriate time to tell you YOUR KITCHEN COSTS FORTY THOUSAND DOLLARS NOW”. We were single digit days away from the four-month late deadline for the completion of my kitchen and she was telling me for the first time that she spent 60% more than the approved budget – that I asked for on repeat and she told me on repeat would be “fine” – but now, if I didn’t help pay the full cost of the renovation, she was down to pennies and we were jeopardizing her ability to feed her children. I’ll upload the 15 minute retelling of this conversation to an IGTV.   When the flooring contractor – the only outside contractor Candis and Andy hired for my home – finally arrived to prep the floors, he found that Candis’ crew had leveled the subfloor using shreds of my cardboard packing boxes. None of the subfloors Candis’ crew installed were acceptable and we had to take even more steps backwards to start over from scratch. I still hadn’t seen receipts, anticipated costs, or a schedule. I made it clear that I didn’t feel comfortable moving forward without clarity on the budget, since we both acknowledged neither of us had the money to finish out the project she started and any work she chose to do would be at risk until I approved a budget. The overall production was severely behind schedule. We were 5 months late on a 3-week project and of the 13 episodes, and only one other client project had been revealed before mine. Another family was in the throes of quitting the show and homeowners were falling off the list at word of how poorly things were going for those of us who were in the thick of it. From my perspective, she needed my project to be complete more than I needed her to complete it for me. As such, she was willing to push the financial conversation down the road a bit more, even after I told her she was working at risk. I had my first panic attack that night. While the flooring contractor worked until 9:30 at night, I sat in the Walgreens parking lot bracing myself against the car door, while I physically, emotionally, and mentally deteriorated from the hard conversations and reality that laid at my feet. I tucked myself into bed once the flooring guy left and woke up at 1:30 a.m. with raised, red itchy hives from head to toe. I knew there was potentially a level of irrationality to my emotional reaction through my panic attack, but even more so in the middle of the night, I was certain someone was sabotaging me by literally bugging my house with spiders in my bed. A midnight call to a good friend and a google search later, I learned that these hives that evidenced themselves on every inch of my body were a reaction to the stress of the ugly conversations I had to have with Candis about my home.   I largely stayed out of the details of my renovation during those final days. I quite literally left my house so they could work around the clock. I believe in total, a three-week timeline was realistic. They collectively worked three weeks across five months, with radio silence in between. Reveal day came while my houseguests and I stayed in a hotel through the entire duration of their trip. We filmed a reveal and I feigned excitement while I dreamed the moment they’d leave my house and never come back. I’ll never show the finished product on the internet because it cleans up nice and, with the right filter, is worthy of every wow and word of praise for everyone who doesn’t have to live in it or had to live through what it took to get there. We faked a reveal of the back patio because it was late February in Utah and landscaping was dead. They planned to come back and finish staining the deck, stage some furniture and we’d finish out filming the reveal. Except I never saw Candis again. As soon as the cameras cut, she turned to me and said “I know this hasn’t been an easy journey. I don’t really care how things shake out from here, I just want you to love it.” I’m not sure what she meant by any of that, but I took it as “please don’t talk bad about it/me.” I never saw receipts, I never saw spreadsheets, we never discussed finances again. By reveal day, I paid her $13,000 in cash and $6,000 toward appliances. I was prepared to pay the balance of $6,000 if she showed her work, but she never did. Their assistant told me Candis and Andy were flew to Scotland the day after my reveal. They were out of town a week later when the photographer came to shoot still photos. I never signed the contract they sent in the middle of the night from their trip to Paris. I didn’t agree to it and they never asked for it. I never signed a location release form, so the project won’t go to air without my permission. The covid shut down began the day after they completed the last of the punch list items and Candis’ next text to me was about how I was managing gel manicures at home during quarantine.  