Quality control?

Tuesday morning I drove to the Home Depot in my county that carries bundles of cedar shingles.  I was halfway there when I remembered that there was major road construction going on in that area.  I have a real aversion to road construction.  I think it comes from my days of commuting an hour to and from work.  The sight of a orange barrel was heartbreaking because it meant that my hour long drive had just turned into an hour plus.  I can't tell you how many times it took me over 3 hours to get home after working 10 hours.  I do not miss that in the least.

I decided that I could cut through the parking lot of the mall and then drive cross the street to Home Depot. That worked like a charm......actually too good.  That's usually a bad omen.  I walked into Home Depot and lo and behold there was a flat bed cart right there.  I usually have to look around for one of those. Oh oh....another bad omen.  I started wondering if maybe they were going to be out of stock on the shingles.  Nope, plenty of shingles.   But since the shingles are located on a high shelf and being 5'2" it was out of my reach and I would need help.

OK, where are all the sales associates that bug you every 30 seconds?  I couldn't find anyone.  Finally, after 20 minutes I flagged down a guy with a clipboard.  He hesitated for a moment and I thought for sure that he was going to call someone else when I gave him my best exasperated sigh.  He finally said "show me what you want."  We walked over to the shingles and he promptly tried to pick up a broken bundle.  I then pointed to another bundle and gave him a couple of pointers on picking them up.  After he laid the bundle on the cart he says...."ouch ouch ouch."  What a sissy.

Since I was pressed for time, I made a beeline to the cashier.  The only lines open were the self serve and there was a line waiting to use the scanners.  Everyone needed help scanning and there was only one lady to help everyone.  Finally a spot opened up and I called the lady over.  We looked the bundle over and could not find a bar code.  Now I needed to wait for someone to give her the price.  We waited and we waited and we waited.  Finally, she was given the price and I proceeded with checking out.

By the time I arrived home it was mid afternoon and most of the daylight had been burned away.  We only finished the under the threshold part and several rows.  Progress was slow because the new shingles have such poor quality control, that each shingle needed to have the edges cut straight before installation.  In addition to all the trimming, the shingles were furry and covered with splinters.  These new shingles will need to be sanded before I can paint.

Wednesday was another rain day.  I scraped paint for about 2 hours but just couldn't get into it.  So R and I did a little demo work in the entry area of the kitchen.  When you come into the house through the kitchen door you enter a little entry area.  The room itself is very small but there were cabinets built along the wall which made the area even narrower.  The cabinets were shallow and appear to have been used for canning jars.

My plan is to remove the cabinets and in their place build a shelf and a seat along the wall.  This will give us a place to hang a jacket and sit down and remove our shoes.  Demo went along without too much trouble.  We pulled out a bazillion nails but no surprises.   We can even reuse some of the wood to build our shelf and seat.

Tuesday Cost

1 bundle of cedar shingles  $59.84

Wednesday Cost

Nuttin, zip, zero  $0.00