Shower Construction

Things are never truly just easy when it comes to us and construction. I was discussing this over the weekend with my Steelers buddy, and he agreed the same happened with them. Always something. Never does it just run smoothly.

Our house was built in the '60s and is sturdy. Tom once got to walk through a house behind us that was stripped bare and gutted.

Tom: "We don't ever have to worry about the house blowing away. It isn't going anywhere."

It's made of cinderblock, and the tile in the bathrooms is the tile that was like 5 inches thick back in the day. Getting it out is a tricky thing indeed, and everyone who has tried in our neighborhood has agreed they would never attempt it again. Taking that advice, Tom found a bathroom remodeling company that agreed to come in and place acrylic sheets over the tile to spruce up our shower.

He did this when I was not around, and every time I asked exactly what was going to happen, I got vague information so that I had no clue. I envisioned a very messy bedroom full of dust, but he assured me that wasn't the case. The job was to take one day and a half. I rolled my eyes at that.

Day one, the workers were late. Tom had stayed so that he could talk to them and when an hour came and went, he called the company to complain. The workers showed up not long after. Two of them. One big. One small. The big one immediately touched our piano keys and played a little ditty. Turns out, he was on an American Idol sort of show in Puerto Rico where he won second place. He showed us the video of him singing. He was good. Tom just stood back and watched me charm the people that would be spending a day and a half with me doing an essential job after having obviously been alerted to the fact that the homeowner had called to bitch. Not how I believe a job should begin.

Tom and Big Guy talked shower. Big Guy suggested he put the shower head up high since Tom was as tall as him.

Big Guy: "I know how that is."

Me: "How messy are you going to get my bedroom?"

Big Guy: "Messy!"

They put plastic over my stripped mattress, some furniture, and the bathroom. I threw tarps over everything else. Not that it did a lot of good. Tom went off to work. Maddy and I got to work in her bedroom, where we were going through the items she'd left behind before we could put in the things she'd brought home. It was a big project too.

Then people appeared at my house. First, my friend Jim who brought tools to help me strip the wallpaper in Maddy's room. Eventually, he sat on the couch with me, and we talked. The worker bees wandered through and in and out of my house. After Jim left, my MIL appeared so that when the worker bees came through again, I'd traded one person for another.

Me: "I'm a therapist for the older crowd. I see them here at my home."

There was plenty of noise coming from my bathroom, plenty of dust too. When Big Guy walked into my living room, he was covered in white, powdery dust. He ran out into the front yard where I thought he was going to be sick.

Big Guy: "We were late this morning because my normal truck had a mechanical issue. I got tired of waiting and took another. This truck only had one respiratory mask. I gave to Small Guy because he has asthma."

After lunch, I had to duck out to pick up my friend's kid, who was sick at school. My friend was out of town, so I went to get the kid leaving daughter one with Grandma. When I returned, it was to discover another truck and two more worker bees at my house.

Maddy: "They finally got the first chunk of tile out. Then they called in the other guys to help. Oh, and Big Guy sang for Grandma, and she, in return, played the piano for him."

Four hours to remove the above chunk. Which wasn't supposed to be removed. They were to only make a rectangular space to get to the pipes. Oops.

By the end of the day, the bottom tile had been jackhammered, and this was what I had left. Tom took one look at it and very calmly rolled his eyes.

Tom: "I don't know what the hell that is. The tile wasn't supposed to be removed. They made that job harder than it should've been. I know how hard removing that tile is. I don't get it. They were supposed to go over the tile. But, I'm not about to tell them how to do their job."

Me: "They will be back tomorrow at 9:00 they assured me."

Tom: "They were supposed to be done by noon. No way will that happened. It won't be done maybe until next week. What were these guys thinking?"

Day two, at 9:30, two new guys appeared at my door. A father and a son. Nice guys. Father immediately played a ditty on my piano and asked if I knew about Big Guy. I assured him I had seen and heard his musical abilities. Then I showed them the bathroom.

Father Guy: "What the hell?"

Me: "That's exactly what my husband said."

Father Guy: "They weren't supposed to remove the tile."

Me: "Yep, that's what my husband said."

After half an hour of making phone calls and taking pictures, Father announced he would have to remove the rest of the tile. It did not take him four hours. He had the tile removed from the two walls, leaving the third tile alone within the first hour. Then he and his son went ahead and repiped our piping.

Father Guy: "Since it was already exposed."

He called me in from my job in Maddy's room to look at it. He wanted to know if I saw anything different.

Me: "I'm not good at pop tests."

Father Guy: "Give it a try. See anything different?"

Me: "Uh, the tile is gone? No, not what you wanted? How about the hole in the floor has been patched, and there is a pipe sticking out of it?"

He gave in and told me he'd redone the piping. I thanked him. He and his son then worked until 6:30 p.m. putting up siding and installing the floor so that when Tom came home that night, that's what he saw.

Tom: "Dammit, they didn't put the shower head up high like we agreed. That'll have to be redone."

Me: "Yeah. Apparently, there was zero communication between the workers from Day one and Day two. And just so you know, we have two new guys coming tomorrow. But Father assured me he's spoken with the two new guys."

Tom: "This is ridiculous. This job was so simple if they'd just done it right."

On day three, the new guys showed at 8:00 a.m. These two were the best of the bunch and obviously higher up the construction chain. I called them the closers.

Me: "Do you want to tickle the ivories? All the others did."

They laughed and declined. 

The closers were serious about doing what they'd come to do. They fixed the shower head height, worked quickly and efficiently, and apologized for the previous two days. 

 We loved the results.

The only thing that I didn't get was my little bench that used to be in the corner. It was perfect for shaving my legs, which I do nightly. The only one they had was $500 and WAY too big in the shower, so we vetoed it after seeing it. The closers knocked off the $500 from the bill. They did not offer to clean up the mess in my house.

Just cleaning the bedroom from ceiling to floor took the three of us working for four hours so that Tom and I could sleep in our bedroom that night. It was great getting back into my own bed after sleeping on the futon for two nights. The added bonus was the truly cleaned bedroom.

Tom: "Which wouldn't have been dirty if they'd just done the job right."

Me: "Yeah, but what a boring blog piece that would've been."