I've taken tons of photos and plan to share this week. Lots of crafting, LOTS of home improvements. So, let's begin shall we?
Today, I bring you the progress on the bathroom. Along with the tale of woe. I know many of you have heard this already so just skip to the photos if you've heard it all before. Let's recap:
Tile Man came and continued to work on the bathroom. There was a mix-up with the floor tile, but we just thought it meant it would take another day or two for it to be done. Also, he apparently didn't figure into his estimate some of the minor drywall work that needed to be done to finish the tile. So, that added some time, too, while Adam finished that. (We asked him to give us a quote where Adam had to do nothing else in order for the tile to be done. And he didn't. Or he changed his mind or something. I really hate how contractors can hold you hostage with your house.) Also, he called on the Saturday after he started work wondering if the floor tile was in, because he was moving to California the following day and would come lay it for us if it was in. A-wha?! Adam nearly lost it completely at that point, but we called and figured out that we had had a bad game of Telephone going on where we would say something and he thought we knew and he would say something and we thought he meant something different. So, we couldn't hold that against him even though it would have been nice had he outright told us at least once rather than assuming we knew he was leaving the state.
*ahem* I'm letting the frustration get me all out of order. He put the wall tile in and after the big misunderstanding, he came back from California the following week for a day to lay the floor tile and fix a few things he'd screwed up. When I went in to see the tile after he'd left, (i.e. gone back to California) I noticed that he'd laid the entire floor of the shower stall 1/4 inch below the lip of the drain. So the water couldn't drain. There would have always been a puddle. We ended up having to rip it all up and starting over. That damaged the sheets of tile, so when we reinstall it, we will have to piece in tiles one by one in several spots.
Seriously frustrating. These are the BIG issues we had with the guy. There were plenty of minor things that we just grinned and ignored. We paid him way too much for what he did. Between my mom's home renovation 15 years ago and this experience, I have no trust for contractors anymore. At all.
Anyway, the walls look lovely. Let's see some photos!
First, the photos from before Tile Guy came:
This shot shows the icky floor tile.
This shot gives you a look at the walls for the shower stall.
And, after:
The shower stall. The floor of the stall is white just because Adam used white concrete to raise the floor level before putting the tile in again. It's still not been retiled yet. Isn't the wall tile pretty, though?! I'm totally blissed out with how it turned out. The blue tiles are 1" tumbled glass. LOVE it!
The new floor. I wanted to have black grout so that it looked like a 30's bathroom, but Tile Guy wouldn't do it, because black grout will bleed into the tiles. I don't know what they did differently in the 30's, but I wasn't going to argue. I just wanted it done. (Also, Adam ended up grouting it, because of the mix-up with the floor tile and Tile Guy moving.)
Since these photos were taken, the toilet, sink pedestal, and shelves have been reinstalled. Adam is getting close to being done with that room, though, so instead of doing more in-progress shots, I'll take more photos when it's all done.
The next post will be crafty again, I promise!