While unpacking my kitchen, I came across the IKEA receipt that included all of the cabinet boxes, shelves, door fronts, the sink, kitchen table, and chairs. The total was $3,900. The faucet and lighting fixtures she sent me were limited to $100 options available on one-day Amazon Prime to make it in time for the reveal. The knobs were made of wood, painted to match the cabinets and cost 25 cents each. While I never got the breakdown of costs I asked for, they simply don’t add up. A majority of the material cost less than $4,000. I paid for the appliances myself. 2019 lumber cost 1/4th of what it costs today. No matter how I do the math, I can never get to $40,000. Within a few months of construction being complete in the kitchen, my parents bought and renovated a home nearby and wanted to use the same flooring style we installed in my kitchen. I reached out to the flooring company who very easily connected the dots about who I was. They informed me that Candis and Andy had an unpaid bill for the work on my home and they had been trying to reach them for months. The flooring company had exhausted all of their efforts and the last remaining tactic was to put a lien on my home. In an effort to avoid that, I paid the bill. After all, I owed toward my committed budget of $25,000 and I wanted the honest, hard workers to be paid fairly for their work. It was in that call, months later, that I also learned that the VCT flooring Candis told would last for 100 years was meant to be sealed. The shiny flooring at Target and your elementary school cafeteria… sealed. I realized when I asked about it in the moment and Candis told me it didn’t have to be sealed, that she likely couldn’t afford the three-pete seal and dry time in those final days. At the point work from home was a real thing and my ability to clear the kitchen and clean and prep the porous floor to properly float the sealant around every angle and toe kick – it was all too late. An unfortunate waste of my money to be sold a durable product and immediately compromise its integrity by leaving it unprotected. One more element of the project completed only so far as it was visible on tv.      So even still. The flooring was one less bill Candis didn’t pay that wouldn’t contribute to the $40,000 total she told me she spent. I compared notes with fellow homeowners who were being asked to pay well into the $80,000 range for their initial $45,000 project. It was clear we were all being lied to. Poor record keeping could have resulted in false labor charges from those How Great Thou Art guys, but from the start, we were told they work by the project not by the hour. In January, two months after Candis initially told me she had ordered the cabinets, she expressed concern that anything other than a plain-front cabinet would compromise the paint feature I asked for on the walls and cabinets. When she asked for my approval on plain front cabinets, she failed to mention that the only plain front cabinets at IKEA are made of laminate. In the final days of construction, when it occurred to me that they would be painting on laminate cabinets, I asked about the painting process and was told they would use direct to metal paint to achieve a better bond between the paint and plastic. The paint cans that are left in my cupboards are Sherwin Williams Super Paint – Paint and Primer in one. It took one week for chips to appear in both high traffic and untouched areas on the cupboard doors. It took me another few days to realize they used the same treatment on the cabinets in their home and before long, I’d be left with peeling paint on every surface. Every painter I called refused to help, claiming they didn’t want their name or reputation associated with an end result that was destined to fail. Replacing doors still left me with painted laminate cabinet boxes. Any kind of solution the experts came up with to skin the cabinets required the crown molding and counter tops to be removed. At that point, I was one step away from removing the cabinets entirely and stripping the kitchen back to a blank box. Maybe by then, though, the floors could be properly sealed as intended.     As covid delays were made more obvious, it was clear that the network would not launch on time. In an effort to pacify an anxious world-wide audience, Chip and Jo announced the initial line up of programming. It was the first Candis and Andy were able to announce that they were a part of the Magnolia family to their followers and be showcased on a Sunday night special. As I saw a flurry of thrill and excitement and “no one deserves this as much as you two” spread across the internet, I unfollowed, unfriended, and un-everything’d across all the platforms that connected us. It was the healthiest thing I could do for myself while still very privately dealing with the fall out of the six months prior. The unfollowing was immediately recognized by Candis. She asked if we could talk it out one more time because she didn’t feel comfortable editing my episode unless “everything was okay between us” – which it was not. In my final message to her, I wrote “to be frank, I am not okay and still reeling from the remodel process. We are fundamentally on different planes about acceptable practices and based on previous conversations, I’m not sure we ever will be. The healthiest thing I could do was separate myself from the incoming thrill, excitement, and praise about the show. You are welcome to use the footage for an episode if you need it, but I don’t feel, in good conscious, that I can share in the excitement. I hope you’ve learned lessons, improved processes, and made future home remodels run smoother, but my home and our relationship is simply a casualty of the actions of the last six months – no matter how much either of us wish it went another way.”   