If you have been following along the past few months, you know I am in the process of doing a kitchen remodel. I worked all day Saturday and was planning to do some more work Sunday after the Eagles game. As I was watching the game, half way through the 4th quarter I heard my wife yell for me to come downstairs. It turns out one of the hoses that feeds our washing machine had corroded and completely disconnected, spewing water everywhere. My laundry room, garage, closet and bathroom were completely flooded. I am usually pretty good with handling issues like this, but in the midst of a complete kitchen remodel, I felt overwhelmed.
After cleaning up the mess, I was talking to my wife about the kitchen and what we had left to do. I truly enjoy all the work that goes into a project like this, except spackling and painting. I am a perfectionist and it is extremely hard to perfectly tape and spackle seams. So as we are talking I made the suggestion to hire someone to spackle the kitchen ceiling for us. It made sense in my head. It took us like 4 weeks to do the dining room ceiling; someone could knock out the kitchen in a few days.
I will be the first to admit that my washing machine fiasco completely clouded my judgement. I knew hiring the right person wouldn’t be cheap and if I wanted to do it right, that is what I needed to do. However, the recent memory of cleaning up an inch of water in 4 rooms was clouding my judgement and I decided to post an ad on craigslist. What’s the worst that could happen right? Within 30 minutes of posting I had 8 text messages, 4 phone calls and a few emails. Perfect! I could pick exactly who I wanted and finish up this dreaded part of my kitchen.
I called one guy and told him what I needed done. He told me the job was super easy as he had been doing this type of work for 20 years. He assured me he could knock it out that night for cheap. While I was skeptical, who was I to argue with someone who had that much experience?
I will spare you the details but the guy came out to my house, screwed up my ceiling and I basically gave him $100 to leave. I am a firm believer that God places people in our lives for a reason. While this man’s reason was clearly not to fix my ceiling, there may have been something else that I just didn’t know. It doesn’t feel good to waste $100 but I hope that money was able to bless him in some way. Chances are he needed it way more than I did.
Bottom line is, you get what you pay for. Don’t let circumstances cloud your judgement like I did. I am not saying that you need to always get the best things and pay for the best services. While it is not always the case, 9 times out of 10 the less money you spend the less quality you get.
I am sure you have heard this all before but I wanted to share this story as a reminder for you. And maybe even give you a little chuckle at my expense in the process. Have a great weekend!
