State of the Co. and Industry-1 OCT 2010

Rollin-Owner — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 14:40:57 +0000

Although it has been a slow Summer for me and every contractor I know, we somehow managed to keep our heads above water and make it through to Fall. I have bid a tremendous amount of projects this year, but contracts are few as financing falls through or projects are canceled altogether. On the commercial side most companies are not ready to take many chances with a new contractor (new to them that is, we’ve been around since 1991) there are still some opportunities out there for those who work hard and beat the streets.

The public works sector seems to be doing okay as all that federal money starts to trickle down, but the projects are hard to qualify for and are mostly given to long time government contractors or W/MBE. The Cowboys stadium was a prime example, it would have cost me almost $25,000 just to bid on that project. This keeps smaller bidders out of the mix and gives them no chance to grow. None of the companies that won the contracts would sub work out either, they used all in house employees to keep control of their expenses.

Not much new housing, especially spec homes, being built by anyone. The housing boom of the 90s where we could never keep up with the building is long gone and sorely missed. While nationally TX markets are faring well they are still way down from just 3 yrs ago. I see no resurgence in this coming soon. Everyone is just to scared to spend what they may never get back.

We continue to stay busy with some smaller bathroom remodels and floors, but long for the days of the big projects providing months of work for everyone involved. While recessions usually last 10 yrs. we hope this one ends sooner for all of America.

I have several projects suppose to start next week, keep your fingers crossed that they don’t get canceled too. Good luck to you and yours, have a great weekend, enjoy TX-OU and eat some bbq for me. Until next time, hang in there.

Steward Garden Home-Arlington, TX-FEB and MAR 2010

Rollin-Owner — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 23:29:04 +0000

Ran in to an old High School friend of my wife’s at a comedy show one night. He expressed an intrest in having his home remodeled. I looked at it the next day, we made an agreement and began work the next week. This post has many pictures and will begin with some before pics of the bathroom and transition all the way to the fiished project. We completely remodeled this home with all new flooring, paint, adding plugs, new bathroom tile and wall textue. Scroll thru these pics and witness a project from begining to end. Me and 1 helper completed this in 13 work days. Project was done during the giant TX snowstorm we had in FEB 2010. 100 SF tile in bathroom, 420 SF bamboo flooring in Living areas and hallway and 25 SYds of carpet in the bedrooms. Completed March 2010. Enjoy the journey.

Private Residence-Arlington, TX-April 2010

Rollin-Owner — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 23:28:03 +0000

This project came as a referal from a previous client whose project you can see under Mitchell Residence. Customer owned a home across the street from the one we worked on. They always liked this home and when it came up for sale they bought it and began renovations. During the initial work a fire started and burned about half the home. This as well as the cabinet makers delays caused this project to not start until March. I originally bid it the previous November and was supposed to start around Christmas. After all the delays we finally begun in earnest on the Front Bathroom. It contains an elegant mix of some green marbles and subway tiles to great effect. The subway marble for both this and the Master give a very Japanese garden feel. Some of the tiles even appear to be ink paintings depicting tree branches and such that is common in the old Japanese works of their feudal age. The Master suite incorporates a more toned down color palette for the field marble called Sylvester in 16″ x 16″s. Then ties it all together with the contrasting subway marble, set in a herringbone pattern, as an inset in the center of the room. The same marble is used in a 12″ x 12″ size for the contertops as well as the tub deck. Subway marble finishes the vanities with an elegant backsplash. The shower uses the same materials, Sylvester marble half way up, then 3 feet of subway marble finished with a piece of the 16″ Sylvester stone across the top. The shower ceiling is then finished off with a nice matching 4″ x 4″ tumbled marble. Project came out looking great and we were even invited back to epoxy coat another room of the house for conversion to a workshop. Hall Bath: 125 SF subway tile and 100 SF subway marble. Master Bath: 200 SF subway marble, 180 SF 16″ x 16″ Sylvester marble, 72 SF 4″ x 4″ tumbled stone and 30 SF 12″ x 12″ brown forest marble. Subway materials are 3″ x 6″ goods laid in a brick pattern for effect. They are so called because millions of SF of these white tiles line the walls of subway terminals throughout the world. Finished in April of 2010.

