Adventures in Home Repairs and other tales of Friday the 13th

At 10:30 this morning Mr. Contractor still wasn’t at my house. Now, he didn’t work on my project at all yesterday because another client called with water leaking into their living room. I completely understand that in the triage of contractor jobs, leaking water trumps laying tile. But today, when he still wasn’t here at 10:30, I called him.

He was at Home Depot looking for something for the drain. Wednesday, when he removed the floor tile he discovered a home-made fiberglass shower "pan" over 3 inches (3 INCHES) of concrete, over a spongy wet 3/4 inch piece of plywood. I’m surprised we hadn’t fallen through to the basement. (Who puts 3 INCHES of concrete in a first floor shower?) Instead of a couple of hours it took Mr. Contractor a whole day to break that up and haul it out. He called and was really appologetic but was going to have to charge me more. I totally understand. Even if I’m disappointed.

So, today, he had to go to find a new drain something so that it was the proper height given the fact that we were NOT going to replace the 3 INCH concrete floor. Today, he finished putting in the drain, putting mold/moisture resistent backer-board over a double layer of (dry) 3/4" plywood. Caulked the whole thing together to make it water tight and started counting the good tiles to see if he had enough to re-do the whole thing.

Then he started scraping the glue off the backs of the tile. He spent about 45 minutes doing that on my front step and then decided that he’d take the box of tiles home and work on it this weekend. So he was gone by about 2:30.

He’s doing a really great job. The work looks really good. He cleans up every day at the end. And I have no argument that he needed to spend the day at the house with the water leak. BUT, here we are 5 days into a job he thought would take 3 days. He thinks that he’ll be done "no later than Tuesday" but that’s assuming that laying the tile goes smoothly and he gets the grouting done in one day too. Even then I’ll need to let it cure for at least 24 hours before sealing the grout and being able to use the damn shower.

So, if my math is accurate, the best case scenario for a shower is Thursday. More realistic is Friday or Saturday. And will this double or triple the amount I have to pay?

On the plus side of the ledger today, BP came over for lunch and we talked picking paint for the dining room, what to do for the little weird room between the dining room and that first-floor bath. He sounds like he has some great sources for non-retail-priced furniture and will even help me pick out light fixtures. Although, furniture might come under the "non-essential" category. Light fixtures, especially for the one over the sink which has been a bare bulb and raw wires for 4 years, might qualify as essential. Even though I haven’t done anything about it for four years.

AND I had a good workout with my trainer this morning and a great church staff happy-hour. Several of them were at AB’s house on Tuesday when I rode my motorcycle and the Administrator, PC and husband were the ones who followed me home to make sure I made it. They were all very interested in finding out if I had been able to clean my petcock yet.

heh.

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— — —
A year ago (or longer) on This Journey…

hello? 2007

Summer Vacation Begins 2007

I Am a Rock 2007

I did my best 2006

— — —
A year ago (or longer) on This Journey…

hello? 2007

Summer Vacation Begins 2007

I Am a Rock 2007

I did my best 2006