A Job for the Fab 3

For those of you that don't know the "Fab 3"... Let me show you.

or

Cousins, we have been buds since 82 and 83.

From left to right in picture 2 we have Phillip, Adam, and then Myself. Adam is a professional tile installer in Wilmington. Phillip is an accountant that is working his way to C.P.A. status. I am a professional blogger.

A unit owner requested a tile backsplash in his kitchen so I decided to call Adam to see what he would charge. He told me and I thought that sounded fair so I told him when to be here(had to be a weekend since it was a little side work). A couple days before he came, Phillip called me and asked what he needed to do to get on the payroll for the job. I told him there was no room on the payroll but he could come and be the intern.

So Friday Adam arrives with his wife and new baby. She and the baby go to greensboro for the weekend and we go to Lowes to get some materials. Lowes didn't have what we needed so we headed down the road to Home Depot (I do not support HD because their lack of customer service). On the way we hear a rummmmm pum pump, baroom da doom doom, pacow and the car cuts off. We pop the hood and find the problem. A spark plug had ejected from the motor. Luckily, all of this happened right across the street from Advance Auto so we run across 6 lanes of 5 o'clock traffic to go get the parts/tools we need to fix it. While fixing the car my lovely wife texts me and asks me how the tile job is going so I send her this pic...

Since we are so talented we got her up and running and headed downtown to start the work. Not long after we started the Intern showed up...

He looks like he is ready for action to me... he stood like that for 20 minutes until Adam put him to work. Peelin paper was his job. He struggled...

We got all the tile set that night and we headed to get some dinner. We had a lot of fun just being ourselves. Saturday morning we got up and went to grout and clean up. Here is Phil again...

Don't worry... we got him going again and finished up. Here is the finished product...

Good job Adam... and Phil. After we left there we went to The Pitt and had some Bar-b-que. Adam paid since he was the only person that made money on the Job. It was a good time nonetheless.

Oh yea... I really like this picture of our leader speaking to 11 year olds.

pahleaseeee

Love Finishing a Job

One of the best things about my business right now is that my jobs are short and sweet. I have an opportunity with a big developer to be their "on site GC" at the RBC Plaza. I am pretty much their hero. They always approach me with these jobs that sound appealing until they tell me when I need to have them done but I man-up and knock em out. I just finished altering a 2 bedroom unit today. The guy that is moving in wanted hardwoods(1600 sqft. worth) and a full height granite backsplash before he closed. They told me to start Last Friday and that I needed to be done today. I called in the troops as soon as they gave me the go ahead. Gasman and his bro in law came to help me demo the existing carpet. Gasman (bless his heart) gets carried away with tearing stuff up and decided to bang up a cabinet. While he was doing that I was realizing that tearing up the little bit of hardwoods was going to be a chore. I rented a machine on Monday to help with the process. Wasn't working so I called in more troops. Dr. J and Ryle Kiley came up to help. Dr. J(had to let him know that these things happen) tore up a cabinet and Rile Kiley destroyed two cabinet doors by unknowingly spilling water on them. He still doesn't know. I'll send him a bill. All of this damage was fixable so it was just a slight scare. Here is a picture of the floors (I am going to start taking more pictures of the process)...

They call him sancho or something...

I am also currently finishing up my first commercial project. It is a telephone room for a company that installs a system in buildings like RBC Plaza and improve the cell phone coverage. The room holds their equipment and they lease space to cell phone providers who "piggy back" on to their system. It is a good little job and I hope that it may lead to more. I don't have any pictures of the job at the moment but I do have this picture...

That is WCB mascot playing fetch in the building with a ball made of electrical tape. (She stopped about right there and number two'd in the floor because she's used to playing fetch outside.)

Maybe I will start to get the hang of this bloggin and it will become more interesting?!

A Construction Guy With A Blog???

Yes. Here I am. I thought it would be fun to follow the growing process of my business (Wake Crossroads Builders, LLC). Let's see how long it lasts.

My Story

I grew up in Haw River, NC and became interested in this business in High School where I had an excellent carpentry teacher. This lead to a job after graduation where I got some "hard-knocks" type of training. It didn't take me long to realize that I was not where I wanted to be so I quit (with the persuasion of an extremely cold day and a lazy boss that would make me do a "two man" job on my own) and set out for a Higher Education. My parents and carpentry teacher, at the time, thought I was crazy because the school that I chose to further my education was North Carolina State University. They had every right to think I was crazy because my grades in high school weren't exactly stellar. My main objective was to lock down the crown of "class clown"(which I did) and that didn't leave much time for studies. So, there I went, off to try and conquer a Construction Engineering and Management degree from a University that is very proud of their Engineering Program. After 4.5 years and a lot of studying and some "average" grades I received my diploma which lead to a job as a project engineer building the tallest building in down town Raleigh. I have to admit, it was a lot of work but it was well worth it because it was another solid piece of the foundation for my business. After a year and a half there and the completion of the building that particular company was forced to lay me off. This led to, a wife, a lot of job interviews with endings like "you are an excellent candidate but we just don't have the work right now," and a lot of "you are not the father". All of this sitting around waiting on work and filling my head with Maury got me thinking about starting my own business. My wife and I prayed about it and thought that, since she was doing pretty well with her career(if you need a new home let her know), now was the best time for me to try my own business. So here I am.

My Team

The Boss and I

WCB Mascot

Elenoir(Ellie) is her name and hyperness is her game.

To be continued...