Little estimate of horror

We had three contractors over to our house to price out the projects we want to do. Having a contractor at your house at early hours on the weekend and walking them through all the problems of your house does not make for a pleasant Saturday. You walk around pointing out crumbling wood and see more and more things to do. Yes, we want to fix this. Oh, that is broken too - sure, let's do the whole ball of wax! What's that? You want to install a new fancy thingamajig? Ooohhh...is it shiny?

I had flashes of the movie 'The Money Pit' flashing through my brain.

But, they all showed up on time, and two even had some genuine enthusiasm for the project. We bid them adieu and waited for the estimates.

Upon receiving the estimates, Dan morphed into Macaulay Culkin from Home Alone (hands on face and screaming). We only received two estimates, the other is still in limbo somewhere. For the sake of this ramble I will rename the contractors to Dude, Guy, and Man. Dude's estimate was very neat and very expensive. Guy' s estimate was not that neat, somewhat hard to decipher, and very expensive on somethings and reasonable on others. Man's estimate is in the wind. Man promised an estimate a week after his visit. It had been a month. Yup, a month. I e-mailed him to check in and he said he was having computer problems, which confused me since he e-mailed me back and I am pretty sure we discussed his non-blackberry phone when he visited. Hmm.... Man promised me I would have the estimate that day. No word since...it had been two days. Needless to say, Man is out of the running.

I love Dude. He makes me feel like he will make everything shiny and new. We loved Guy too though. Guy was like a real carpenter. A craftsman who was going to widdle wood into fine pieces of art - for like...a dollar right? No, not right. Guy wanted some serious bucks for some shelving. Shelving that would have been glorious...and yet would not mesh well with our current IKEA bookshelves.

Dude is still my fav. Dan is not convinced with Dude - which he says is too pricey. Which, he is.

I have a feeling the planning process of this is going to take a long time.

Update: **Man claims he has not sent the estimate due to having the flu. Also, he forgot to measure somethings so could he ::cough:: come by again? Um, no. Keep your flu germs and your procrastinations out of my face! Thanks. This guy is a piece of work!