so. i have a house. and it’s an old house. and it needed work. and i decided it needed more work that it *actually* needed. and then i pulled a ham string kicking myself in the ass for deciding it needed more work than it needed.
they say the two worst things you can pick on in a house are the kitchen and the bathroom. guess what two things i did in my house?
the kitchen turned out pretty damn good (minus the hole that’s still in the floor where the threshold is STILL missing).
the bathroom?
*sigh*
here’s the story on the bathroom:
the house has two full bathrooms- one upstairs with a standing shower, toilet sink, and the one downstairs that had a full shower, closet, sink. downstairs there was also a closet in what i’ve claimed as the office.
after the remodel of the kitchen there was no place for the washer/dryer (yes, they were in the kitchen before. no thanks) and i decided, in all my infinite wisdom, why don’t we bust out the closet in the office, expand the bathroom, and add the washer/dryer in there? strike that: initially i thought i would just run lines into the closet for the washer/dryer, THEN i had the bright idea to knock out a few walls.
if you were wondering, here’s what it looks like when you start knocking out walls in a 110 year old house:
that picture was taken on june 23, 2011 when the first work was done on the project. that day the bathroom door was removed (frame and all), the sink was removed, the walls were knocked out of the closet, and the ceiling was opened up.
then the pause button was pressed.
and held down.
and held down a little longer.
i FINALLY got around to hiring a contractor to finish up the work. he came over, looked over the project, looked through the basement, looked over all the plumbing, electrical, everything and gave me a quote of $5,000 and said it would probably be LESS if i paid by the hour instead of a flat bid.
yes, i’m an idiot. i believed him.
his worked started on August 8, 2011. walls were ripped down. the ceiling was ripped down. the floor was ripped out (all three layers of hardwood. yes, THREE.) the plumbing was changed out, the electrical was re-run. the floor was put back in. the walls went back in. things were going GREAT. i was working with mac (the worker bee) on things, talking about where things would go, what we would do with the space, what parts were needed. we had a good process of cuss and discuss working- we would both toss out ideas, talk about what would work, what wouldn’t, come to an agreement and on things would go. it was great. it was easy. it was taking a little longer than i wanted (and a little more money since i was paying by the hour) but it was good. we discussed about me doing the tile work and painting to save money and everything was good with that. i suggested putting in the shelving between the stacking washer and dryer to give me a place to store soap and they liked the idea so much they started using it on other sites. things were going along smoothly.
and then the shit hit the fan.
tim, the main contractor and the official owner of the company started coming in to work. and it went from great to FUCKED UP over night. i was sitting on my couch one of the first mornings he came in doing paperwork for one of my jobs. i could hear mac and tim in the bathroom talking- the french doors haven’t been finished and there’s no door in the bathroom so i could hear everything pretty damn well. the issue at hand was some light switches that mac and i had talked about installing two inches lower than standard to accommodate a recycled mirror that i wanted to use. mac and i had discussed it, if it would work, if it wouldn’t, decided there was no particular reason they couldn’t be lower, and so all the switches on one wall were lowered two inches. no big issue. right? well, according to tim it was a HUGE issue. they were all wrong and needed re-done. i sat and listened to the conversation progress, listened to mac explain why they were done that way, how he and i had talked about it, measured the mirror and decided like we did. and then i hear tim: “well, sometimes when you have a difficult home owner you just need to tell them how it is.”
*ahem*
WHAT? did i just get called a difficult home owner IN MY OWN HOME? did that REALLY just happen? over something that i had discussed with mac and we had decided on TOGETHER? not once during the whole project had i ever insisted on anything. EVER. i tossed out ideas, if they worked, they worked, if they didn’t i was more than happy to come up with another solution. SEVERAL things were changed, adjusted, moved around, made to work. i wasn’t married to one single idea in that bathroom. it was a blank slate to me. and suddenly i’m called a difficult home owner? last i checked? it’s MY house. I’M paying the bills. shouldn’t it be how i want it to be? difficult or not?