In the nearly two years since construction completed, past clients have come out of the woodwork to tell me of their experiences with Candis and Andy. Entire homes that were plumbed through the hose spigot in the back yard. Homeowners who paid $50,000 up front to be a part of the show but never saw a day of construction come through their home. I found a google book review of their coffee table book from someone who bought a house Candis and Andy renovated and featured in the book that revealed surface level renovations equal to mine that left the homeowners in unsafe conditions and named them most aptly “charming frauds” – a name this round of tv homeowners continue to use and reference to this day. Names and stories continue to come to the surface of people who felt like they were one off victims of Candis and Andy who didn’t have anyone to turn to at the time like we did as participants in the show. Behind the scenes, it’s been two years of speaking with lawyers, learning of the stacks of unpaid civil judgements Candis and Andy have ignored, and attempting to get the attention of those give them the rope from which they hang their victims in pursuit of their own financial gain and fame. A collective effort of four homeowners submitted our stories to Magnolia. They knew all along. We opened files with the Utah Department of Commerce’s Consumer Protection Division. We tried every appropriate avenue before taking it to the internet. I was thisclose to wearing a sandwich board and standing along Highway 6 in front of Chip and Jo’s home when I went to Waco last fall. It wasn’t until I mentioned the potential of speaking publicly about my experience to Magnolia’s purchasing team that they put me in contact with their lawyer who told me what I knew all along – it was a production issue, not a Magnolia issue. The values and morals that the world loves about Magnolia and Chip and Jo have not evidenced themselves here. It’s disappointing and heartbreaking. I was Magnolia’s most loyal supporter but now find myself a victim of their growth and greed.   So why now? Why share? On the internet? In 2022? I don’t do it to be salacious or sensational. Not vindictive or malicious. If that was the case, I would have shared it two years ago. I share it because after two years, they’re being celebrated and promoted while the people they hurt along the way have gotten nowhere. And, on the eve of a Magnolia Network cable launch, the well-edited version of the story will show only their side of October 2019 and beyond. People, bank accounts, livelihoods, families, our health, sanity… all of us have been left on the cutting room floor. I’m speaking up to protect potential future victims from their dangerous pattern of behavior. And I share with hope that they will be held accountable for the ways in which they’ve hurt those of us left in the wake of their work. I’m speaking up because there are other homeowners who, after 18 months of stalled construction and some pressure from Magnolia, ultimately settled and have been silenced. While others are still left paying on a second mortgage for the loan they wholly handed over to Candis and Andy. Financially, I recovered. My laminate cabinets are still painted with latex paint, but all things considered; I came out relatively unscathed. I wasn’t as vulnerable as others – in a rocky marriage, with sick kids, losing a job in an unstable economy. I was fortunate. Adding a fraudulent construction project within the walls of your home on top of those things had the potential to absolutely level the lives of anyone involved and it was clear that health, safety, and happiness came second to production value. It may be altruistic to believe that my words have any influence against an ongoing reality in network television. It’s a scary place to sit, to pour your guts out on the internet and be the David against more than one Goliath. But if it saves a future homeowner from this show or any others out there, it will have been worth the cost of admission.
|
|
#
?
Jan 5, 2022 22:30
|
|
|
That was amazing. And just how I expected most of these remodel shows go down.
|
|
#
?
Jan 5, 2022 23:39
|
|
|
Motronic posted:That was amazing. This Old House is still cool right? I mean the homeowners on that show are usually very to extremely wealthy so a couple of overruns here or there are drops in the bucket. I think I have only seen one project where they had to end the season and come back later (the one house is Charlestown, SC that once belonged to the owner's grandmother).
