Working for Freedom

Renovating a house is always very stressful. Issues with contractors is one stressor. I used to have a guy in Calgary that was so good, he has tarnished my expectations of others. Here in B.C. you cannot be too picky because it is slim pickings. Most people that come here come here to retire – so they do not want to work. And because no one wants to work, those who do, have too much work. The thing I hate the most though is that most of the guys I hire smoke. I don’t care about the smoking itself – but I do care that they smoke on my dime. To them, having a quick smoke break is no big deal, but a 5 minute smoke break costs me thousands! Let me explain: I pay my contractor $95/hour. So five minutes costs me $7.92. He takes 6 smoke breaks a day, so that costs me $47.50 a day, or $237.50 a week! Times that by a few months, and you get my point.

Another stressor is the noise: all day long we hear the constant din of banging and sawing. Speaking of noise, after our trip and analyzing various locations for noise, I came home to sounds I did not know existed here. Our first morning here I laid in bed listening to the sounds of morning. It started with the doves and quail hoo – hooting, then the slow din of cars on the distant highway, working their way into town. Then at night while going to sleep I hear a true symphony of crickets. I didn’t know we had crickets here! They are just as loud as the ones in Bucerias! Anyway, these are noises that do not bother me; it just took some time to get used to.

Renovations always bring surprises and this house has been no exception. I had budgeted $15000 for the basement, but we will end up spending three times that. Our first surprise was finding a cut, live wire in the ceiling. That meant we had to rip down the entire ceiling to see if there were others – and there were! Then after ripping out some drywall to make room for new wiring, we found some mold and water damage on an exterior wall below an old window. That means we have to rip out the window to replace the rotten 2 x 6, so THAT means, I have to replace all the windows so they match. Truthfully they needed to be done anyway. But now, the exterior needs to be done because there was no way to find a window of the same size, and so now we have to redo the stucco or patch and paint the house. Then, after framing in and wiring the new bathroom, we realized we had no heat in there, so that got me analyzing my heating system here and calculating my R factor...that led to redoing all the exterior insulation. And electricity is SO expensive here, I have to change the furnace to gas so I can afford the bills…

You get the picture.

The most stressful part about renovating for me though, is the constant fight I have to be respected for my knowledge and experience. It is a man’s world and there are few women who act as general contractors. Being in charge of a bunch of testosterone filled men who all hate being told what to do by a woman is very annoying. And that includes my husband; renovating is hard on his ego. My husband is a wonderful guy and he was a really good salesperson. He had a great career and seldom complained about his work. But he is not a fan of hard labour – and that is what I have him doing now. Demolition – ripping down walls. Look at what he has pulled out of the basement!



What keeps us going is the knowledge that when this is all over we will be able to head back on the road for some fun and sun. Until then, we will plug along. Working for a couple of months so we can have the freedom to not work for the rest of the year is worth it. I think.