Mora Home Master Bath-Trophy Club, TX-NOV 2009

Rollin-Owner — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 22:10:54 +0000

The following gallery of photos contains shots of most of the finish work in the Master Bathroom and Master Shower. There also some other misc. pics. Did not obtain final pics of all finished work due to homeowners schedule conflicts and busy work schedule. 700 SF various tile in 2 Bathrooms, Utility Room and Kitchen. 900 SF Laminate Wood. Approximately 2100 SF of drywall work and texturing. 21 New windows. New plumbing in Master Shower. Finished right before Thanksgiving 1n 2009.

Mora Home before pics

Rollin-Owner — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 19:47:59 +0000

If you scroll thru our older entries you’ll see the Mora Family Home a few times. These are all the pics showing the shoddy work done by the previous contractor BEFORE we arrived. NONE of the work you see in these pics was done by my company. The demo and cleanup took almost a whole week with 3 guys. Just a view of the nightmare a bad contractor can cause. We specialize in fixing other contractors botched work, the finished pics prove that. See the next post.

Mother’s Roof-Arlington, TX-FEB 2010

Rollin-Owner — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 23:34:51 +0000

Back in Febuary of 2010 I took on the project of re-roofing my Mother’s, and my childhood, home. We do not normally do roofing but I helped her save some money with me and my guys doing the bulk of the labor. We hired a crew to nail on a good portion of the shingles but we did all the demo, prep and felt install as well as the peak attic venting and decking replacement. Have some pictures of some of the damage that can happen when your roof starts to get too old. Lots of water and rodent damage here, it was way overdue for a new roof. Total of 24 squares.

Lott House-Dallas, TX-January 2010

Rollin-Owner — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 19:52:05 +0000

A repeat constomer and friend Mr. Lott asked us back to replace some siding to match the other side of his backyard patio area, which we did in 2009. Complete removal and replacement of the siding and insulating panels was neccesary. we also painted the new to match the existing color.

Inside the home we added some more travertine to the homes main hall. This was made neccessary because their dog had rip the carpet in a few places and Mr. Lott loves the travertine look. A small hall about 80 SF total with some decrotive strips in 4 doorways.

Private Residence-Arlington, TX-December 2009

Rollin-Owner — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 19:35:50 +0000

This home was done just before Christmas in 2009. Referred from a good friend of mine. About 400 SF of laminate flooring and trim was installed in 2 days, including moving all furniture and fish tanks. We also tiled a small hearth on the fireplace in the main living area.

Project Updates, Week of 30 NOV 2009

Rollin-Owner — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 16:49:39 +0000

Hello prospective clients and former clients as well as all of you out there in the industry that I know are checking out my site. I have not issued a project update in a while so here goes.

We just recently(in the last 2 months) completed several big remodel projects around the Metroplex

area. Check out pics of the last few job entries for more info and to look at some great looking Kitchens and Bathrooms. We begin work on a flooring project next Monday with a siding job and full Bathroom remodel to follow later in the month and in to next year. Check back often to see the finished work or check us out at twitter.com/randrtile for more timely updates of ongoing projects.

As I said earlier I know some of you in the industry are checking us out here and on twitter as my followers continue to grow. To my knowledge I am the only contractor in America posting work updates and timely job pics from current and past projects. We’re not afraid to put our work out there every day because we do such quality work. Not to say we’re perfect, but we do whatever it takes to satisfy our clients and the amount of repeat customers we have speaks for itself. Hope you all enjoy these updates and feel free to put my pics on your site as long as you give us credit for the work. They might inspire your customers to copy some of these design ideas or change them up to suit their tastes.

Happy Holidays to all, and may all your remodeling dreams come true.

Rollin Kearley-Owner and Master Tile/Stone Setter

Private Residence, Itasca, TX

Rollin-Owner — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 20:45:00 +0000

This customer has a plot of land on a hill in Itasca, Tx that originally had a small A frame farmhouse on the land and decided to upgrade and build a larger home next to the old one. We did some tumbled stone work in the Kitchen, about 60 SF. Then we did a small Utility Room floor and a shower in an old barnhouse as well.