Sunday, November 11, 2012

That Week Our Shower Was Getting Re-done


If you've been paying attention to me on Twitter today, you've likely seen some ramblings about watching a Harry Potter marathon while waiting for contractors to arrive to finish our shower. Were you confused? Maybe so.

Fear not. I'm here to provide way more photos and information than you ever wanted to see about our shower remodel. I'll try not to get to ranty.

BEFORE.
Note the mold in the corners.
There is also mold under the seat.
And in the grout.
Day 1.
Bye bye, shower.
Came home from work to find this.
Yeah, they accidentally sledgehammered
through to the bedroom.

Day 2.
Reframing and putting tar sealant stuff down.
 
Closeup on the framing. They were supposed
to build in a little recess for the soapdish on
the left. Spoiler Alert: they didn't. 
Day 3.
This was really Day 4, since they skipped a
day, but who's counting?
I didn't notice the lack of recess for a soap
dish...but on this day they did some drywall?
Oh, and they removed the sink.
For unknown reasons. 
And further messed up the bedroom wall.
Day 4.
More floor work. Mortar I think?
I should note that this was Election Day.
And we were having a party.
So I had to put up a note about the lack of sink.
Day 5.
We have tile!
This is when I noticed that there was no soap
dish built into the wall. Oops.
Also, at this point, we have our landlord ask
to remind the contractors about the marble
seat they're supposed to have shown us two
days ago. Apparently it's going in tomorrow.
Day 6.
Oh hey. They put in the seat. Too bad it's the
wrong color, and too small. It's hard to tell
from the picture, but it's too small to sit on.
Yes, it's still usable for sticking your leg up
to shave...but still. Too small. And wrong
color. Cue landlord calling contractor again.
It's now Day 7, and while we should be able to use the shower tomorrow morning, there is no curtain rod. You see, it was rusty and the contractors threw it (and the towel bar from the adjacent wall) away. Without telling us or the landlord. So...we found out today that they wouldn't be putting it back.

Day 7.
It's "finished".
Still to do: shower curtain rod, towel rod on
adjacent wall. The hose for the showerhead is
stretching out because it was too curled up in
the box for too long. So...yeah.
Please use the kitchen sink.
Our landlord is awesome, and he's been taking care of this for us...but it's still been craziness around here for a week. They did a pretty minimal cleanup job today, which meant I got to bust out the ole Swiffer (and dustpan/broom), and honestly I hope this is the last of them. Even though they have to come back to fix stuff...I'd almost rather not have a sink for a week and let my landlord fix it next weekend when he comes back to do the curtain/towel rod and fix the hole in the wall. And patch some other holes they made in the bathroom. Sigh.

Homeowners: I have some newfound mad respect for you.
People who DIY this stuff: Don't even talk to me. Wow.
Contractors who did our project: You don't get to show up late every day, take twice as long as you quoted, leave our place a hot mess, and expect that I won't blog about it. Not that you'll see this.

But still.

I'll post a final picture when it's all said and done, most likely, but there ya go. Our past week.


7 comments:

  1. WTF. Where have you been bathing??? Also, why can't I comment via disqus? (I'm using my phone. Does that make a difference?

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  2. Mountains of lame. I'm sorry. It reminds me of a plumbing job done in my apartment in Bushwick years ago--contractor showed up, unannounced, while my room-mate, me, my neighbours upstairs and down were all at work, and proceeded to trash all of our flats installing a gas line to a flat on the fourth floor. Rather than mount it to the outside of the building, which is what the landlady had commissioned and paid for, he thought it would be easier to just drill straight through the floors and ceilings of three houses all the way to the basement. So he told the super that that's what was planned, who gave him unquestioning access to all of the building's spare keys, and he came in, cut holes in the ceilings and floors, left huge slabs of drywall everywhere (including teetering precariously atop a cupboard and perched neatly atop the cat's food dish, meaning when I came home she was absolutely starving and freaked out enough to attack me) left about 2mm of dust over everything in my apartment, took down my flatmate's bike-hook (and there was nowhere else to hang it after that), left four beer cans on the floor and tracked plaster dust throughout the house and in the bathroom. When I came home I thought I'd been robbed and nearly called the police (until the cat came running out, also tracking plaster everywhere.) After I took pictures, complained, and threatened legal action (what happened Was illegal) we didn't have to pay rent for a month and the super came in, cleaned, and built a box around the pipe to at least make it match the cabinets. I felt so violated though.

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  3. Jeez, that is frustrating! Renovations always take longer than you think they're doing to, but it seems like the guys you got were damn near incompetent. The holes in your bedroom wall? Flipping ridiculous!
    DIY is not that bad. It's the same as living in someone else's construction zone, but you have no one to blame for the mess but yourself, AND you can make sure that soap dish nook you wanted actually gets installed. ;)

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  4. Ew that is awful!!!!! Its the millimeters of dust over everything that really get to me. I'm going to have to wash everything. Luckily our cleaners come tomorrow & they can do the floors, but even the inside of the bathroom linen cabinet got hit! WTH?! They didn't clean outside either; in the light of day today I found tons of footprints in the plaster dust. Sigh.

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  5. Ugh seriously! I'm usually such a control freak...now I'm kicking myself for not being more uptight. To be fair (to myself), almost every day they arrived after I left for work (because they were late) and left before I got home, so I just got to be surprised after work every night.

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  6. Well, we have been there before, but it is never fun. You think it sounds all romantic and lovely to re-do and rebuild, but it just isn't.

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