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2022 01:40
|
|
|
Arsenic Lupin posted:How is the one built in 1725's heating? Sounds like a bitch to retrofit anything but fireplaces. It depends on the house. My family's 1763(Maybe? Spotty records that far back.) house has a cellar under half the house and crawl spaces under the rest, so forced air ducts on the ground floor weren't too tricky. Second floor is just what heat rises up, though, so upstairs bedrooms tend to have electric blankets.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2022 02:35
|
|
|
ChickenOfTomorrow posted:Exerpts from a thread A reply from that thread https://twitter.com/a_circling_sol/status/1423613866689314822?s=19
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2022 04:02
|
|
|
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2022 04:28
|
|
|
If I ever replace a floor in my house I'm gonna paint a big pentacle on the subfloor with, like, candle wax drips and a conspicuous rust brown stain. Just a fun present for the next owner.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2022 04:46
|
|
|
Edit: nvm I’m dumb
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2022 04:54
|
|
|
MisterOblivious posted:A reply from that thread Stupid setup, you have your neighbor's cold water line go through a bitcoin mining rig to cool it, then pump the hot water through the floor, then into the sewer.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2022 05:49
|
|
|
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2022 05:59
|
|
|
Seattle’s King Street Station? Looks familiar. Ceiling renovation must’ve been a decade ago now
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2022 07:16
|
|
|
A drop ceiling isn't the worst possible way to handle "we can't afford to properly restore this ceiling right now and tearing it down isn't an option because it's a historical building"
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2022 09:04
|
|
|
The bottom edge of the photo  This whole image is a masterpiece. A window into madness itself, no less.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2022 11:07
|
|
|
MH Knights posted:This Old House is still cool right? I mean the homeowners on that show are usually very to extremely wealthy so a couple of overruns here or there are drops in the bucket. I think I have only seen one project where they had to end the season and come back later (the one house is Charlestown, SC that once belonged to the owner's grandmother). These are not homeowners who are looking for work at a price, they are looking for the most exceptional work they can get at any price. It's really not even the same genre of show.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2022 14:43
|
|
|
lordofthefishes posted:The bottom edge of the photo If this is, in fact, king station... https://www.traditionalbuilding.com/.amp/projects/king-street-station quote:Like many other historic buildings, King Street Station suffered a mid-century "modernization," starting in 1949 with the installation of an exterior escalator, and going through the mid 60s. All of the ornate vertical plaster was stripped from the waiting room walls up to the level of the new dropped ceiling that was 10 ft. lower than the original. This new ceiling hid the original balcony and second level arcade and punctured holes in the original plaster ceiling. This restoration also stripped the station of its historic lighting, reduced the grand staircase connecting the King Street and Jackson Street levels.
|
|
#
?
Jan 6, 2022 17:42
|
|
|
More from Seattle! Perkins lane is a snall street that runs along the bottom of the south side of the Magnolia cliffs. It's NW of downtown and right by the sound. There's a few unbuildable lots there because there's unstable cliffs above and the ocean below. A charming place until this happens! silicone thrills posted:The shots from before and after are insane
|
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2022 01:06
|
|
|
Vim Fuego posted:More from Seattle! Oh There used to be two stories
|
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2022 03:23
|
|
|
|
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2022 03:37
|
|
|
Nice humblebrag. La dee da my hovel has 2 floors! And nails in the floor. And some paint on the walls. Antique carpet on the stairs. Very rare handrail light switch. This place has everything.
|
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2022 04:33
|
|
|
Someone put a LOT of work into carving out a mortise for that box to go in. Edit: I didn't say it was good work.
|
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2022 04:46
|
|
|
Railing saves owner from falling to his/her death. . . Dies from electrocution.