from there it went from bad to worse- suddenly the door to the closet (we closed off the original door to the bathroom) needed to be ripped out and changed- $105. suddenly tim needed to do the painting- several hours at $35/hour. suddenly tim needed to do all the tile work- even more hours at $35/hour. oh, and the BRAND NEW COMMERCIAL TILE SAW that a friend loaned me? not good enough, tim decided he needed to go out and rent one. which he then set up on my front porch leaving a huge mess on the porch and tile drips all the way across my hard wood floors that he didn’t bother to clean up. AND? the tile work? worst i’ve ever seen in my entire life. he used CARDBOARD spacers for the tile. really? tile spacers are approx .53 cents for nine million. why the fuck would any contractor EVER use cardboard?
also: why would you leave the cardboard in long enough that the thin set dries and the cardboard is STUCK in the gaps? and it just kept getting worse. a friend came over to help with other projects outside the bathroom and suddenly tim was VERY territorial and flat out rude to my friend. ALSO: “accidentally” switched one of his shit beat up tools for my friends brand new one. classy. another darling friend came over to help me pick out flooring for the bathroom. again tim was flat out rude and actually refused to install the flooring i picked out (and so i had to pick out a different floor which, of course, turned out to be more expensive. *shock*).
the kicker? all this started because spokane remodeler magazine had approached tim and asked if they could feature one of his remodels in their magazine. tim decided mine would be great for that and all these changes and expenses needed to happen AT MY COST. ummm- NO. #1: you should have been doing your best work from the beginning. things shouldn’t suddenly change and need to be the best because a magazine is coming in. #2: if all this needs to happen for a magazine shoot: read: ADVERTISING FOR YOUR COMPANY, why the fuck should _I_ pay for that? if you want advertising for your company? YOU pay for it. we had an agreed price, we had an agreed scope of work. if YOU suddenly decide to change things, that’s not MY responsibility to foot the bill. i could have done the tile work and done a better job. the pictures i took are hard to see but ALL the tiles are off on the alignment- top to bottom, side to side, depth, every way tile can be off. ALL the big 18” tiles were cut the WRONG way (on the rented saw). ALL are chipped and most are crooked. _I_ could have painted and done a damn good job. i did the rest of the house and it turned out beautifully.
and so i fired him. well, that’s not true. i’m a chicken and i am TERRIFIED of confrontation so i actually had two wonderful gentlemen step in and handle things for me. it was rough, tim got very angry and defensive and confrontational- everything i was worried about. but, in the end, he left.
and so the story ends.
HA HA HA...if only.
when the gentlemen fired tim for me they asked him to leave immediately and send over an inventory of what was left at my house that he needed to get back and then someone would meet him and facilitate the pick up. part of an agreement i had with him was that there were some cabinets in my garage that he was going to do work in trade for. after seeing the tile work that he did in trade, knowing that it would ALL need taken down and redone, the gentlemen that were helping me and i decided that tim really should NOT get those cabinets in trade. i bet you can guess how well that went over. there were a few intimidating voice mails, a few text messages (all saved), and finally one last text “see u in small claims court” sent october 3rd. it’s been quiet since then. *knock on wood* all said and done i paid $6200ish for the work that was done. i paid in full, every friday as things progressed. i also paid for the tile, the tub, the sink, the flooring, the lighting, and quite a bit of the plumbing parts outside of his bills. my TOTAL for the bathroom is over $8,000. sounds like a bit more than $5,000 unless my math is that bad.
so. after over 6 weeks (it was supposed to take 4) i had NO bathroom: no toilet, no shower. no washer dryer, no door, no window, unfinished floors, shitty tile work, a busted pocket book and a threat for small claims court. insult to injury: when time picked up his tools after he was fired he left one last invoice for another $600+ trying to charge me for the tile saw rental, additional labor, and parts (some of which i’ve never even seen).
all that drama and i STILL have to stumble up the stairs to pee every time i get home from mommy’s wednesday night out.
here’s the GOOD news though:
since then i’ve had help getting a few more things done- my washer and dryer were installed a few weeks ago, the electrical has all been finished up and switches finally installed, the last light fixture has been installed, and this last sunday the flooring was laid out and cut and prepped to be installed (it needed to flatten out after being rolled up in the corner for too long). the sink has been set into place and will be installed right after the flooring and it’s actually starting to look like a bathroom.
i can’t wait to be able to pee without having to do a jane fonda stair stepper work out first.
so. there you have it: i picked one of the worst projects a home owner can pick, hired a TERRIBLE contractor, spent way more money than i was supposed to, and STILL haven’t finished the project.
excellent.
at least i’ll get to learn how to pee cool designs into the snow soon- winter is just around the corner.
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