Re: New Pool IG - Inland Empire, CA - Stonework! (cautiously moving forward)-
Why not just pull the plug on these guys???
This is an argument I had yesterday and one I'm not going to continue with the old man. It's his money, I can only guide and suggest... so, things go onward...
Just curious- did you ask for a dive pool or a 6' deep pool?
Asked for a 6' deep pool. The jump rock came to be because we initially in our personal drawings had plans for a slide back in that corner. When we mentioned the thought of it to the PB, she said it's too expensive, she then suggested a jumprock and we said "sure!". To be honest, we're up for a bit of wild jumping, making sure to keep away from the seat, and not scrape our 'side fat' down the stacked stone sides, and very few people other than us and a couple of close friends will be using the pool... but we're just wondering if jumping from that height into that depth 'works'. I'm actually thinking or trying an experiment at my friends pool tonight to check it out.
SO... today... well... long story short... after a couple of long meetings (phone and in person) with the PB owner yesterday, we're moving forward. I don't have a picture of what the... 'mason'... was doing yesterday... but he was taking our flagstone, and just tapping the sharp corners and giving it an 'edge'. We went and picked up another piece of flat flagstone for the spill over as well as some chisels for them to use for the stone. This morning the team showed up and we were quite firm with them as well as the PB on the phone. Statements were made such as "I'll do 4-5 feet and if you don't like it, I'll leave" and then us to the PB "Where is our project manager, we're the ones managing!" and many more 'firm' words and statements. Not a peep from our 'project manager' at all, we only deal with the owner now... we assume she has abandoned the project and the owner is now in charge...
Some photos-
No pictures of the work, but this is what the guy was doing yesterday, just hitting the stone a bit to soften the corner, and nothing even resembling a chiselled edge. He didn't even want to cut the slabs into smaller pieces, just wanted to use full lengths and shave off the sides (lazy). It sort of backfired on him when he went on saying "the more I work with the stone the smaller the pieces will be" and we said "well, we like smaller pieces, gives it a more varied and natural look" and then he even went on saying "well, but then the stone will be this size *holds up a piece* and not bigger" and we go "yeah, we know, that'll look great"... he complained to the PB about the time he'll have to spend on this project, but oh well. Looks like you can't just lay down slabs and cut them to shape.
Not much to look at, but this was the extent of work yesterday. They're actually laying out coping and chiselling the edges today... so it'll have coping by today (likely cemented tomorrow).
This guy showed up today with the other guys and showed us what he can do... he cuts the stone a bit on the edge and then chisels it to give it a natural broken edge look. What a concept... this is what everyone else has said to do (who knows what they're doing). This takes time and a bit more work, but it's what needs to be done to have it look right.
Here's what the stone will look like sealed with the tile.
SO, we're moving forward, the stone guy is having to spend more time to do the job properly, and at least has a guy there who knew what he was doing. The PB owner this morning had things to say like "Well, we usually don't do this on projects, but we want to make you happy" and I shut him down with "Our project manager has known what stone we wanted for at least a month... it was her job to know the material, that it's harder and needs to be worked differently than cheaper sand flagstone, and it was her job to determine "that will cost extra for us to work with" or to inform their stone workers about the material so they would have the correct skills and tools to do the job.
The PB owner joked when we said "We're the ones managing this project" and said "Haha, well how much should I pay you?" and we shut him down informing him it's not a joke. I wonder if we'll ever heard from our project 'manager' again.
