I know, I know, there hasn't been a post in two weeks. With the house pretty much done now - the postings are few and far between. However, today the guys we hired to do some landscaping finished the work we hired them to do. That was a bit of an ordeal. After we got used to the integrity and attentiveness of Ideal Building, it was quite shocking to deal with these guys.

We were referred to these guys by our neighbor who used them to build some retaining walls. They are two young guys starting up their business and so we thought we would throw some business their way. And they were cheap!

But as the saying goes 'you get what you pay for'... or even less. I met with the guys and we went over everything that I was visioning for the front yard. They seemed to understand and when they were ready to start, I gave them a deposit for the work. The worked fast and within a couple of days they were 'done'. However on the day they finished up (originally) they asked if I could leave them a check, trusting that the work would be done.

I did, but when I got home, a lot of what we initially talked about had not been done. So I waited for Gary to get home that weekend and then we could talk about it. We were not really wasn't happy with the overall look as the walls looked unfinished, the dirt behind the walls were not leveled up, and our bid did not include cleaning up the ivy that we talked about or laying down bark. So I asked them to come back out we discussed the changes.

This time we put everything down on paper... and they still managed to screw up. After being efficient with the original project, they dragged their feet to finish up. Then yesterday they promised to be out at 11am to finish up with the changes. By 2:30p they still hadn't showed. After talking to them and they said they would be out by 3:30pm, I got another call around 2:45pm saying that they would rather come today and finish everything up. So we agreed (although Gary was ready to fire them)...

Today, they showed up early and we discussed what we wanted to be done today. Before we left on our 140 miles motorcycle ride, they were 'finishing up' for the day and wanted us to settle up with the bill. Because we were not going to be here when they were done, Gary was reluctant to give them a check considering the problems we had the last time around. Finally, we came to an agreed and when we returned home at 6pm - the yard was done... They forgot to do one thing and instead of having them come back - I went ahead and finished up what would have taken them 5 minutes to do.

The three pictures on this post is what the front yard looks like right now. We will be adding some plants and flowers and then planting a lot of ivy to cover what was pulled back during the remodel.

Man, do we miss Robert, Bill and the guys at Ideal Building.