Furnishing From Afar

As I mentioned in Rochester Renovation I have been totally consumed lately with buying, remodeling, and furnishing a house in Rochester New York. I was originally going to do a single post but describing this much work amounted to two articles. This one is focused on the furnishings. I hoped to show you the kitchen but it won’t be done for another week or so.

The Furnishings

In addition to helping our son buy a house in Rochester New York, we agreed that I would furnish it in coordination with him so that he wasn’t living like a college student for the next 4-5 years. Of course, you can imagine that getting a 23 year old man to focus on picking rugs, couches, dishes, desks and bedroom furniture wasn’t so easy.

To facilitate the process, I made a cart at Wayfair that we shared during the month before we closed on the house. However, there were some big downsides on Wayfair. First, things that we picked kept going out of stock. It is really frustrating when you spend a week looking at couches, then you pick one and it goes away and you have to start all over again. The second issue was the closing date. We didn’t want things delivered before the close of escrow, but I wanted our son to have a bed when he arrived in Rochester. So I couldn’t wait too long to place the order.

Placing the Orders

Finally, we managed to agree on the major furniture and I placed orders on Wayfair and Amazon, followed by more orders for stuff we forgot. Orders were also placed at Costco for the TV, at Lowes for the tile and BBQ, and at Walmart for a variety of things. I don’t really care for Walmart but it is a favorite of our son. However, I am even less enamored with Walmart after they just canceled at least two of our orders. The first time they couldn’t fulfill the order for local pickup so they just canceled it. The second time they said there was an issue with my credit card. After the second cancellation, we both decided no more online orders with Walmart. Things went better after that.

Just to complicate things further, the furniture started to arrive before we had closed escrow on the house, so we had to beg the owner and the downstairs tenant to move newly arrived boxes from the unlocked porch to the locked foyer. What a nerve-racking pain. It turns out that once you place an order, things just get scheduled and delivered. You have no control over the delivery dates.

Building Furniture and Finishing the Remodel

The first week was packed. In addition to the paint and tile demo, a roof repair and the refrigerator delivery were scheduled. But then the refrigerator was delayed by a week, so eating for the first week was a little difficult for our son. But he is young and he managed. Luckily, there is a pizza place just across the street.

He has now been there for almost four weeks. At two weeks, I’m pretty sure there was still stuff in his car, in the foyer, and unopened boxes scattered around the 2nd and 3rd floor. He decided to put together his bedroom items first so he could be comfortable. The couch wasn’t scheduled to arrive for another two weeks, so leaving the living room for a week wasn’t a problem. Besides his bedroom, his next priority was getting and using the BBQ, which he is thrilled with. He has slowly but surely put together the bookcases, the entertainment unit, and the dining room table. Since he wants to cook, he seems to have unpacked most of the kitchen stuff, too.

Finishing the Remodel

This remodel was no different than any other remodel that I’ve done. Everything takes longer than you expect and contractors don’t reserve time for you until you give them dates for the preceding steps. “Because of Covid” the granite place was backed up and could only measure two weeks ago. Then we had to wait another two weeks for installation. Once we agreed on an installation date when our son would be home, I called the tile guy. As expected, he is on another job until the following week so there is another week delay. Fortunately, I was able to give the painter a heads up so the paint should be done right after the tile goes in.

I’m still hopeful that everything will be done by the time school starts on August 17th. The goal was to have our son settled so he could focus on school.

Beauty Shots

I have explained to our son several times that I have a vision for his apartment, just like all of those HGTV shows that we watch all the time. We originally planned to go to Rochester and then I could help realize my vision in person. But governor Cuomo doesn’t want us in his state unless we quarantine for two weeks and I don’t blame him. However, that doesn’t fit with our plan so we aren’t going to Rochester at this time. Now I have to rely on my son to make the whole thing come together.

In my experience, with all construction projects, if you don’t set a deadline, you never actually finish. Mike dislikes these deadlines but they work. So I set a deadline on this job too. I got a commitment from our son to send me “beauty shots” of the living room and his bedroom by the time I published this article. Since that gave him more than three weeks, I’m hopeful that that deadline will be met and this part of  project will be complete. That means, all of the furniture will be assembled and placed and all of the mountains of garbage and recyclable cardboard will be removed. I can’t wait.

And now, kitchen pictures.

Would you ever consider doing this job remotely?