Don't feel bad about calling too many contractors. You want to have 3 good bids. That means the bids you consider are from contractors that you would really want to work with. If you take away 2 of the 3 bids because you don't feel the contractor is right for you, make more calls until you have at least 2 solid, comparable bids. To find these good contractors, you will need to actively seek recommendations from friends, neighbors, church people, or some sort of community support network that you belong to. To call blindly, or by looking for advertisements, listings, etc., will not get you in contact with the right contractor. The best quality contractors with the most competitive prices do not spend money on advertising, or try to solicit for bids. This would raise their cost of business significantly. Instead, they have a steady supply of work lined up from referrals. For that they can offer a very competitive price. Best indication of quality is to check on some work the guy did a couple of years back. That is why referrals are the best. The person referring you can show you something the contractor did.

You haven't been in the middle of this project very long for all of that work to be completed. And I'm not sure why you want to paint your deck. That does nothing but create a lifetime of maintenance issues for you. Decks should be stained, not painted. And that should wait about 6 months for the pressure treated lumber to dry out enough for the stain to stick. Stain it too soon, and it will all come off. Combine paint, and doing that too soon, and you'll be painting it every year rather than staining it every couple of years. Did you have the structural engineer's report about redoing all of those window openings and wall openings? That should have told you what wall depth was possible and wasn't. If the wall needs to be reinforced for support, that will add depth to it. If it didn't need to be reinforced, then that should have been spelled out as well. Did the contractor talk with the engineer directly about the requirements? Lots of contractors have poor communication skills. That's not unusual. It would be unusual to have poor construction skills and poor communication skills and still be a licensed and insured contractor who gets decent references from people who've used him before. What does your written contract say about parting of the ways? The written word rules. Did he pull the permits? Or did you? If he pulled the permits, you need to talk to your local codes office and see if it's possible to transfer them to a new contractor or if you will have to apply for entirely new ones. If you aren't careful, you can have a lien placed on your home by the contractor. Getting someone new may be difficult. Most contractors do not like to come in in the middle of another's job, so you may find it difficult to find someone to pick up the pieces here. They don't know if the homeowner or the contractor was a problem, and they'd rather not take the chance that it was you. Checking out a contractor's license, insurance and references and past work does help to prevent getting the duds. Not always though. I'd recommend trying to communicate with him about your expectations as the first solution. However, some of those expectations are a tad unrealistic, so I'd also recommend that you talk to some other neighbors who've had renovation work done to be able to get some perspective on exactly how long things take and how expensive it is. You are in one of the most expensive locations in the country, with some of the most difficult to access property which makes it hard for contractors to get work done. It takes twice as long, and twice as much money to do the same project in NYC as it would in a suburb with plenty of parking and plenty of room for materials to be delivered, etc. And if it does come down to a parting of the ways, you will want to be sure you do it correctly so that you don't create more problems for yourself. It might be worth it to consult a construction attorney before you go down that path...

No. No one should be onsite ( even adults ) unless they’re working on the project. Example: while having work done on my house years ago I happened to come home from work at noon to get something. While walking down the hallway to my bedroom I was surprised by a woman exiting our bedroom, who introduced herself as the contractor’s fiancé. She stated that our contractor wanted her to see our house (?). While getting ready to go out to a function less than a week later I went to retrieve a ring to wear from a jewelry box ( a large solitaire diamond that I rarely wore other than for dressy occasions ). It was gone. I know, it should have been placed in a safe or elsewhere but I was young & naive. I always suspected that she took ( no one else had access to the house other than her & the contractor ) it but of course couldn’t prove it. Lesson learned.

How are these installed? What I'm not see are expansion gaps at the wall. You showed a box that has 3/4" written as the thickness. That means the expansion gap at ALL vertical obstacles (walls, door jams, stair risers, etc) should be 3/4". I'm sorry but you have more issues than the transition strips. Your transition strips are the least of your worries. How long were the floors allowed to acclimate in the house BEFORE they were installed? PLEASE tell me these floors were allowed a week at least? May be 2 wks. If you think they were NOT in the home for that length of time, ask the GC where the document for the MOISTURE READINGS is. It should make him look like a doofus when he asks YOU what that is. If you want the GC (who is YOUR employee) to stop saying, "It's supposed to be like this" then you better get your floor inspected. www.nwfa.org They have inspectors listed in both the USA and Canada. I did a quick search for a small area in T.O. and it showed 8 inspectors. If I give it a wider radius I'll get as many as 15 inspectors inside of 50 miles (80 km). While you are there, go ahead and see who is a certified INSTALLER. Your GC has 1 attempt to correct all of these issues. Once he gives it the good ol' college try, you get to find your OWN professional and have the GC pay for it....see where I'm going with this? Confront the GC and find out WHO installed the floor (the name of the person on the crew). If it was himself, then he is going to find out how costly it is to have a bad install with a wood floor. Again, if you are not happy with the work, you are welcome to get the flooring inspected. Most GC's understand how BAD it looks when a homeowner pays for an inspection. Because most GC's are smart enough to realize a bad report means MONEY of of their pocket AND they have to spend more TIME fixing the issues.