The Journal - Ryan and Leah's New House

Before last month, when we started getting deck quotes, it had been quite some time since we'd had a contractor at the house bidding on something. Way back in the beginning — years ago now — it seemed a daily occurrence.

This evening, the first of several companies gave us a quote on having our driveway ripped out, widened, and repaved. We've needed this done for quite some time (the guy said our current driveway is 40+ years old), but other projects always seemed more pressing.

Or more interesting.

Here's Ryan, widening the driveway with the aid of a rented rototiller back in May:

By the time Ryan was done with all the digging and dirt moving and stone adding, our driveway was two cars wide, instead of one.

The quote this evening wasn't as bad as the unofficial quote we received in the spring from someone doing work down the street. And I had a coupon to boot. The guy seemed a little shady at first and talked to us in a tone of voice that implied he had insider information he could only share with us, but we warmed up to him by the end.

That got me to thinking, maybe it's just been too long since we've dealt with a contractor and I've forgotten what they're like when they're bidding on a project. I don't know what that means, but there you go.

We've given up on the deck project (which we will be doing ourselves) until the spring, because there's no way our sloooow township would ever approve our homeowner-drawn plans in time to get it done before winter, so now we have more time to figure out what we really want. Hopefully, the driveway permit won't take quite as long.

We'll see how the rest of the bids go first.

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