|
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2022 04:53
|
|
|
canyoneer posted:Candis remodeling nightmare drat, she dragged Candis hard. I got hives just reading that. It reminded me of a cross between Hoodwinked House (sadly the blog seems to have vanished) and Olivebridge Cottage filtered through some kind of instagram influencer girl boss MLM nonsense. I hope Aubry is made whole by Magnolia Network or at least gets a GoFundMe or something.
|
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2022 06:05
|
|
|
Is that a dryer at the top of the stairs?
|
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2022 13:40
|
|
|
HelloIAmYourHeart posted:drat, she dragged Candis hard. https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/chip-joanna-gaines-magnolia-network-232208595.html Wow. I had always assumed that the tv shows footed the bill for the renovations. A remodel is stressful enough without a camera crew and TV people in the mix. What is the benefit to the homeowner? Are people just that desperate for their fifteen minutes? Someone post the show where they turn a room into a tropical paradise by dumping a bunch of sand in it.
|
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2022 15:39
|
|
|
i figured the Reno shows at least comped you for some of the material from their sponsors, yeah. don’t see why you’d go through the trouble otherwise.
|
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2022 15:46
|
|
|
Slugworth posted:Is that a dryer at the top of the stairs? Good question. I stole it from Reddit and that isn’t even the original source, so I have no clue.
|
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2022 15:51
|
|
|
kitten emergency posted:i figured the Reno shows at least comped you for some of the material from their sponsors, yeah. don’t see why you’d go through the trouble otherwise. I guess you may expect a remodelling team good enough to have a TV show to be better than random local contractors, so it's like a free upgrade to a higher tier of work? I mean, you'd apparently be wrong, but it's not a completely unreasonable thought.
|
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2022 16:40
|
|
|
sporklift posted:https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/chip-joanna-gaines-magnolia-network-232208595.html I could have sworn that the reno shows provided some sort of discount to the owner, otherwise I have no clue why you would do it aside from the "thrill" of being on TV. Anyone starting that much work in your house without a contract is a giant red flag. I know she thought of Candis as a friend of sorts, but someone with a GC for a father should know better. What a nightmare. Most of these home reno shows seem to come from influencer first, contractor way down the list, kind of people. They aren't experienced in renovations, let alone managing multiple renovations at the same time. Everything is done with little to no planning, and good luck with the paperwork. Windy City Rehab was another of these kind of shows that has tons of problems. Shut down by the city, sued by homeowners, and the two stars have been in a legal fight. It's a total mess.
|
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2022 16:46
|
|
|
Computer viking posted:I guess you may expect a remodelling team good enough to have a TV show to be better than random local contractors, so it's like a free upgrade to a higher tier of work? i suppose. I watch the hell out of HGTV because I have a brain sickness and can only watch professional wrestling or food/home improvement television without being bored to tears - it seems like even on the same show in the same general location, you see a bunch of different laborers and subcontractors (even when the hosts have a preferred GC who does show up on each episode) all that said I’m glad the home improvement shows have gotten over the “is this wall load bearing?? find out after the break” trope they used for a while and the only time it’s an issue is when a genuinely surprising wall is load bearing
|
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2022 16:48
|
|
|
Computer viking posted:I guess you may expect a remodelling team good enough to have a TV show to be better than random local contractors, so it's like a free upgrade to a higher tier of work? Ja, you come to me and tell me that my house will be renovated, and that cameras will be on the contractors/carpenters/workers at all times* and I would be inclined to believe that the work would be top-quality with no gently caress-ups. The "baling wire & tape" crap that these homeowners are reporting reminds me of the same shows, but for cars, like 'Pimp My Ride" where bondo is laid on by the pound, and within 6-months the car is literally falling apart. *well, actually not
|
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2022 16:55
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 30, 2024 14:32 |
|
|
I want a series where someone like Mike Holmes (who is probably also a tv fraud) goes and points out all the terrible work that was done by home reno shows and fixes it.
|
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2022 17:00
|
|
